MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The start of the 2023 Tennessee legislative session is less than three weeks away. And many familiar topics will again be on the agenda.
One of them, of course, is education. And you expect plenty of disagreement over whether changes are needed to the state’s controversial third grade retention law. If you don’t have a child or grandchild in early elementary grades, you probably don’t know much about this law. But depending on who’s talking, the law as designed will do lots of good or harm to elementary education.
The law was passed during a special session in 2021 – and it takes effect this school year. Third graders who fail next spring’s TN Ready reading test will be forced to repeat the grade – unless they complete summer school or enroll in a tutoring program during the school year. Some two-thirds of Tennessee third graders fail the test annually. The failure rate is 77 percent in Memphis-Shelby County Schools. So the pushback against the retention law based on a single, subjective test has been strong – not just locally, but across the state. And now there is talk of efforts to at least tweak the law when the legislature reconvenes.
What those tweaks will look like remains to be seen. But this is just one more example of legislators rushing to pass a law without much input from local leaders. What else is new?