How to use Tennessee’s new education report card
The new report is meant to be easier for families to use
Tennessee unveiled a new online report card on Tuesday that education department officials hope will be more user-friendly for families.
The Tennessee Department of Education has worked on the system for about 18 months, preparing to provide more information since its federal education plan was put into place.
“We want families to have easy access to information about their school’s performance and how it is meeting the needs of all students, and we want them to have that context on a variety of metrics that encompass success,” said Tennessee Commissioner Candice McQueen.
To view the report card visit https://reportcard.tnk12.gov/. Here is a look at Tennessee’s new report card and how to use it:
It has 6 academic indicators
The report card will have six measurements of academic success in Tennessee.
The state has worked for the last two years to refine which information is the most useful for parents and teachers. The six indicators are: ❚ Academic achievement — whether students are performing on grade level on TNReady.
❚ Student academic growth — whether students are growing their academic knowledge from year to year.
❚ Chronically out of school — details the number of students that miss at least 10 percent of the school year.
❚ Progress on English language proficiency — whether English-learning students are making progress in understanding the English language.
❚ Ready graduate — the percentage of students who graduate with at least a 21 on the ACT.
❚ Graduate rate — the percentage of students graduating from high school.
In elementary and middle school grades, schools will have marks for only four of the six items.
Performance is rated 0 to 4
This year, the overall performance of schools will be graded on a zero to four scale.
No school will receive an overall rating for each of the six factors.
McQueen said she wants parents and educators to think about the ratings as a grade point average for schools.
“And ... that it has context and is typically representing multiple factors in each of the indicator scores,” she said.
But that will change
The issues with TNReady in the spring caused the Tennessee General Assembly to walk back accountability for the test.
As part of the changes by the state’s governing body, the education department could no longer grade districts on an alphabetical grading system.
The education department also couldn’t issue overall grades based on the total score of all six sections.
“(The report card) will have summative grades moving forward,” McQueen said. “Each would get a letter grade. We would move away from numerical grading and to a summative letter grade and the six indicators each would get individual grades.
“That is the overall vision.”
Students will be sent home information about the report card
The Tennessee Department of Education sent districts templates to districts about how to communicate the release of the report card.
The templates specifically laid out how to notify parents about the report card and what information is available to them. The state has also provided training to district leaders and teachers about how to best use the data on the report card.
Community and advocacy groups that work with students have also been sent information that will help parents access the report card.
As well, the report card is available in Spanish.
‘It should start a conversation’
The information is meant to help teachers and parents talk about areas for improvement, McQueen said. She said she doesn’t view the info as a destiny.
“This should start a conversation … about what do to improve, especially if you have a student group that isn’t doing well,” she said.
Reach Jason Gonzales at jagonzales@tennessean.com and on Twitter @ByJasonGonzales.