The Tennessee Department of Education released its state report card today for the 2018-2019 school year.

The dashboard for the report card features a variety of information about how schools are performing and addressing the needs of students – information that is critical to understand as the department seeks to set all students on a path to success under its new strategic plan, The information is broken down into six main categories, which are as follows:

• Academic Achievement: Whether students are performing at or above grade level or whether the school improved from year to year;
• Student Academic Growth: Whether students are making progress from year to year;
• Chronically Out of School: Whether students are absent more than 10 percent of the year;
• Progress on English Language Proficiency: Whether students who are English learners are making progress;
• Ready Graduate: Whether students are prepared for postsecondary education or career paths after they leave high school; and
• Graduation Rate: Whether students are graduating from high school on time.

In Cumberland County, the report states 38.4 percent of students are at or above grade levels. This is a near 2 percent increase from last year. It is up from the state average of 36.4 percent. The percentage of students at or above grade level in math is 38.6 percent (a 2.2 percent increase from last year), 37.5 percent in English (a 2.2 percent increase from last year) and 40 percent in social studies (a 0.6 decrease from last year).

As far as student growth, Cumberland County, is at a level 3, In English, it is a level 5 (highest rate) and in math and social studies, it’s a level 2.

The percentage of students who were absent for more than 10% or more of the year (chronically absent) is 11.6 percent. This a 1.6 decrease from last year. The in-school suspensions went up in this report to 6.2 percent. It was 4.6 percent last year. The out-of-school suspensions went from 2.3 percent last year to 3 percent this year.

The report states 59.2 percent of students progress on English language proficiency.

As far as ready to graduate, the report says 43.6 percent of students are ready overall. This is above the state average of 40 percent.

Finally, the percentage of students in Cumberland County that will graduate in 4 years overall comes in at 92.5 percent. That is a 2.3 percent increase from last year. The dropout rate in Cumberland County fell from 7.6 percent last year to 6.4 percent this year.