More Needed For Gifted Students

According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Tennessee scores low on tracking accountability for gifted students. Tennessee received one out of four stars in the report. Grace Tatter and Nic Garcia at Chalkbeat:

To improve accountability, Tennessee should give additional points to schools that boost student scores to the highest possible level on state tests, the report said. It also should report gifted and talented students’ scores separately, as it does for racial minorities, English language learners, and other subgroups of students.

Fordham’s report asserts that an unintended consequence of previous accountability systems is that high-performing students, especially those at struggling schools, were left without support to push them even further in their academic pursuits.

Specifically, the report says that Tennessee “includes high-achieving students in its growth model but does little else to encourage schools to pay attention to them.”

You can read the full report here.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow@TNEdReport.