The Tennessee Department of Education is rejecting allegations by some education leaders that the timing of the state’s school letter grade release is related to Gov. Bill Lee’s push to expand private school vouchers statewide.
“To conflate these very different things would be inaccurate, as school letter grades only measure public school performance,” department spokesperson Brian Blackley said by email.
He added that district officials were given a review period to appeal their schools’ letter grades and the department hosted office hours to answer questions and provide resources, which pushed the timeline for releasing letter grades to the end of the year.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County Schools get A-F letter grades from state, roughly half receive A or B)
The letter grades were first supposed to be assigned in 2018, but online testing problems followed by pandemic-related disruptions caused the state to repeatedly push back its rollout date. This past fall, Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, who joined the department in July, launched a process to revamp the grading formula, and the new model was released in early November.
Later that month, Lee announced a plan for legislation expanding Tennessee’s education savings account program beyond Davidson, Shelby and Hamilton counties to all 95 of the state’s counties. His proposal would provide more than $7,000 to each participant to use to attend a private school and would eventually eliminate income limits to access the program.
In the time since, public school leaders from across the state have argued the letter grades are part of an effort to portray Tennessee public schools as failing students in order to gain support for vouchers.
(READ MORE: Gov. Lee touts school voucher program during Chattanooga visit)
Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Justin Robertson told school board members in November the letter grades will likely arouse a lot of emotions for families that might have expected their school to score better, which may then be used to try to say public schools are not serving students well.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the year we finally decide to publish letter grades for public schools is the same year that we’re going to push through a school voucher program statewide when we have zero evidence to support its effectiveness,” he said.
Students using vouchers performed lower on state tests than their public school peers during the first year of the program, The Tennessean reported in November.
Of the 78 Hamilton County schools — including charter schools — that received letter grades, 14 received A’s, 23 B’s, 21 C’s, 17 D’s and three received F’s. The grades roughly mirror the distribution of letter grades across the state.
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.