Rest of the reading story
Oh, the numbers were daunting. “Almost three-quarters” of Tennessee third graders, according to one report, were at risk of being retained in third grade based on their TCAP reading tests, thanks to a 2021 state law.
The law stipulated that, beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, third graders would be held back because they were not reading on grade level, a key indicator of how likely they are to achieve success during the rest of their education and beyond. The law was passed after COVID remote learning proved to be a disaster for student learning and retention.
When the numbers from the annual Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests came in this spring, some 44,000 (around 60%) of the state’s 74,000 students had fallen short. But …
When the dust settled, after TCAP retakes, after summer reading camps, after parent appeals, after tutoring commitments, after disability exemptions, after English learner exemptions, after previous retention exemptions and after various local exemptions, 898 third graders across the state were retained.
We did the math. That’s 1.2% of third graders, nowhere near the “almost three quarters” of students that were predicted. Indeed, the state number is even smaller than the number of Hamilton County third graders (around 1,400) who were at risk of being held back based on benchmark scores from tests administered in March.
What will be important for the state going forward will be to follow each cohort of those who went on to fourth grade and those who were held back.
Potential for fireworks?
The 2023 National Park Partners Moccasin Bend Lecture Series will conclude Monday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m., with Richard Sneed, 28th principal chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, as guest. His topic is “Culturally Deliberate in the 21st Century,” and online information says he will discuss previous U.S. government policies designed to systematically destroy the culture of tribal nations, and how those impacts are still felt today.
It will be interesting to note whether he includes in his talk — at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX Theater — the potential of further destruction of the culture of tribal nations who lived on Moccasin Bend, where state officials with the backing of the local state legislative delegation are pushing for the relocation of the Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute to what is thought to be an even more culturally significant spot on the Bend than where it is now.
Contributing to irony about the situation is that the lecture series is sponsored by state Rep. Greg Vital, R-Harrison, one of the members of the state delegation pushing for the hospital relocation on the Bend.
When wokism is your go-to
Parental concerns about a sign at the UTC Aquatics Center inviting children “7 years and older [to] use the universal changing rooms … that aligns with their gender identity” have brought about a change, admission the sign hadn’t “been reviewed by campus leadership,” and a replacement sign.
The sign had been posted after a recent complaint that a parent had his 10-year-old daughter with him in the men’s locker, according to a university spokeswoman, and was to communicate “the age at which children need to use their own locker room and the available of universal changing room options.”
The replacement sign says simply that “Universal/Family Changing Rooms Are On The Third Floor.” That information was all that had been needed in the first place without confusing children as young as 7 to wonder what “gender identity” is and why they needed to take it into consideration.
The spokeswoman admitted to The Tennessee Conservative that “the wording of the sign … caused confusion among patrons regarding its intended message.”
Housing blues
First-time home buyer trying to buy a house? It’s pretty frustrating, isn’t it?
Starter homes just below or right at $100,000 have doubled in just a few short years.
Analysts at MyEListing say Tennessee currently has the fifth worst disparity in the country between wage growth and housing price growth.
While wages have increased 23% in the state over the past five years — not bad for those who get raises — housing costs have gone up more than 50%. That’s a 27% gap, putting the Volunteer State behind only Idaho, Arizona, Utah and Florida in the growth gap.
The five states, in order, with the smallest growth gaps are Illinois, Louisiana, North Dakota, Iowa and Alaska.
The national average for growth gap among the 50 states is 15%.
Charting the numbers shows housing increases were slightly higher than wage growth during the Trump era in 2018, but wage growth caught up in early 2019 and outpaced housing during the rest of that year and into 2020. But the COVID pandemic reversed things, and when Joe Biden became president housing prices soared against wage growth.