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Tennessee Republicans have rolled back testing accountability measures in the state’s initial private school subsidy program but backed down on a House plan to significantly expand the program to thousands of new students.
House Bill 1881, which passed both the Senate and House on Thursday, allows private schools receiving Education Savings Accounts funds to offer students the nationally normed reference test of their choosing instead of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.
Private schools can still offer the TCAP if they wish, though state testing requirements have for years been resisted by many private schools considering participating in Tennessee’s growing private school tuition programs.
Now, Education Savings Account accountability measures are aligned with the Education Freedom Scholarships program. While private schools will be required to submit some anonymized testing results, it will be difficult to determine an apples-to-apples comparison of student educational outcomes for the more than 40,000 Tennessee students using public funds to attend private schools.