SCORE tells House committee Tennessee's NAEP, TCAP scores improved; urges faster result reporting and assessment inventory
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Summary
SCORE presented national and state assessment results showing multi-year improvement on NAEP and TCAP — including third-grade ELA proficiency at 41.7% — and recommended faster release of results to families and an inventory of local assessments to reduce lost instructional time.
SCORE, a nonpartisan education research and advocacy organization, briefed the House Education Committee on statewide assessment performance and recommended policy changes to make results more timely and actionable.
Aliyah Guthrie, SCORE's vice president of policy and government relations, and Jocelyn Pratt, SCORE's director of government relations, described differences between NAEP (the nation's report card, administered to samples of students) and TCAP (the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, given to all students). "NAEP is...the nation's report card," Guthrie said, while TCAP provides district- and student-level data tied to Tennessee standards.
SCORE highlighted gains on national and state measures. The group said fourth-grade reading proficiency rose modestly and fourth-grade math rose six percentage points on NAEP; for TCAP, third-grade ELA proficiency reached a record high of 41.7 percent but still leaves more than half of third graders not proficient. SCORE said improvements are reflected across grades and student groups and argued the results show policy-driven change can move outcomes.
To make assessments more useful, SCORE recommended accelerating result turnaround by expanding automated scoring and pre-equating and creating an inventory of local assessments to minimize duplicated testing time. "Tennessee currently returns individual score reports more than 70 days after spring testing; other states return results faster due to technical investments," the presenters said.
Committee members asked about differences in assessment modes, private-school students' inclusion in NAEP sampling, and the comparability of voucher‑program students. SCORE representatives said faster reporting is feasible with safeguards and called for careful monitoring of any modality changes as computer-based testing expands.
What happens next: SCORE offered to share dashboards and additional data and invited committee members to a public data event; members may consider statutory or budget changes to support faster reporting and an inventory of local assessments.