NASHVILLE, TN (SPECIAL TO WLAF) — Friday, the Tennessee Department of Education released the 2020-2021 State Report Card, an online tool to help parents, families and education stakeholders better understand Tennessee’s districts and schools and learn about how they are serving their students.

The State Report Card provides stakeholders with information about how Tennessee schools and districts are performing to inform decisions and strategic investments to best support students. In addition to information available in previous years, the 2021 State Report Card has additional sections to provide additional school and district data and indicators.

“There has never been a more important time for families to engage in their student’s education and the online State Report Card provides essential information to help parents learn about their child’s school, as well as districts and schools across the state,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “The State Report Card displays important data and indicators about the work of Tennessee’s educators to serve their students.”

In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Education waived federal assessment and accountability requirements as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures. In January 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation to ensure a strong statewide administration of Tennessee Comprehensive Achievement Program (TCAP) assessments in spring 2021 to both generate reliable data on how Tennessee students were performing and inform strategies to help support academic success during the pandemic.

Because all Tennessee school districts met the requirement in Public Chapter 2 to achieve an 80% rate of student participation in TCAP this spring, some assessment data is neither publicly available this year nor included in accountability calculations such as letter grades or other summative ratings. Other information about schools and districts will still be made available this year on the Report Card as well as the department’s data downloads webpage.

On this year’s State Report Card, as in previous years, contains general information, enrollment, and staffing data, and performance indicators—including academic achievement, chronically out of school, progress on English language proficiency, Ready Graduate, and Graduation Rate — at the district- and school- level.

The 2020-21 Report Card has been improved and contains several new features including:

  *   TCAP success rates and participation rates

  *   Designation flags to indicate Reward, Priority, ATSI, & CSI schools

  *   Tennessee Excellence in Civics Education Districts and Schools recognized by the Governor’s Civics Seal

  *   Improved accessibility across district and school pages

  *   Redesigned overall performance and information pages

On this year’s State Report Card, the department has chosen to highlight assessment participation rates and assign districts and schools the letter “H” to signify that they were held harmless.

District leaders commented on the importance of the State Report Card and highlighted new features available this year.

“It is critical that school and district leaders have consistent, accurate data to drive our instruction,” said Dr. Ted Horrell, 2021 Tennessee Superintendent of the Year, Director of Lakeland School System. “Information like that provided in the Tennessee State Report Card allows us to benchmark our progress over time so we can make better decisions that benefit students.”

“Reliable and updated data is essential to ensuring we make the most strategic and thoughtful investments and decisions to benefit our students,” said Jerry Boyd, Director of Schools, Washington County Schools. “Washington County Schools is honored to be recognized on this year’s State Report Card as a Tennessee Excellence in Civics Education District. We encourage our community members and families to utilize this tool to understand how our district, schools, and students are performing to engage in solutions-focused collaboration that always puts students first.”

The 2020-21 State Report Card will be updated in the fall of 2021 to include 2020-21 district- and school- level finance information, TVAAS growth scores, and postsecondary enrollment.

View the 2020-21 State Report Card here. Click here for additional information about the State Report Card.

For additional data on schools and districts, visit the Data Downloads page. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 09/27/2021-6AM)