NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Most students who appealed their scores on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program exam were approved to move on to the fourth grade, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Education.
State education leaders previously said around 60% of all students who took the exam failed to meet expectations on the test's ELA portion. They risked being held back in the third grade. To avoid retention, students had a choice to retake the test, enroll in summer school or advance to the fourth grade with a tutor assigned to them.
Parents and guardians also had a choice to file an appeal with the TDOE, as long as their student received an "approaching" score on the TCAP exam. Around 25% of third-graders scored "below" on the exam across the state, meaning they were not eligible to appeal the score.
The state's appeals process was only open to students who received a score at or above the 40th percentile on their spring universal reading screener, or if a "catastrophic situation" occurred during the days leading up to the TCAP exam that impacted the student's ability to perform well.
The appeals window opened on May 30 and TDOE said they received 10,572 appeal forms. Those forms represented 9,054 unique students. TDOE said 7,812 students' appeals were approved, and 685 were denied. They also said 557 appeals were not applicable.
Those amounts end up representing around 86.3% of students who appealed their TCAP scores being approved. Around 7.5% of students' appeals were denied, according to a release from TDOE.
Families and parents can explore data about the TCAP exam by using the State Report Card, which collects data about students' performance on the exam. It also includes district-level information about the TCAP exam.