Thursday, August 27, 2026

Memphis-Shelby County Schools

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Three in Four Districts Still Above 2021 Levels

> Correction: An earlier version described the enrollment shares for recovered and non-recovered districts as statewide. The shares are calculated within the 142-district comparison group with data in...

One in Four High Schoolers Is Chronically Absent

In Davidson County, the K-8 chronic absenteeism rate has fallen five years straight, from 25.2% down to 18.4%. Attendance teams in Nashville's elementary and middle schools have pushed nearly seven pe...

Three in Four Black Students in Tennessee Are in Class. Nashville's Playbook for the Rest.

In Knox County, 29.3% of Black students were chronically absent in 2024-25. The district's overall rate was 19.4%. That 9.9 percentage-point gap means a Black ninth-grader in Knoxville is nearly twice...

180,000 Students Still Missing Too Much School

In 2023-24, Tennessee's chronic absenteeism rate fell 1.3 percentage points, the largest single-year improvement since the pandemic began. Attendance directors across the state had reason to think mom...