SB 2403

This bill requires each public school, including public charter schools, to annually submit to the department of education, or a form developed by the department, a list of all local assessments administered to the students enrolled in the public school e ach school year, and the schedule for when each such local assessment is administered. The full text of this bill specifies information that must be included for each reported local assessment. For purposes of this bill, "local assessment"" means a stand a rdized test or assessment selected by an LEA or public school that is administered to students at the sole direction of the LEA or public school. This bill specifies that the following are not a local assessment: (1) A TCAP test or any other standardized assessment or screener administered to students by an LEA or public school pursuant to state law or any rule of the state board of education or the department of education; or (2) An assessment, test, assignment, project, or quiz that is administered only to students in certain classrooms at the direction of the classroom teacher for purposes of assessing student proficiency in a subject, branch of a subject, or in the curric ula or instructional materials assigned to students in the classroom. This bill requires the department to compile the local assessment information reported by public schools and make the information available to the public through an online database accessible through the department's website no later than July 1, 2027. The full text of this bill specifies requirements for the database. Present law requires the teacher evaluation advisory committee to develop and recommend to the state board of education guidelines and criteria for the annual evaluation of all teachers and principals employed by LEAs. Present law requires that 35% of t he evaluation criteria be student achievement data based on student growth data as represented by the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) and 25% be based on other measures of student achievement selected from a list of such measures developed b y the teacher evaluation advisory committee and adopted by the board. Present law authorizes LEAs and public charter schools to also allow teachers to use the results from benchmark assessments including state-adopted benchmark assessments or a universal screener approved by the state board of education as a measure of stu dent achievement. This bill instead authorizes LEAs and public charter schools to allow teachers to use the results from state-adopted benchmark assessments as a measure of student achievement. Present law also authorizes LEAs and public charter schools t o authorize teachers in the non-tested grades K-2 to use the results of the Tennessee universal reading screener or a universal reading screener approved by the state board as an approved alternative growth model to generate individual growth scores for t eachers pursuant to the department's evaluation guidelines. This bill instead authorizes LEAs and public charter schools to allow teachers in K-2 to use only the results of the Tennessee universal reading screener as an approved alternative growth model to generate individual growth scores for teachers pursuant to the evaluation guidelines developed by the department. Present law requires each LEA and public charter school to annually administer a universal reading screener to students in grades K-3. Present law authorizes LEAs and public charter schools to satisfy such requirement by administering the Tennessee univ ersal reading screener provided by the department or a universal reading screener approved by the state board. This bill requires LEAs and public charter schools to use only the Tennessee universal reading screener for students in grades K-3. This bill au thorizes LEAs to use the Tennessee universal reading screener for pre-K students. This bill establishes a nine-member assessment review board to annually review, under the direction of the department of education, the TCAP tests administered to students in the most recent school year. The assessment review board consists of nine publ ic school teachers, with three teachers appointed by each of the governor, the speaker of the senate, and the speaker of the house of representatives. The full text of this bill specifies grade bands from which appointees must be selected and various org an izational and procedural requirements for the review board."