This Tennessee school system credits AI with improving student TCAP scores. Here’s how

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – A Tennessee school district is crediting an AI teaching assistant program with helping students improve their TCAP English Language Arts (ELA) scores.

Scott Langford, the director of schools for Sumner County, said in a press release that a preliminary report shows that education tech company CourseMojo has been helping maintain student engagement “at the most rigorous point of the lesson.”

“Students take ownership of their own learning while teachers can measure individual student progress in real-time,” Langford said. “Teachers benefit from the feedback to connect students to the standards included in each activity.”

Sumner County schools conducted a pilot test of CourseMojo for sixth graders in six schools during the 2024-2025 school year. After finding an average 8 percentage point increase on the TCAP ELA assessment for those students, they decided to expand the program’s use to all middle school grades last academic year.

While usage of Coursemojo varied across schools, a preliminary analysis of the district’s 2026 TCAP ELA assessment data showed that groups with an average of 25 or more Coursemojo activities per student improved ELA proficiency by an average of 3.7 percentage points. Groups with little or no use of the program saw -0.2 percentage points during those assessments, the district said.

Eighth-graders had the “strongest gains,” the district said, after “stagnant performance for the last several years.” According to the district, those students who had an average of 25 or more Coursemojo activities had an average increase of 8.7 percentage points in proficiency.

Dacia Toll, co-founder and co-CEO of Coursemjojo, said that the “technology alone doesn’t improve student outcomes,” but that the success depends on how educators implement tools.

“Sumner County Schools has been incredibly thoughtful about integrating Coursemojo while keeping rigorous curriculum and great teaching at the center,” Toll said. “We’re proud to partner with a district that’s so committed to their own learning and to helping every student succeed.”

While the district boasts improved proficiency with the AI tool, it also said that its preliminary findings compare outcomes among school-grade groups with different levels of implementation, “rather than against schools that did not use the platform.”

More analyses are expected to be done with the final TCAP data.

Even with the help of the AI tool, the district was not the top in the state for proficiency increase in its TCAP ELA scores, according to state data.

However, district TCAP results show that from 2024 to 2026, the percentage of middle school students not meeting expectations decreased from 54.7% to 51.9%. The number of students meeting or exceeding expectations increased from 45.3% in 2024 to 48.1% in 2026 for ELA.

While that is an improvement, it remains unclear the exact influence Coursemojo had on those scores. And overall, the results show that less than half of Sumner County middle schoolers are proficient in ELA — a result that echoes statewide.