NASHVILLE — The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has issued this statement about the release of 2022-23 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) results.
Today’s release of statewide TCAP results from the 2022-23 school year reveals promising across-the-board increases in student achievement in Tennessee in every grade in both English language arts and math. The data elevate important areas of continued progress and recovery, including more areas where Tennessee is now exceeding our prepandemic achievement rates.
“These results, which demonstrate increases in proficiency for math and English language arts, offer valuable feedback and insight for educators, policymakers, and families,” SCORE President and CEO David Mansouri said. “They serve as clear evidence that Tennessee’s priorities — such as early literacy supports, high-dosage tutoring, summer learning, and high-quality instructional materials — are leading to clear gains for students.”
Tennessee students exceeded results in ELA and are just shy of prepandemic proficiency levels in math, with the exception of Tennessee seventh graders who have now exceeded seventh-grade math proficiency rates from 2019.
“At the same time, there are also clear areas of needed focus and a recognition that even with improvement, overall proficiency still does not meet our aspirations for student success,” Mansouri said. “We have to keep our foot on the pedal to ensure prepandemic results are not just met but significantly exceeded and that our highest needs students are closing the gap with their peers.”
Additional highlights from the data include:
- Grade 3 ELA performance has increased from 35.7 percent of students scoring proficient in 2022 to 40.5 percent in 2023 — nearly 4 percentage points above the proficiency rate in 2019 prior to the pandemic.
- Grade 7 math performance increased from 30.2 percent of students scoring proficient in 2022 to 35 percent in 2023. Seventh-grade math has now exceeded the 2019 proficiency rate of 33.6 percent.
- Entry-level high school math (Algebra I in ninth grade) have not rebounded as significantly as results in earlier grades. Proficiency dropped from 21.8 percent in 2019 to 12.3 percent in 2021, increased to 15.5 percent in 2022, and rose to 17.8 percent in 2023.
- Across math and ELA, White students tended to have slightly larger growth compared to Black and Hispanic students. This means that most achievement gaps remain stagnant or have increased in some areas.
- Black students had a 92 percent increase in third- through eighth-grade math proficiency from 2021-23. However, achievement gaps between subgroups did not narrow.
“To continue this momentum moving forward, Tennessee must commit to strengthening implementation of key policies that support student learning, such as a comprehensive approach to early literacy, the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement funding formula, high-dosage tutoring, summer learning, and innovative school models,” Mansouri said. “Now is the time to capitalize on this positive momentum and set ambitious goals to ensure continued academic progress and success for our students.”