Gov. Bill Lee touted his administration’s literacy efforts during a Tuesday visit to the Summer Reach program at Battle Academy.
His visit came after state officials announced last week that Tennessee fourth graders showed significant improvement on state tests for English language arts, while third graders’ scores held steady.
Fourth graders increased their proficiency by 2.9 percentage points to an overall rate of 46.4%, while third grade proficiency improved by half a percentage point to 40.9%, according to test results under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.
The governor cited the summer learning camps, like the one at Battle Academy, that he has been visiting across the state as an example of the tools his administration is using to help children learn how to read.
“The worst thing that can happen academically for a child is to be pushed into upper grades without the ability to read,” he told reporters. “That’s why literacy is so important. That’s why we’ve focused our efforts. It’s why we have programming like this.”
He noted the state’s fourth graders, who were the first to risk retention under state law and have been exposed to the state’s expanded literacy program for the past two to three years, have continued to show improvement.
“We just have to keep looking at what we’re doing,” he said. “Keep improving it, keep making sure that kids are moving forward.”
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Gov. Lee touts state literacy efforts during visit to Summer Reach program at Battle Academy
Last year, a law requiring school districts to hold back third graders who do not score proficiently on the English language arts state test took effect. This year, fourth graders who did not show proficiency the previous year but opted to receive tutoring throughout the year also risked retention if they didn’t test proficient or show adequate growth.
In response to a question about whether there had been any thought about moving the target line to earlier in a child’s education, Lee said lawmakers and other stakeholders will probably look into any idea that has merit and some evidence of increasing outcomes for students.
The state will release its calculations by July 1 on whether fourth graders showed enough improvement to advance. If not, the parent or guardian must meet with the child’s teacher and principal to make that call. In Hamilton County, those meetings were held in May with families of students who were at risk of being held back, said Breckan Duckworth, the district’s executive director of opportunity and gap closure.
At the end of the first week, fewer than 20 Hamilton County third graders who are required to attend Summer Reach in order to advance to fourth grade were not on track to meet attendance requirements, Duckworth said. No fourth graders will be held back under the law.
Hamilton County Schools launched its Summer Reach program in 2020, a year before the state required districts to conduct summer learning camps. In past years, students who attended at least 80% of the program have started the school year ahead of their peers who did not in both reading and math, Duckworth said. The program serves rising kindergarten through rising ninth grade students.
“Some of our students might not have access to other even peers or opportunities in the summer, and so we’re really glad that in the month of June we get to continue providing school for kids,” she said in an interview. “Kids who really need to come for free meals, kids who may need additional services, therapy, the really wraparound services that we have in a school system now, we’re able to continue offering those through the month of June, which I think is so vital to our community and many of our students.”
For the past four years, the district has been able to serve any student who wants to attend summer programming with the help of federal COVID-19 relief funds. Those funds expire in September.
Duckworth said she didn’t have a strong answer on what the program will look like long-term. Questions remain on whether there will be legislative changes and what funding will look like in the future, but unless the district receives a large sum of money, it will have to scale down, she said.
“We’re going to have to make a lot of hard decisions over the next year and really decide who is Summer Reach going to be available to,” she said.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County school board weighs differing salary increase proposals)
At Battle Academy on Tuesday, Lee asked each student in the four classrooms he visited for their name and age, as well as told students that they were in a really special classroom and they were really special kids.
Several students asked him questions about his job. One rising third grader asked him how he got enough votes to become governor. Another asked what the governor does.
“One of the things you do is you care a lot about kids and the next generation,” he responded. “Somebody in this room, sitting around this table might be the governor someday. You might be the governor or you’ll be a teacher or you’ll be a mother or you’ll be a doctor or you’ll be a plumber or you’ll be a professional football player or you’ll be all sorts of things. And by the way, if you learn to read, you probably can be any of those things.”
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.