Revisions include emphasis on student choice, more diverse texts.
Image: Spectators look on during State of Board of Education meeting in February. Image Credit: Martin B. Cherry / Nashville Banner
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by Lillian Avedian, [The Nashville Banner, Creative Commons] –
English Language Arts instruction will look slightly different at all Tennessee public schools starting with the 2029-30 academic year. The State Board of Education voted on final reading to approve revisions to the ELA standards at its quarterly meeting on May 19.
After a two-year process involving several rounds of review by teams of educators and 48,000 responses to statewide feedback surveys, the Standards Recommendation Committee proposed changes to 80 percent of the 450 current ELA standards. The committee — composed of eight members appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house — deleted 14 percent of the standards and introduced 23 new ones. Just six percent of the standards have not been altered at all.
Committee Vice Chair Lucas Hilliard, an English teacher for Sumner County Schools, acknowledged that teachers’ “enthusiasm” about the new standards will play a “vital role” in their successful implementation.
“We believe that these changes we proposed are largely those that teachers and instructional leaders already wish to see,” Hilliard said during a Feb. 27 meeting.
Those changes include adding a new emphasis on student choice in writing and reading materials in order to promote student engagement. Students will be expected to read extended and complete texts, rather than just excerpts. The new standards specify how long students’ written responses should be at each grade level, such as at least a single paragraph or multiple paragraphs.
One new standard encourages students to use digital tools, such as AI and large language models, to enhance their writing when appropriate.
The committee also revised some standards in order to expect that students read texts from diverse cultures, and that publishers consider this when developing textbooks and instructional materials.
The State Board of Education is tasked with assembling teams to review ELA, math, science and social studies standards every eight years. Curriculum as well as classroom units and lessons are all designed to teach the standards, on which students are tested to assess their understanding.
For example, one reading standard states that students should be able to “analyze what a text says explicitly and draw logical inferences,” as well as “cite several pieces of relevant textual evidence to support conclusions” by the end of eighth grade.
“Setting standards is one of the major responsibilities that we have on the State Board,” chair Robert Eby said at the quarterly meeting. “The time that teachers spend to come and sit on those standards review committees is outstanding.”
The Standards Recommendation Committee also shared some suggestions with the Department of Education to improve ELA instruction in middle school.
Students study all three writing modes — narrative, informative and argumentative — each year of middle school. The committee received feedback from teachers that this doesn’t leave enough time to master all three and requested that the department add time for middle school ELA instruction.
The committee also recommended that the department announce which of the three writing modes will appear on state assessments, in order to provide teachers with time and clarity to tailor end-of-year instruction to the test.
The State Board of Education recently began its two-year process for reviewing the math standards. Teams of educators will meet in July to propose initial revisions based on a public feedback survey circulated in April.
