Accountability and Testing

Make Sure Your Child Is TNReady for State Testing

Kidcentral TN is a great resource for parents!

Exam time is approaching for TNReady, but there’s still time to work with your child to make sure they’re prepared.

What is TNReady?

As the state has progressed to higher academic standards over the past several years, the tests have become better aligned to what educators are teaching in their classrooms every day. TNReady is designed to assess real student understanding of core subjects, not just basic memorization and test-taking skills.

Parents and teachers have said these are the critical-thinking abilities they want our children to have to be successful, lifelong learners.

TNReady measures students’ understanding of current state standards in English language arts, math, social studies and science, but it is more than a state test. TNReady provides educators, parents and students with better information about how well students at every stage are progressing as they prepare for college and careers.

Assessments are both an instrument of accountability and a tool to ensure student mastery of content standards. Schools must be focused on ensuring a high level of learning for all students. The most important assessments, then, are those that produce data to inform and individualize instruction. These assessments, for learning, are mostly the work of collaborative teams of teachers focused on student outcomes. In Hamblen County Schools, we define assessments as:

Formative Assessments monitor student learning in order to provide meaningful feedback that can be used by teachers to inform next steps and by students to improve performance. Formative assessments are generally low stakes, meaning they have little or no grading value.

Benchmark Assessments are a type of formative assessment. Benchmark assessments are given at regular intervals throughout the academic year and are designed to give teachers immediate feedback on how students are progressing toward mastery of academic standards. Benchmark assessments typically measure student progress against the long-term instructional goals rather than a specific skill.

Summative Assessments evaluate student learning at the end of instruction and are typically assigned a grade value that reflects mastery toward one or more standards.