2024 TCAP tests: What parents, students need to know

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Tennessee students are about to get preliminary TCAP results back this month, and there’s a lot of questions about the retention law. News 2 spoke with the Professional Educators of Tennessee to get you answers.

“Teachers are questioning. They are beginning to get nervous about what’s happening,” said J.C. Bowman.

Tennessee Dept. of Education has approved majority of third-grade retention appeals

Bowman is the executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee. He said the big focus when it comes to retention rates this year centers around the fourth grade.

“This year, fourth grade is the issue,” said Bowman. “Fourth grade is the key benchmark this year to determine whether we are going to hold kids back.”

Last year, the focus was third grade.

According to Professional Educators of Tennessee, after interventions like tutoring, summer school, retakes, and appeals, 1.2% of third graders were held back for poor reading. However, Bowman said the fourth grade test is very different from the test taken in third grade.

TCAP Quiz: Could you pass the 3rd Grade ELA assessment?

“In third grade, the focus was on phonemics and phonics, and whether you can do awareness. In fourth grade, the test that you take, which is the TCAP, is highly based upon comprehension, so it’s comparing Greek to French. They’re two different languages that you are looking at.”

Preliminary test results come out next week, but students and parents will have to wait until summer for the final score.

“They’ll come out with an itty bitty number of that that will come out, and that’ll basically say, ‘Yes, they’re on track,’ or, ‘No, they are not.’ The problem is, obviously some of those are fraught with errors. You can actually look like you are passing, and then find out in July that maybe you didn’t pass.”

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If that happens and your child(ren) didn’t pass, lawmakers tweaked the law this session. If a student struggles to also pass the fourth grade test, the decision will be up to the principal, the student’s parents, and teachers on whether the child should advance to fifth grade, but the governor has yet to sign that change to the original law.

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