Quality Counts Reports Give State “A” in ed policy, “D+” in achievement

Tennessee ranks number one for its education policy, even as student achievement lags behind the national average.

Education Week Magazine released its annual Quality Counts report (today/yesterday). It gives Tennessee an A, and the number one spot in its rankings, for transition policies. Those are standards put in place to ease the transitions for young children just starting school and graduates moving into college and the workplace. The state’s methods of assessing students and holding schools accountable earned an A minus and a tenth place ranking.

However, the state’s scores for student achievement and chance for success are still low-a D plus and C minus, respectively. That puts Tennessee in the bottom third of the nation in both of those categories. But Education Week researcher Christopher Swanson says Tennessee’s test scores are improving at one of the fastest rates in the nation.

“The movement on achievement seems to be in the right direction, although, like a lot of states in the region, it has a long way to go. But maybe Tennessee’s going to be our next Florida or Texas in a couple of years.”

Those two states rank 7th and 13th in the nation for student achievement, outperforming the rest of the Southeast.

In other areas, the study gave Tennessee a C for efforts to improve teacher quality and a C minus in school financing.