Section 2: SCORE Card
High School Graduation Rate
State Data
In “Roadmap to Success”, SCORE said it would track
the state’s progress by examining the College &
Career-Ready Policy Institute metrics developed
by the Governor’s office. Looking at Tennessee’s
progress on these metrics over the past year, both
successes and challenges are evident.
After steady gains over the last decade, Tennessee’s
high school graduation rate reached an all-time high
of 86.1 percent in 2010, increasing from 83.2 percent
in 2009. Over the past five years, the graduation
rate has increased more than 8 percentage points,
from 77.9 percent in 2005 to 86.1 percent in 2010.
Although no one has conducted a formal study
to understand the causes of this increase, a 2010
report by America’s Promise Alliance suggests that
the causes might include the state’s significant
education reform activity over the past few years,
including the Tennessee Diploma Project, a focus on
using data to improve teaching and learning, and
targeting technical assistance to struggling schools.i
In the coming year, SCORE will monitor the state’s
high school graduation rate to see if this trend
continues and, if it does, to understand its causes.
While there was good news on the high school
graduation front, the majority of other statewide
performance indicators declined during the 2009-10
school year. This was in large part due to changes
in state requirements. For example, as mentioned
earlier in this report, the 2009-10 TCAP test was
the first time that Tennessee students were tested
on the state’s new academic standards. As a result,
while 90 percent of students scored “proficient”
or “advanced” on the TCAP math exam in 2009,
only 34 percent fared as well in 2010. Similarly,
while 91 percent of students scored “proficient”
or “advanced” on the TCAP reading exam in 2009,
only 51 percent fared as well in 2010. While declines
87%
in both reading and math show how much work the
state has to do to ensure students are measuring up
to the state’s new academic standards, the size of the
decline in math is particularly concerning. A closer
look reveals that TCAP math scores decrease rapidly
as students move into higher grade levels, with 47.9
percent of 3rd graders, 35.6 percent of 5th graders,
and 26.0 percent of 8th grades proficient or advanced
in math. This data strongly suggests that the state
may need to have a focused strategy for improving
math instruction, especially in middle school where
the declines were the largest. SCORE will continue to
closely monitor this topic in future years.
In addition, the state’s value-added scores were
relatively low this year in all subjects except for
social studies. This was largely because the state
used 2009-10 as the school year in which to re-norm
its value-added data in all subjects except for social
studies. As a result, the state’s average value-added
score dropped to a “D” in all subjects except for
social studies, which was a “C.” With a new baseline
for value-added scores having now been established,
SCORE expects value-added scores to improve in
future years.
Finally, the state’s ACT composite score dropped
a full point from 20.6 to 19.6. This drop primarily
occurred because, for the first time, Tennessee
required all high school juniors to take the ACT. By
comparison, in 2009 only 92 percent of Tennessee
high school juniors participated, meaning that 11,500
additional students took the exam in 2010. It is likely
that requiring this larger student population to take
the exam accounts for at least some, if not all, of
the drop in ACT scores. However, now that all high
school juniors are required to annually take the
ACT, SCORE expects that ACT scores will increase
in future years, especially as students begin to
benefit from the more rigorous requirements of the
Tennessee Diploma Project.
86%
85%
84%
83%
82%
81%
80%
79%
2007
2008
2009
2010
TCAP Reading Proficiency (Grades 3-8)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
2007
2008
2009
2010
TCAP Math Proficiency (Grades 3-8)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
While student achievement data for 2010 provides a startling
picture of the state of education in Tennessee, Tennessee’s
students are now being taught and measured against higher
standards, ensuring graduates will be more competitive in
today’s global economy.
30%
20%