When Tennessee families research schools, they may come across a term that is not immediately familiar: TVAAS. A school might be described as earning a TVAAS Level 5, but what does that actually tell parents?
TVAAS stands for the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System. Rather than simply looking at whether students have reached a particular academic benchmark, TVAAS focuses on how much academic growth students make over time.
Understanding the difference between growth and achievement can give families another useful perspective when researching schools for their children.
What Is TVAAS?
TVAAS is Tennessee’s system for measuring student academic growth. The Tennessee Department of Education explains that TVAAS looks at growth rather than simply whether students are proficient on state assessments.
In parent-friendly terms, TVAAS helps answer a question like:
How much academic progress did students make based on where they started?
That is different from an achievement measure, which generally asks:
How well are students performing against grade-level academic standards?
Imagine two students who begin the school year at different academic levels. One may already be performing above grade level, while another may need additional support. Looking only at their final test scores does not necessarily show how much each student learned during the year.
Growth measures provide another way to understand that progress.
What Does TVAAS Level 5 Mean?
TVAAS results are reported using levels ranging from 1 through 5. Under Tennessee’s 2025-26 methodology, Level 5 indicates significant evidence that students made more academic growth than expected, with greater growth than the Level 4 designation.
Level 5 is the highest TVAAS growth designation.
However, it is important to understand what that does—and does not—mean. A Level 5 TVAAS score does not mean every student received the highest possible test score or that every student is performing above grade level.
Instead, it indicates strong academic growth.
A school can therefore serve students at many different achievement levels while still demonstrating high levels of growth. A student might begin the year below grade level and remain below proficiency at the end of the year while still making substantial academic progress.
TVAAS is designed to help capture that progress.
Growth and Achievement Tell Different Stories
Parents researching schools may encounter both achievement and growth information. These measures complement each other because they answer different questions.
Achievement data shows where students are performing academically at a particular point in time. Growth data looks at how much progress students have made.
Looking at both achievement and growth can therefore give parents a more complete picture of a school’s academic results.
Why Academic Growth Matters for Families
Every child enters the classroom with different strengths, experiences, and areas for development. Families naturally want to know whether a school can help their child continue moving forward academically.
That is one reason growth information can be useful when comparing schools.
Strong TVAAS results provide information about the academic progress made by students served by a school. Because TVAAS considers students’ previous performance, it offers a perspective that is different from simply comparing proficiency percentages or raw test scores.
Academic growth is also one of the factors Tennessee uses when evaluating school performance through its accountability systems.
For families, growth data can help answer an important question: Are students making meaningful academic progress while attending this school?
How Parents Can Use TVAAS When Researching Schools
TVAAS can be a valuable research tool, but families do not have to evaluate a school based on a single score.
Parents can look at a school’s overall growth results, performance in individual subjects, achievement levels, and trends over multiple years. Tennessee provides public school- and district-level academic data that families can use as part of their research.
Parents may also want to ask:
- How have students grown academically in recent years?
- How does the school support students who need additional help?
- How are students who already meet or exceed expectations challenged?
- How do teachers use assessment results to guide instruction?
- What do achievement and growth results show when considered together?
Families can combine those answers with other important factors, including school culture, academic programs, extracurricular opportunities, student support, teacher-family communication, and preparation for middle school, high school, college, or a career.
Understanding Academic Growth at KIPP Nashville
At KIPP Nashville, academic results provide families with information about how students are progressing toward their educational goals. TVAAS growth results are one part of the larger picture parents can consider when researching a KIPP Nashville school.
For families, the key takeaway is straightforward: TVAAS Level 5 is a measure of strong academic growth. It indicates significant evidence that students made more progress than expected under Tennessee’s growth model.
TVAAS does not tell parents everything about a school, and it should not be considered in isolation. When combined with achievement results and information about a school’s teachers, programs, culture, and student supports, however, growth measures can help families better understand how effectively students are progressing academically.
