Left Out of the Count: How Including TennCare in Tennessee’s Definition of “Economic Disadvantage” Would Affect Nashville’s Schools

About the Brief

Tennessee’s definition of economic disadvantage (ED) excludes many low-income students, with implications for funding, accountability, and more. This research brief explores how extending the current definition to students participating in TennCare (the state’s Medicaid program) would affect the count of ED students and TISA funding in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS), including MNPS-authorized charter schools.

Key Findings

1. Including TennCare participants in the definition of ED would have resulted in nearly 18,000 additional MNPS students identified as ED in the 2023-24 school year, a 75% increase.
2. Students included in the expanded ED definition (but not the current one) are more likely to be Hispanic and English learners. On average, these students lived in Census tracts with poverty rates comparable to those of current ED students.
3. Assuming the state fully funded these students with the existing TISA formula, the expanded definition of ED would have increased the MNPS budget by $30-$34 million in 2023-24, or about $400-440 per student. An additional 15 schools would have qualified for the state’s “concentrated poverty weight.”