There are 20 article(s) tagged TNReady:
British-based Pearson took over the student testing program July 1. The contract runs through June 30, 2021, and the state has the option to renew terms annually for up to three years through 2024. The five-year cost would be $93.1 million.
School districts will have to follow (or be aware of) many new laws that didn’t grab headlines. Here are 10 such measures that become effective with the new fiscal year.
It’s a reprieve for low-performing schools that are academically in the state’s bottom 5%, known as priority schools. Most are in Memphis and Nashville and were expected to receive some of the lowest letter grades.
TNReady tests are designed to assess every student’s true understanding of the material they’ve studied, not just memorized. The goal is to know how to help students advance their knowledge and skills, teachers raise their level of instruction, and districts improve their schools.
A three-part series from The Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis explores the challenges and possible solutions to improving third-grade reading proficiency locally.
Next fall, thousands of Memphis children will qualify to participate in the new Education Savings Accounts (ESA) Program. They can receive about $7,300 in the account, which can be used for tuition at private schools, tutoring, textbooks, school uniforms and computers.
TNReady scores showed Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville Germantown and Lakeland are among the top-performing districts in the state. Lakeland was designated as an Exemplary district by the Tennessee Department of Education.
The district’s students did not make as much progress as other students across the state, earning Shelby County Schools the lowest score on the state’s 5-point growth scale.
More than 40% of elementary and middle school students met the state’s proficiency standards in math, compared to 36.5% in 2018.
Special Report: Memphis' Reading Test PART 1: Meeting goals for third-grade reading proficiency in Tennessee is a daunting task unless dramatic improvements occur in Shelby County, where the hurdles are high and the challenges complex. And in Memphis, a city where nearly four in five children in public schools aren't reading on grade level, the undertaking is monumental.
About 24% of third-graders in Shelby County Schools scored proficient in reading on the state’s standardized assessment TNReady, down from about 27% last year. Statewide, 36% of elementary students tested proficient.
The world’s largest and oldest testing company, Pearson will become the third vendor in five years to administer TNReady in the state’s messy transition to computer-based testing.
Next school year, all of TNReady will be completed on paper to give the state’s next testing company time to ramp up for an online assessment for older students beginning in 2021. That change was ordered by the legislature this spring at the urging of Gov. Bill Lee.
Tennessee’s school districts are nearly halfway through online testing, and for the first time in three years, no major issues have been reported.
Tennessee already has walked back its transition to online testing two times since 2016 when a wholesale switch failed miserably, prompting then-Education Commissioner Candice McQueen to cancel most of that year’s tests and fire Measurement Inc.
Tennessee education leaders can now track glitches with the revamped TNReady testing system in real time. But the state education commissioner says she still must decide whether to throw the switch or wait another year to resume online achievement tests.
The state set an April 11 deadline for vendors' bids to administer the TNReady program. The final contract is to be signed by June 13.
State testing is the linchpin of Tennessee’s system for evaluating student achievement. But as technical failures have marred the rollout in recent years, educators have clamored for limits on how the scores are used.
About 80,000 students were supposed to participate in a statewide online testing simulation. A disappointing turnout Feb. 21 means a second simulation has to be scheduled.
With just months to go before a company is supposed to take over Tennessee’s troubled assessment program, the state has yet to release its request for proposals.
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