5 Things Equity Advocates Should Know About… the 2021-2022 TN State Report Card

View the 2021-22 TN State Report Card

What is the State Report Card?

The State Report Card is an interactive data tool for stakeholders to learn how Tennessee schools and districts perform on various accountability and other indicators. For example, parents and caregivers could examine a school’s finance page to understand how much the school spends per pupil, or the staff page to find the teacher retention rate. The U.S. Department of Education (USED) requires State Report Cards to contain specific information, be understandable to the public from various backgrounds, and other guidance. The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), the state’s education agency, releases the State Report Card annually. For more details, see the 2020-21 Accountability Protocol. TDOE released the 2021-22 State Report Card on November 28, 2022.

1. The State Report Card features new data for the 2021-22 school year that advocates can use to explore student ACT and demographic data beyond what is currently available on the TDOE Data Downloads page.

Generally, The State Report Card visualizes  information provided on TDOE’s Data Downloads page via downloadable spreadsheets. As of this blog’s publishing date, TDOE has yet to post certain 2021-22 datasets, including school finance data and student demographic data, which is called “Profile Data” on the website. These are currently absent from the Data Downloads, but they are present on the 21-22 State Report Card. For these types of information, the State Report Card provides a sneak peek at the data. However, the State Report Card generally shares  high level information so updating TDOE’s Data Downloads page remains critical for advocates, researchers, and other stakeholders. 

2. State Report Card data availability varies year to year between the State Report Card website and TDOE Data Downloads page. 

TDOE releases the State Report Card via an interactive website each year, but the previous Report Card redirects user to the 2021-2022 Report Card. In addition, only certain years of past report card data are publicly available through TDOE’s Data Downloads page. The table below shows the State Report Card data available as of this blog’s publishing date, and 2020-21 report card data is currently not available in either location. Stakeholders and advocates face a serious challenge when attempting to examine trends in Tennessee school data over time. Given that only three years of past State Report Card data are publicly available, and last year is not one of them, it will be difficult for stakeholders to meaningfully engage with the information the State Report Card is meant to provide. Older report card data is available through InformTN, but this is only accessible to school districts. 

3. The structure and presentation of the State Report Card makes it difficult to compare  schools and districts.

The purpose of the State Report Card is to show stakeholders how Tennessee schools and districts are doing each year. While comparative data between the school, its district, and the state are available for some indicators, it is currently not possible to select specific schools or districts to view in contrast with one another. Comparisons across schools and districts contextualizes stakeholders’ understanding of complex measures and allows advocates to understand how a school or districts’ context impact performance. Advocates can find more detailed data on the TDOE Data Downloads page via downloadable spreadsheets, but it is less transparent and accessible than data visualizations on the State Report Card. 

4. Schools were not assigned letter grades for the fifth year in a row.

TDOE did not assign A-F letter grades to Tennessee’s public schools this year, citing inconsistent participation rates on the standardized state exams, the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). This is the fifth consecutive year since letter grades were meant to be assigned, as required by a state law passed in 2016 and based on ESSA requirements to meaningfully differentiate between schools. Without confidence in the use of TCAP participation rates for school accountability, it is unclear how much confidence stakeholders can have in other accountability designations, such as priority and reward schools. While the A-F letter grade system has its own drawbacks, it also represents one way for families to evaluate school and district quality.

5. Information like teacher vacancies and diversity is not currently available in the State Report Card.

Under “Other Performance Indicators,” readers can find information about school staff such as numbers of instructors and support personnel, as well as the staff to student ratios for those categories. This information is available for individual schools, districts, and the state as a whole. Critical data about teacher vacancies is unfortunately absent. There were over 1,000 vacancies in 2021-22, one third of which were in Memphis. Providing staff numbers without vacancy statistics obscures Tennessee’s teacher shortage problem. The State Report Card also does not include data about teacher diversity. Increasing teacher diversity is a critical area for improvement in Tennessee, given that students of color made up 38.8% of all students, while teachers of color made up only 13% of Tennessee teachers.

Equity Considerations

• Will TDOE use the State Report Card to provide longitudinal trends for student achievement, growth, graduation rates, and other indicators going forward so that advocates can clearly see trends over time?
• The most recent TISA Rules state, “the Department shall report longitudinal and comparative school and district-level funding and district, state, and federal-level per-pupil expenditure data reporting in transparent and interactive formats annually beginning no later than December 2024.” Will this data be on the State Report Card?
• Is Tennessee considering publishing teacher vacancy and teacher diversity data as part of the State Report Card? If so, TDOE would need to provide updated Teacher Race and Ethnicity Data, as the TDOE Data Downloads page only has data through 2019-20. 
• What actions can Tennessee take to ensure that State Report Card findings are actively communicated to the schools, staff, and families that could take direct action based on the data? What actions can Tennessee take to increase clarity and accessibility in the State Report Card?