Three years ago, it was a crisis. Today, the crisis seems to have been forgotten.
We’re referring to the alarming reading test scores of Tennessee public school students coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that significantly more than half of the state’s third-grade students weren’t reading on grade level was a serious enough problem for a special session of the state legislature to craft a literacy law saying that with the 2022-2023 school year such students couldn’t advance to fourth grade.
The hue and cry that “almost three quarters” of students might be held back began with the school year and didn’t abate until reality set in last summer. Nah, we’re not really going to hold back all those kids.
When the final numbers were announced a year ago, only about 900 third graders across the state — about 1.2% — were retained. That number, officials said, was not significantly different from the number held back every year.