Department of Education
Kevin Huffman, Commissioner

The Tennessee Education Improvement Act of 1992 established accountability standards for all public schools in the state and required the Department of Education to produce a Report Card for the public to assess each year.

Tennessee state law (Tennessee Code Annotated 49-1-601) has since been amended to match regulations in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for meeting required federal benchmarks for all schools, school systems, and the state. Additionally, the State Board of Education has revised its performance standards and requirements to meet performance criteria in the new federal law.

The goal of NCLB is to ensure that all students in all schools are academically proficient in math, reading and language arts by 2014. Until that time, schools, school systems and the state will be measured on their ability to move toward that goal. In other words, schools, school systems, and the state must show that a greater percentage of its students are meeting required proficiency standards.

Schools, school systems and the state must meet proficiency benchmarks in nine subgroups, including five race/ethnicity groups; students with disabilities; limited English proficient students; economically disadvantaged students; and the school as a whole.

The Report Card is organized in the following sections: System/School Profile, NCLB (AYP), Achievement, Value Added (TVAAS data), Attendance and Graduation, Discipline, Teacher Quality, Special Education, and Career and Technical Education. For the 2008 report card, the latter two categories – Special Education and Career and Technical Education – will be added at a later time.

Schools that do not meet required federal benchmarks for one year are assigned the status of “Target.” Schools that do not meet the federal benchmark for two or more consecutive years in the same category are assigned the status of “High Priority.”

School districts that do not meet annual measurable objectives in both their elementary/middle school and high school levels in a single content area (math or reading/language arts) or the additional indicator (attendance rate and graduation rate) for the first year are identified as LEA Target status. If the district misses the same, or another, single content area at both the elementary/middle school and the high school levels for the second year, the district is identified as in LEA Improvement status, the first stage of high priority for school systems.