Tennessee Test Score Delay Causes Report Card Snafu, So What Now?

Standardized testing has become a flash point in recent months, particularly in light of a new test replacing TCAP known as PARCC. (Image via flickr/biologycorner)

Tennessee education officials say grades on the state standardized test known as TCAP won’t be ready in time for end-of-the-year report cards. And there’s confusion about what should happen next.

Since 2010, state law requires TCAP results to be part of a student’s final grade. But most school systems are finishing this week, and a letter from state officials says it will be another 10 days before they get back preliminary scores for third through eight graders.

Superintendent Mike Looney of Williamson County says that score could make the difference between whether a student needs to attend summer school.

“The state has put us in an impossible position, and there’s really not a good way out of this,” he says.

In an email, state education officials tell districts they can wait to send home grades or revise them once the TCAP scores come in.

Nashville schools have requested a waiver, meaning the test results wouldn’t be included in grades at all. A letter to Commissioner Kevin Huffman suggests the district doesn’t have the manpower to manually enter grades for 35,000 students in four subject areas after teachers have left for the summer.

Why The Delay?

In a word, the Tennessee Department of Education blames the slowdown on “post-equating,” which is a common practice of making sure one form of a test wasn’t harder than another. There are multiple versions of standardized tests to limit the ability to cheat.

This year, the TCAP was “narrowed” in order to cut out questions not covered under new Common Core standards.

“Post-equating allows the department…to review the data more thoroughly before finalizing quick scores and given the number of changes made this year, we want to do this before releasing scores,” assistant commissioner Erin O’Hara writes in an email to superintendents. “It is likely that this will be our process in future years as well.”

The department’s standing critics have used the testing stumble as ammunition in their continued attack on the state’s heightened focus on standardized testing.

“This delay is unacceptable and further illustrates the many consequences of making a one-time standardized test the be-all, end-all for our students and teachers,” teacher’s union president Gera Summerford said in a statement.