NASHVILLE, Tenn. — On Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Education unveiled a new way for families, students and communities to explore data behind the state's exams — the 2023 Statewide Assessment Dashboard.
It showed that 38.1% of students who took the English language Arts portion of the TCAP exam at least met expectations. The dashboard sorts the results, from a total of 576,858 students, between four categories: "below expectations," "approaching expectations," "met expectations" and "exceeded expectations."
The majority of students approached the expectations of the state. This year, any students who did not at least meet expectations on the ELA portion of the exam had to go through summer school or retake the test, or else they could face retention in the third grade. They could also choose to go through tutoring during the fourth grade or try appealing the test results.
According to the new dashboard, 20.2% of students were below expectations on the ELA portion of the TCAP exam, while only around 9% exceeded expectations. Around 29% of students met expectations, and around 41.8% of students across the state were approaching expectations on the TCAP exam.
The dashboard revealed that social studies and science were the best subjects for third-grade students across the state. Each subject had a 43.1% proficiency rate. However, mathematics was the state's worst subject.
The majority of students were below expectations on the math portion, for the third year in a row. Around 9.7% of students exceeded expectations on that portion of the exam, while 37.1% of students were below expectations.
The dashboard also sorts data based on student demographics. It found that Asian students performed the best on the ELA portion of the exam, with around 65% at least meeting expectations. Around 45.7% of white students were proficient, as well as 41.5% of American Indian or Alaska Native students. Around 22% of Black or African American students were proficient, as well as 27% of Hispanic students.
However, only 20.5% of economically disadvantaged students passed the ELA portion of the exam.