2018 School Accountability

Tennessee’s accountability system is built on the premise that all schools should be able to achieve Reward status, and there is no cap on the number of Reward schools. Reward schools are generally those that are improving in terms of achievement and growth for both all students and student groups. These schools are identified annually.

There are some exceptions:

• A school cannot be Reward if any student group performs in the bottom 5 percent in the state for that group
• A school cannot be Reward if also designated Priority or in need of Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI)

Tennessee designates the schools most in need of support and improvement as Priority schools. Priority schools are eligible for additional funding and will be supported by the department, particularly in developing an evidence-based school improvement plan based on needs assessments and root cause analysis work. Priority schools are designated at least every three years, but schools are able to exit the list annually if they meet specific performance criteria.

Schools are identified as Priority for one of two reasons:

• Being in the bottom 5 percent in 2015-16 and 2016-17 AND not meeting the TVAAS safe harbor, which allows schools to not be identified if they are showing high growth.
• Having a graduation rate of less than 67 percent in 2017-18.

Following state legislation passed in April 2018, no school is identified as a Priority school using 2017-18 TNReady data. However, schools could use data from 2017-18 to come off the Priority list.

*Indicates these schools have closed since the 2017-18 school year.

⁺ Caldwell Elementary was renamed in 2018-19 as Ida B. Wells Elementary School.

Tennessee is required by federal law to include 2017-18 data in determining Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools, which is a new federal designation for schools most in need of improvement. 2018 CSI schools include all 2018 Priority schools, plus those schools that would fall into the bottom 5 percent of schools using 2017-18 data. Additionally, CSI schools include all schools in the Achievement School District, regardless of performance. Many Achievement School District schools otherwise do not fall into the bottom 5 percent.

There is significant overlap between the 2018 Priority and 2018 CSI lists. There are only five schools that are identified as a CSI school that are not a Priority or an ASD school. These schools are eligible for additional funding and will be supported by the department, similar to Priority schools.

*Indicates these schools have closed since the 2017-18 school year.

Tennessee is required by federal law to include 2017-18 data in determining Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI) schools, which is a new federal designation for schools that need particular focus on their student group performance. 2018 ATSI schools are the schools with the lowest performance across student groups using 2017-18 data. These schools will be supported by the department and are eligible for additional funding.

There are two paths through which a school could be designated as ATSI:

• Overall school accountability score of 1.0 or less on the state’s new accountability framework AND ranks in bottom five percent for at least one accountability student group (i.e., black, Hispanic, and Native American students; economically disadvantaged students; English learners; and students with disabilities)
• Ranks in bottom 5 percent for two or more student groups

In the future, ATSI schools will be a portion of the state’s Focus schools, which are the schools that historically Tennessee has designated for need of improvement due to the performance of one or more student groups.