(This post was authored by Jack Powers, former legislative director for ExcelinEd in Action.)
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tennessee policymakers did not wait to see academic declines before taking decisive action. During a special session in January 2021, lawmakers, in partnership with Gov. Bill Lee and then education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, passed two sweeping laws designed to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss and improve the state’s stagnant third-grade literacy rates.
These new laws required districts to align curriculum and instruction to the science of reading and prescribed academic interventions for struggling third graders. Beginning this year in August, the law also requires that third graders who are not proficient in English language arts (ELA) receive academic help or potentially an extra year of learning — a third-grade retention policy shown to be incredibly effective in states like Florida and Mississippi.
As predicted, Tennessee’s Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) data from the 2020-21 school year – the first full year after pandemic school closures – showed significant learning loss in all grades and subjects. Yet Tennessee’s hardworking educators began steering the state toward recovery. Districts worked quickly to implement the new laws, grounding instruction in the science of reading and offering academic summer camps to at-risk students.
By the spring of 2022, on the heels of just one summer of academic interventions, the 2021-22 TCAP data painted an encouraging picture: Tennessee’s third graders had virtually eliminated learning loss gaps in ELA. Additionally encouraging news came this June, roughly three years after schools first closed due to the pandemic, when 2022-23 TCAP data showed Tennessee’s third-grade ELA proficiency rates had climbed to 40%—the highest since the state revised standards in 2017.
Yet despite the progress in 2021-22, false predictions and apprehension dominated the conversation as the 2022-23 school year began. As a result, the 2023 legislative session featured more than 15 bills designed to weaken or repeal the new literacy-based promotion requirements in the law. As the school year progressed, the news and social media were filled with assumptions that ignored the facts.
For example, although it’s true that 60% of third graders did not meet the bar for automatic promotion to fourth grade, numerous pathways in the law ensure a majority of those students can advance to the next grade, as long as they get the help they need. Students can re-take and score proficient on the TCAP, submit an appeal, attend summer learning camps or receive tutoring during the fourth grade—not to mention various legal exemptions for certain student groups.
These laws are about supporting students, and not about retaining students for retention’s sake.
Although roughly 45,000 third graders were identified as at risk for retention, about 26,000 re-took the TCAP, and more than 10% (3,000) scored high enough for promotion. Almost 7,000 students were granted appeals. These two promotion pathways alone reduced the at-risk group by 22%, to roughly 35,000 students. Of these students, the vast majority will move on to fourth grade—when children transition from learning to read to reading to learn—exactly as the law intended: having received additional instruction through academic summer camp or tutoring and gained the reading skills needed for their future success.
Ultimately, it is likely that only an exceedingly small percentage of students will be required to repeat third grade. For instance, Mississippi retained less than 10% of third graders under similar literacy laws in the 2021-22 school year. In Florida, the percentage of students retained was 10.3% for the same year. More importantly, these struggling readers will receive an additional year of literacy instruction from a talented Tennessee educator.
At the end of the day, being literate is more important than summer vacation or perceived social stigmas. In fact, the research is clear on life outcomes for students who can’t read. Nine out of 10 high school dropouts were struggling readers in third grade, and high school dropouts aren’t eligible for 90% of jobs out there. Not to mention the strong connection between illiteracy and the prison pipeline.
Illiteracy is the ultimate social stigma. So, Tennessee must stay the course with its comprehensive literacy policy. We owe it to our students to prepare them for success in school and a lifetime of opportunity and fulfillment.
