Required Assessments
Assessment
What does it assess?
How is this assessment used?
TCAP
Achievement Test
The TCAP Achievement test is required
for students in grades 3-8. It is a timed,
multiple-choice assessment that measures student skills in math, reading,
language arts, science, and social
studies.12
The TCAP assessment is used to measure student
progress on Tennessee’s State Standards. Data
from this assessment are used to better understand
student needs, to measure teaching effectiveness,
to determine reward and priority schools, and to
inform school improvement efforts.13
High School End
of Course
High school end of course examinations are given in English I, English II,
English III, Algebra I, Algebra II, U.S.
History, Biology I, and Chemistry.14
The results from these assessments account for 25
percent of students’ final grades in these subjects.
Additionally, data from these assessments are used
to measure teaching effectiveness, to determine
reward and priority schools, and to inform school
improvement efforts.15
Social Studies
Assessment
The State Board of Education approved
new social studies standards in July
2014. These standards were piloted
in 2013-14 and were implemented in
2014-15.16 For this reason, in January
2014 the State Board approved a plan
for transitioning to a new social studies
assessment that would align with these
new standards.17
In the 2014-15 school year, a new social studies
assessment was piloted across the state. During
this pilot year, scores from the social studies assessments did not factor into teacher evaluation scores.
The assessment will be fully implemented in the
2015-16 school year.18
Writing
Assessment
The online writing assessment was
required for students in grades 5, 8,
and 11. In the 2014-15 school year, the
writing assessment was required for all
students in grades 3-11. The writing
assessment measures student progress
toward key skillsets in writing.
Since writing is an important component of Tennessee’s State Standards, this assessment provides
an important measure of student progress toward
mastery of key skillsets across subjects. Each writing assessment consists of two complex texts that
students respond to in two written essays. Additionally, the writing assessment requires students to
cite evidence from texts to justify their conclusions.
While scores from these assessments do not factor
into teacher evaluations or student grades, they
provide students and teachers with exposure to the
kinds of writing tasks that will be included on new
assessments, like TNReady.19
ACT
The ACT is required for all students in
11th grade in Tennessee and measures
college readiness.
The ACT is used to assess students’ progress
toward college and career readiness and is also an
important measure of high school effectiveness in
Tennessee.
Response to
Instruction and
Intervention (RTI²)
In the 2014-15 school year, Tennessee
implemented RTI² in all elementary
schools statewide. Implementation of
RTI² will expand to middle and high
schools in the 2015-16 school year.
Universal screeners and progress monitoring
assessments are a central component of RTI².
These assessments are used to determine student
placement in different tiers of intervention and to
measure student progress throughout the school
year.
Figure 1
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