Yesterday’s release of 2023- 2024 TCAP Data from the Tennessee Department of Education revealed that students across the state sustained their levels of achievement, and continue to make gains in most tested subject areas, as illustrated in this presentation. We are encouraged to see academic growth across all student groups, but remain concerned about persistent gaps by race and income, and urge state and district leaders to prioritize strategies to close them.
Highlights of the release include:
- English Language Arts: Students outperformed pre-pandemic levels with proficiency gains in most tested grades in elementary and high schools.
- Tennessee third graders have surpassed pre-pandemic proficiency rates by 4.1 percentage points.
- Black students have seen an even larger proficiency increase of 5.3 percentage points compared to 2019, though their 2024 proficiency rate is still lower than any other racial group this year.
- Hispanic students have made a slow and steady recovery, with .6 percentage point increase over 2019.
- Of note, American Indian and Alaska Native third graders saw a massive one-year decrease in proficiency (5.5 percentage points); their 2024 proficiency was .6 percentage points lower than pre-pandemic levels.
- Math: 40 percent of students in grades 3-8 are meeting grade level expectations.
- While Tennessee 8th graders still haven’t caught up to pre-pandemic proficiency rates, Hispanic students have the largest lag, at 3.3 percentage points below their 2019 proficiency, followed by a 2 percentage point lag for Black students.
- Science and Social Studies: One percent increase in overall student proficiency.
- Economically disadvantaged students scored proficient on the third grade ELA and eighth grade math TCAP at half the rate of their non-economically disadvantaged counterparts (a gap of 24 percentage points in third grade ELA and 20.8 percentage points in eighth grade math).
The State Report Card will be updated with this data later in July and individual student data will be available in the TCAP Family Portal in July. Families can use the portal to obtain additional information to better understand their students’ individual score reports and next steps for supporting their students’ academic progress.
We recognize that these gains are the evidence of hard work by students, their teachers and school staff, and their thoughtful use of evidence-based instructional strategies and interventions that target help to students most in need. Tennessee’s educators must continue to employ those strategies to ensure every child in Tennessee is achieving at high levels and are equipped to achieve their fullest potential.
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