Tennessee students improved across the board on standardized tests this school year. The state’s Department of Education released results Thursday, showing that students made gains in all grades and subjects on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.
Students stepped up their English Language Arts scores, improving 1.5 percentage points over last year. In all, 38.1% of Tennessee students scored proficient on their ELA assessments. This measure has been under increased scrutiny as Tennessee makes a push to improve literacy.
Students showed even greater growth in math, increasing their proficiency rate by 3.2 percentage points. Still, only a little over a third of students met or exceeded expectations on that portion of their tests.
Overall, Tennessee students have increased their proficiency rates by more than 8 percentage points in both math and English Language Arts compared to just a couple of years ago. This year’s scores show students have largely bounced back, and in some cases even exceeded pre-pandemic levels. In a release, lawmakers called the improvements “encouraging,” but say there’s more work to do to improve student achievement.
Courtesy Tennessee Department of Education Student performance in English Language Arts has steadily improved since the 2020-21 school year.
Large disparities between Black and Hispanic students and their peers
However, digging deeper into the data reveals wide gaps along racial and ethnic lines.
While the ELA proficiency rate was 38.1% for all students, only 27.1% of Hispanic students. Even less Black students scored proficient, at 22%.
Meanwhile, students who are white, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American had higher proficiency rates than the state average. Similar gaps exist across math, science and social studies, too.
To explore more of the state-level TCAP results, click here.
Courtesy Tennessee Department of Education This chart from the Tennessee Department of Education shows wide gaps between the proficiency rates of students of different races and ethnicities.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM