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Tennessee students have nearly returned to pre-pandemic achievement levels in math and have also made significant improvements in reading, according to a recent report that charts how well schools have recovered from harmful closures.

The state has revamped both subjects in recent years, starting with the passage of the . New math curricula rolled out two years later. The dual efforts cost more than $130 million in state and federal funding, education officials said, and the work is ongoing.聽

State education leaders attribute student and teacher success to the use of high-quality instructional materials, ongoing professional development, robust summer math programs and high-dosage tutoring in both subjects. 

鈥淭ennessee implemented specific high-dosage tutoring requirements which include a minimum of two to three sessions per week for 30-45 minutes delivered by a certified teacher or trained tutor in groups no larger than three students for the entire school year,鈥� explained Kristy Brown, chief academic officer at the state Department of Education. 

According to the Education Scorecard report, which examined both state-level tests and student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress for grades three through eight, Washington, D.C., made the most gains in math, followed by , Louisiana, Delaware and Maryland. 

The nation鈥檚 capitol also outdid all other states captured in the scorecard in reading. But the report鈥檚 overall findings were bleak. It concluded the U.S. has been in a 鈥渓earning recession鈥� since 2013, a trend that has run alongside kids鈥� skyrocketing use of social media and the decline of school accountability measures.

Math proficiency rates in Tennessee on state assessments between 2021 and 2025, moving from 28% to 42%. But historically underserved students still lagged their peers.

While nearly 51% of white children met that benchmark last year, just 24% of Black students, 32% of Hispanic kids, 26% of English learners and 24% of economically disadvantaged children did the same. Results were similar for  

Still, Tennessee ranked high among dozens of states, according to the Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth researchers who produced the scorecard, now in its fifth year. 

Christy Wall, the state鈥檚 assistant commissioner of academics and instructional strategy, said Tennessee learned much from the successful rollout of its literacy initiative and applied winning strategies to mathematics. The state was sure to include input from school leaders and staff, and provide proper training so they would not feel blindsided 鈥� or unsupported 鈥� in implementing the changes. 

And they were careful to factor in the time it takes to adopt a new strategy, she said. 

鈥淚t didn鈥檛 seem like something new,鈥� Wall said of the updated math curriculum. 鈥淚t was a predictable cadence in terms of tools and resources.鈥�

The scorecard analyzed data from roughly 10,000 school districts: 450 saw improvement in either math or reading and 108 were labeled 鈥渙n the rise鈥� for gains in both subjects. Such districts must serve more than 1,200 students in grades three to eight, have at least four peer districts in their state, and report an increase in achievement of at least 0.3 grade levels in reading and math from scores derived between 2019鈥�2025. Johnson City, Putnam County, White County, and Maury County schools in Tennessee were in the on-the-rise category. 

COVID-era federal relief money 鈥� the state received roughly $3.86 billion in aid for K鈥�12 schools at that time 鈥� supported much of Tennessee’s efforts around both subjects. That money eventually dried up, but the state managed to fund the programs that worked best, including summer learning and tutoring for English and math.  

Brown said, too, state regulations require that students who were retained in any grade between kindergarten through second must be provided a tutor. The same holds true for students who did not score proficient on the reading portion of the state assessments at the end of third grade. 

Chelsea Crawford is the executive director of , an advocacy organization that seeks to ensure every student in that state has access to a high-quality education. 

Crawford served as the state education department鈥檚 chief of staff during the pandemic closures in 2020 and credits another factor for its success: a quick return to in-person learning. 

Most Tennessee students, she said, by fall of that same year. 

鈥淣ot all of our districts opened on that timeline, but the vast majority of them did,鈥� Crawford said.  

And, she said, the state鈥檚 requirements around tutoring meant students received the help they needed, as evidenced by their improvement. 

鈥淭here’s a very specific kind of approach for districts to follow, including things like tutoring for the entirety of a semester focused on a single subject,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o, you’re getting deep intervention in the subject matter where you need it as opposed to a little bit of tutoring across all of your areas.鈥�

And the districts had financial incentives to spur their own investment in education, she said. 

鈥淲e actually created a recognition program where districts would be required to fill out a plan on how they intended to spend their money,鈥� she said of COVID-era funding. 鈥淎nd if they were able to demonstrate to us that they wanted to spend at least 50% of their local allocation on student academic need, tying their investment to the areas where their students needed the most help, then we as a state agency would take a portion of our set aside and gift it to that district.鈥�

The report notes larger gains among the highest-income and the lowest-income school districts in the country with middle-income districts 鈥� those where 30% to 70% of students receive federally subsidized lunches 鈥� seeing the least improvement, on average.

Achievement data was derived from the and produced by  

A dozen states 鈥� Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont among them 鈥� were not included in the analysis. Some, including New York, had too few state test score results as many students chose to opt-out of those exams, according to the report. 

Before the “learning recession” detailed in the report, researchers noted the academic gains that preceded it. Between 1990 and 2013, math achievement in grades four and eight rose, improving by more than two grade equivalents during that time. 

Fourth graders in 2013 were scoring at a similar level to sixth graders in 1990, according to the analysis.

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