“Our students are more than a test,” chanted parents, educators, Metro Nashville Public School board representatives and community members at a meeting at Woodbine United Methodist Church on Wednesday evening.
The event, which was organized by concerned parents and a group called Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment, was one of several that have been scheduled to inform parents about the third-grade retention law set to go into effect this year. The legislation, created in 2021, requires some third-graders who don’t pass the English language arts portion of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program to be held back. Those who receive an “approaching” score must receive in-school tutoring or attend summer programming (with a 90 percent attendance rate). If a student receives a “below” score, they must fulfill both of these requirements. If these requirements aren’t met, a student would be retained.
Additionally, according to the law, students who didn’t score high enough on the third-grade TCAP must show “adequate growth” on the fourth-grade TCAP, as determined by the Tennessee Department of Education, or they could be retained again. There are exceptions for students who have been previously retained, those with disabilities or suspected disabilities and English learners with fewer than two years of English instruction. Though parents can appeal if their children don’t pass the test, there are still unanswered questions regarding the process.
The legislation has sparked statewide bipartisan criticism, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced 18 different bills addressing the issue in various ways. Some bills seek to roll back retention requirements, while others aim to return the decision-making power to school districts, and one considers creating a similar retention measure for kindergarteners going into first grade.
“I’ve had more emails, phone calls, texts [and] Facebook messages about third-grade retention than anything else that I’ve ever had,” Senate Education Committee chair Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) tells the Scene. “Everyone says, ‘Well, we need to redo the law, we need to change this, change that.’ I guess my big takeaway is [around] 67 percent of the kids across Tennessee aren’t reading at grade level. That’s horrible by any standard, and that’s shocking, it’s disappointing, and ‘change the test’ seems like the discussion isn’t about [how] we’re failing a huge number of kids. That’s unacceptable.” Though Lundberg is willing to consider new legislation, he hasn’t expressed interest in changing the law.
Parents at Wednesday’s community meeting shared their questions and concerns about the law and its gray areas. One concern: Current third-graders were in kindergarten when the COVID-19 pandemic began and therefore had interrupted schooling and potential related trauma. There’s also the fact that students don’t typically receive TCAP scores until the summer, even though the signup period for MNPS’ summer program opened in January and closes in March. One parent asked if there are exceptions for parents who have out-of-state summer custody arrangements — the legislation doesn’t address this. Another expressed concerns that her third-grader has received straight A’s but isn’t projected to pass the necessary portion of the TCAP. MNPS board member and District 7 representative Freda Player discussed how MNPS elementary schools are absorbing fifth-graders back into their buildings, but if third-graders must be retained, they may run out of space. The MNPS board passed a resolution against the law in January.
“This is the mess that happens when people who don’t do education try to do education,” said Cathy Carrillo at Wednesday’s meeting.
Jack Willey is a parent who volunteered at the event. He tells the Scene that many parents even didn’t know about the law until December, when MNPS sent letters to parents whose children may need some kind of intervention to prevent retention. Willey says his family changed their summer plans to enroll his child in summer school.
“This law is completely unjust, it is really an abuse to our children and to the teachers,” he says. “We definitely want to see an amendment to the law get passed that would put the … decision-making around retention in the hands of the individual’s school districts, the teachers and the parents. Because at the end of the day, the people who are actually working with the children should make that decision. They’re the only ones who know what’s the right decision for a child, not a test. … A lot of parents are afraid to tell their kids about it, but all [the kids] know. … There’s a lot of fear, a lot of kids are really worried.”
