The reason this blog is now vital is because productive public conversations in support of MSCS improvment should be happening NOW. The former as opposed to just before TCAP administration. The time for those conversations is during this school year planning time. But those productive conversations are not occurring, due to lacking instructional focus and widely understood academic improvement goals.

Without any locally understood MSCS instructional focus comes deficient academic progress. And when there is no known instructional focus, productive community conversations regarding MSCS improvement cannot occur. At the same time, I agree with Dr. Roderick Richmond that MSCS outcome comparisons with suburban schools are unfair.

However, MSCS middle schools are a living nightmare. And get this, the public does not even know of the acute MSCS middle school crisis, which must somehow come from lacking MSCS instructional focus. Seems all that is widely publicly discussed is Pre-K and the 3^rd grade reading scores. That’s it !

On Behind the Headlines (BTH), neither Senator Brent Taylor nor Representative and Education Chair Mark White seemed to have any idea of the middle school crisis. No instructional focus equals deficient progress.

As far as the MSCS district breakup discussed on BTH, perhaps dividing new districts along elementary (K-5), middle school (6-8) and high school (9-12) lines might work to drive instructional focus. Schools that do not meet the former grade configurations could be distributed among the 3 new districts.

But, back to Richmond. What are fair MSCS comparisons and realistic goals, while YES, adopting Dr. Richmond’s incremental approach? Historically, prior to Richmond, I have never heard MSCS publicly articulate concrete instructional goals. Rhetorical, unrealistic and aspirational MSCS goals, that provide no help, are the norm. Goals like “100% college and career ready students by 2030”. Because this goal is ridiculously unrealistic, neither the public nor MSCS themselves can hold MSCS accountable.

Given current MSCS outcomes and away from the suburbs, goals and comparisons to State and TN municipal averages are both fair and rigorous.  The TN municipal average is the average TCAP scores of Metro Nashville, Knox and Hamilton Counties. The former data is captured in a table that leads the next TCAP data section.

And regarding the State, averages are shown for the entire State and the average in the State without and beyond MSCS. In this way, taxpayers can see the achievement occurring throughout the State beyond MSCS.  

Away from suburban comparisons, achieving State TCAP averages is a fair and concrete long-term goal for MSCS. But to achieve the State TCAP averages, incremental annual goals are needed, which to my knowledge are never articulated by MSCS. This bad habit of non-articulation stifles productive community academic improvement conversations.

The following scores are percentage proficient plus those exceeding proficiency, using data sourced from the 2025 TN Report Card, then compiled and calculated.

First, as shown above, middle school scores in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math are off state averages beyond MSCS by more than 50%. That’s why the state average is a long-term goal. This data point also defines the acute MSCS middle school crisis.

Next, also note the amplified 2025 MSCS score slide, within MSCS, from elementary (3-5) to middle school (6-8). State and TN Munis slide as well, but at an approximate rate of 20%. Whereas the MSCS middle school slide ranges 30% and above !

So, given these low abysmal outcomes, what might be a concrete incremental goal for the middle school crisis in pursuit of the State average? Referring to the table above and assuming continued statewide improvement, the below goal would take MSCS five years to achieve the State middle school average by 2030. Here’s the proposed incremental goal in pursuit of state averages:

Sustain 17% annual middle school TCAP gains in ELA and Math

Next, could be district wide subgroup goals that leverage MSCS capacity in providing instruction to Black and Economically Disadvantaged students. Some good news here. MSCS is on par with TN Munis with Black and Economically Disadvantaged students, so TN Muni data in this table was not published. Below is an example regarding TCAP ELA data.

In 2025, the TCAP state average for exceeding or meeting proficiency for Black students is 25.8% and 23.8% for Economically Disadvantaged. Excluding MSCS, the statewide averages are 27.7% and 24.9% respectively. MSCS averages are 22.2% and 20.2%. While knowing the State would likely be improving as well, the below districtwide goal would support MSCS exceeding the State average for Black and Economically Disadvantaged students and would take MSCS 2-3 yrs. to achieve. 

Increase TCAP ELA and Math proficiency for Black and Economically Disadvantaged subgroups by 15% per year.

Given the significant MSCS populations of Black and Economically Disadvantaged populations, the above goal will have a positive wide-ranging impact, while supporting MSCS in exceeding State averages in these subgroups.

There are numerous other goals that could be set. But these are solid incremental goals to improve instructional focus, while facilitating productive community conversations around MSCS academic improvement. Let’s hope Dr. Richmond sees value in driving instructional focus through thoughtful incremental goal setting.

Check the Facts

NOTE: To calculate the State w/o MSCS average, MSCS had 11% of the elementary statewide population and 10% of the statewide middle school and high school population. As far as subgroups the calculation was performed with MSCS having 34% of the Black population and 24% of the Economically Disadvantaged statewide population. These are close estimates and can be more closely determined when the State publishes the complete TCAP 2025 tables. 

State of TN Report Card - https://tdepublicschools.ondemand.sas.com/