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Testing Troubles While Teachers Take a Tumble

Another wild week in Tennessee education policy

2 min readApr 19, 2024

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Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash

In Tennessee education news this week, the state’s standardized test ran into some problems (an annual event) and the state’s teachers took a backseat to the Governor’s plan to privatize public schools.

First, the state’s standardized test faced server glitches and many districts had to stop administration and/or cancel the planned testing for today.

This incident is particularly salient given a new law that creates mandatory retention for third graders who fail to meet a certain score on the English/Language Arts portion of this particular test.

Note that the test is not designed to test reading ability or reading skills. It’s not a reading test.

Here’s more on the trouble with the test — even though the vendor received an additional $40 million from the state last year.

As the legislative sessions comes to a close, it seems apparent that Gov. Lee’s signature legislative initiative, school vouchers…

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Andy Spears
Andy Spears

Written by Andy Spears

Writer and policy advocate living in Nashville, TN —Public Policy Ph.D. — writes on education policy, consumer affairs, and more . . .

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