The words “what we expected” for the drop in scores of Tennessee students on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) tests between the 2018-2019 and the 2020-2021 school years may be accurate, but they’re far from comforting.
“This is the first time we’ve had full statewide data on students regarding their achievement since the pandemic began,” Gov. Bill Lee said Monday upon release of the 2020-2021 scores, “and what we’ve seen is what we expected.”
The drop in scores reflects the learning that did not take place during the locked-down last few months of the 2019-2020 school year and the 2020-2021 school year while many students were attending classes remotely.
It also heightens the critical importance of face-to-face learning, which, in turn, involves the “we’re-tired-of-talking-about-them” subjects of vaccines and masks.
We know where there are more bodies with vaccines, there are fewer people with the COVID-19 virus. Where there are fewer bodies with vaccines, there are more people with the virus, especially the virulent, easily communicable delta strain. It’s that simple.