NASHVILLE / WOODBURY: The Tennessee Department of Education has released the 2021-22 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) district-level results, following the release of the statewide results on June 14, which are driving the state’s continued focus on student academic achievement and acceleration through strategic initiatives and investments. These results include both Fall 2021 end-of-course exams as well as Spring 2022 exams in English language arts (ELA), mathematics, science, and social studies.
To ensure districts can best support their students, district-level results are essential to providing a snapshot into each of Tennessee’s school communities to highlight needed supports and investments to continue driving student acceleration and achievement.
“Tennessee’s 2021-22 district-level TCAP results demonstrate the incredible efforts made by districts, educators, and students to demonstrate strong academic growth over the past school year,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “Using this data to signify the collective focus on strategic initiatives and investments across the state, we must continue accelerating academic achievement in public education to provide the best for all students in Tennessee for years to come.”
Access an overview presentation about the 2021-22 TCAP district-level results here (opens link in new tab).
In the overview presentation, district proficiency rates in early grades, specifically fourth grade English language arts (ELA) and seventh grade math, are highlighted per district since learning on grade level for these foundational years is essential for student success. Specifically, fourth grade ELA will be reported in the upcoming Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) release this fall and is important for placing Tennessee’s results in context nationally. In another subject, seventh grade math is foundational to algebra and mathematical reasoning. Additional information in the district spotlight slides includes overall participation rate, proficiency percentages, trend data over time, and more.
A downloadable spreadsheet of district proficiency rates across student groups is available here (opens link in new tab). Additional statewide context for these results is available in this 1-pager (opens link in new tab) and explainer video (opens link in new tab).
State-level results from the 2021-22 TCAP demonstrate gains with ELA performance largely returning to pre-pandemic levels. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tennessee maintained its commitment to an annual statewide assessment to provide reliable data on how students are performing. This year, that commitment from schools and families continued, with the statewide TCAP student participation rate increasing from 95% last year to 98% in the 2021-22 school year. This data reflects the hard work of Tennessee educators in their efforts to accelerate learning.
State ELA proficiency rates now exceed pre-pandemic levels. Since the pandemic, 72.6% of districts now meet or exceeded pre-pandemic performance in ELA. Math proficiency rates rose uniformly and substantially across the state in the past year with 91.8% of districts improving.
Tennessee’s school districts are the best sources of information for characterization of local results because they know their communities best. Today’s release is an opportunity for each school and district community to review their students’ progress after the local implementation of programs, initiatives, and targeted supports that have benefited student academic achievement.
“We are greatly encouraged to see our 2022 TCAP results show very positive gains which is proof that our teachers and staff personnel are making a difference to address learning loss of the past year,” said William Freddy Curtis, Director of Schools, Cannon County Schools. “These results demonstrate our District’s vision to actively engage in excellence every day in every way, through our mission to create a unified environment that will provide opportunities for all students to succeed and reach their full potential. This further shows specifically that our students are moving forward to bridge these gaps.”
These district-level results provide assessment data for students across the state and by district, not including accountability data. Assessment is about measuring and reporting on the performance of students; accountability, which includes more data points, is about reporting on the performance of school systems and includes assessment data among many other measures.
To help Tennessee families and students understand their TCAP results, the department’s free, online resource, the TCAP Family Portal (opens link in new tab), provides access to past years’ test results and additional information and will be updated later this summer.
TCAP includes summative assessments for English language arts, math, science, and social studies for grades 3-8, high school end-of-course (EOC) exams in English I and II, algebra I and II, geometry, integrated math I, II, and III; biology, and U.S. history.
To learn more about the state’s assessment program, visit the department’s State Assessment web page (opens link in new tab). To learn more about the accountability model visit the department’s Accountability web page (opens link in new tab). District and state-level spring 2021-22 TCAP assessment data files are accessible to download on the department’s Data Downloads web page (opens link in new tab).
Additional Background on Tennessee’s Key Education Policies and Investments
In Jan. 2021, Tennessee Gov. Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly convened a special legislative session on education (opens link in new tab), which addressed urgent issues facing Tennessee students and schools as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the special legislative session passed legislation on accountability, learning loss, literacy, and teacher pay. The Tennessee Learning Loss Remediation and Student Acceleration Act (opens link in new tab) established summer learning loss bridge camps for elementary and middle school students to help them recover learning loss and accelerate their achievement. Additionally, the Tennessee Literacy Success Act (opens link in new tab) was passed and laid a policy foundation for literacy in the state to focus on improving literacy opportunities and ensure every student builds strong reading skills grounded in phonics.
In alignment with the Best for All strategic plan, the department recognized the impending impact the global pandemic would have on K-12 education in Tennessee and proactively and strategically committed investments to prioritize meeting the needs of all Tennessee students through the state’s ARP ESSER plan (opens link in new tab), which lays out the state’s spending strategy for its portion of federal COVID-19 relief and stimulus funding to benefit K-12 education in Tennessee. This includes driving improved student outcomes through the department’s key initiatives from the Best for All strategic plan Reading 360 (opens link in new tab), TN ALL Corps (opens link in new tab), Innovative School Models (opens link in new tab), and Grow Your Own (opens link in new tab). Specifically, 67 districts were recognized as Best for All Districts (opens link in new tab) for spending 50% of their ESSER 3.0 award amount on strategies to raise student academic achievement and participating in TN ALL Corps.
For Tennessee Department of Education media inquiries, email edu.mediainquiries@tn.gov and for local media inquiries, contact William Freddy Curtis, Director of Cannon County Schools at (629) 201-4801, ext. 10101, or at williamf.curtis@ccstn.net for local Cannon County Schools information.