Nathan Hoffman is the Senior Director of State Policy and Advocacy for ExcelinEd.
The late Rev. Dwight Montgomery, Senior Pastor of the Annesdale Cherokee Missionary Baptist Church, President of the Memphis Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Chairman of the Education Committee of the Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, dedicated his life to the cause of civil rights, including the rights of Black children to access a quality education in Memphis and across the state of Tennessee. He argued passionately and consistently for expanding educational opportunity writing, “School choice is creating an integrated learning environment…by providing equal opportunity to a high-quality education for every child, especially the minority and low-income students who have historically been the victims of racism and inequity.”
These educational opportunity and quality gaps have existed far too long between Black students and their peers. And sadly, the existed prior to Rev. Montgomery’s work and continue to impact Tennessee’s Black students today. To highlight this persistent disparity and what states can do to fix it, ExcelinEd has been tracking opportunities and outcomes for Black students in states where they comprise at least 25% of the student population in that state. Opportunity and outcome gaps exist in every state, and Tennessee is no different. The Volunteer State is positioning itself to close these gaps through bold leadership and an aggressive policy agenda.
Nearly 1 million students are enrolled in Tennessee’s public schools. Almost a quarter of these students—nearly 233,000—are Black. Black students comprise the second largest student population in the state, yet they achieve at rates lower than any other student racial demographic. In reading, for example, 21 percent of Black students, 27.2 percent of Hispanic students and 44.2 percent of white students are proficient based on the 2019 TNReady statewide assessment. In math, similar trends persist, with only 9.5% of Black students, 17.1 percent of Hispanic students and 33 percent of white students reading with proficiency.
While Tennessee’s high school graduation rate stands at nearly 90 percent, it differs when you look at subgroup data. Black students in particular are less likely to graduate than their peers, with a cohort graduation rate of 83 percent. White students graduate at a rate of 93 percent. This disparity translates into postsecondary enrollment rates, where Black students enroll in some form of postsecondary education at rates nearly 9 percentage points behind the state average.
This data connects to real and lasting consequences for students. If Tennessee’s gaps in educational attainment are not addressed, they could cost today’s cohort of Black students, collectively, up to $40 billion in lifetime earnings.
In 2012, Tennessee began building a comprehensive early literacy policy. This year, Governor Bill Lee signed the Tennessee Literacy Success Act, the Tennessee Learning Loss Remediation and Student Acceleration Act and established Reading 360. Combined with federal funding, this bold legislation ensures that nearly $100 million will fund educator preparation programs, coaching and ongoing support, high-quality instructional materials and family resources.
As part of this sweeping legislation, Tennessee strengthened its policies to end social promotion. Beginning in the 2022-23 school year, schools and districts can no longer promote students into fourth grade if they cannot read on grade-level by the end of third grade. Additionally, to support struggling students, the Volunteer State authorized after-school learning mini-camps, learning loss bridge camps and summer learning camps.
These interventions have already helped some students grow. Based on Department of Education data, elementary school students who participated in enrichment summer camps in 2021 improved their English language arts performance by 7.34 points.
To provide options to families, Tennessee boasts open enrollment, magnet schools, online, virtual, homeschool and learning pod public school choice opportunities. This spring, the legislature passed SB 788, a bill requiring all districts to establish open enrollment policies. Although this new policy is a step forward in improving school choice options for Tennesseans, the state still faces challenges in this regard
Tennessee has had a charter law since 2002, and more than 40,000 Tennessee students—70 percent of whom are Black—are currently enrolled in a public charter school. Despite the demand for charter options, Tennessee has room for policy growth, as the state ranks 25th out of 45 states with respect to the strength of their charter policy according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Notably, Tennessee leaders could consider 1) adopting a more equitable distribution of funding to ensure students enrolled in public charter schools are getting their fair share, and 2) ensuring charter schools have access to facilities and other operational funding needed to grow and maintain physical space for students.
Options for students to enroll in charter schools aren’t the only programs Tennessee leaders have adopted to expand educational opportunity. In 2019, the Tennessee legislature passed, and Gov. Lee signed into law, the state’s second private school choice program, the Education Savings Account (ESA) program. The ESA program is set to ensure that more low-income students have access to quality educational options and supplemental services. Unfortunately, pending litigation has put the program’s implementation on hold.
The ESA program is purposefully targeted at serving students residing in the two largest counties in Tennessee, Shelby and Davidson counties, where Black students have the fewest high-quality educational opportunities. Just 12 percent of Black students in Memphis (Shelby County) and Nashville (Davidson County) public schools reach proficiency in English-language arts, and just 5 percent of Black students in these schools reach proficiency in math.
Expanding access to public and private education opportunities is not a cure-all. But allowing families to access better schools and educational services will provide greater options for students who are not well served in their residentially assigned school. Parents, especially Black parents, strongly support increasing the number and type of educational opportunities students can access. In fact, according to recent national polling, 73 percent of all Black voters support the concept of school choice.
Governor Lee and Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn recently announced the formation of stakeholder groups to help design a new funding formula for education in the state. It will be focused more on students and their needs as opposed to Tennessee’s current and outdated formula, which bases its funding primarily on building-level resource needs. This stakeholder group is another step in the right direction for Black students in Tennessee. An updated, student-focused funding formula will ensure they and other at-risk student populations get the resources they need to be successful.
Tennessee has pulled important policy levers that invest in and support students. Some of those policies are rightfully focused on closing access and opportunity gaps that have historically marginalized Black students. But there is more work to do.
A continued focus on early literacy and expanding educational opportunities for all students will ensure that more Black students have the tools to thrive in secondary and postsecondary education. Implementing these policies transparently and with a focus on holding schools and other providers accountable for outcomes is critical. State leaders can’t address problems they don’t fully recognize. Understanding the state of Black education in the Tennessee is an important step in serving all students well.
