If the Hamilton County Schools have made the strides their administrators said they were making throughout the 2016-2017 school year, we're hopeful their TNReady test scores will be even better than the modest improvements posted by students statewide.
The Tennessee Department of Education released statewide test scores Thursday and is expected to release district-level high school test scores in the next few weeks. Scores for students in grades 3-8 will be released this fall.
Across the state, the number of students meeting grade-level expectations on TNReady tests increased year over year in every general tested category, an accomplishment state Education Commissioner Dr. Candice McQueen called "encouraging" and one that "shows our students are capable of reaching the high bar we've set with our expectations in Tennessee."
The 2016-2017 school year marked the second for state high school students on the TNReady tests. In the first year, nearly 75 percent of students tested below grade level, but officials said that was expected since the tests provided a new baseline from the old TCAP tests.
State officials anticipated an increase this year, and those expectations were fulfilled when scores went up in the general subjects of English, history, math and science. Among individual courses, scores went up in every one but Algebra II and Integrated Math II. The largest gain came in English III, where the percentage of students meeting grade-level expectations rose from 27.4 percent in 2016 to 34.3 percent in 2017.
Included among the five focus areas the Hamilton County district set forth at the start of the 2016-2017 school year were improving literacy rates at all schools and improving the district's lowest-performing schools.
"Improving literacy rates is crucial if students are to succeed in math and on the ACT," Justin Robertson, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said at the time.
Additional literacy instructors had been added to the lowest-performing schools, then-interim Superintendent Dr. Kirk Kelly said.
Certainly, highly improved TNReady scores in Hamilton County's lowest-performing schools will give fuel to the argument that the schools should be given more time before they are put under state-mandated reform, as is suggested for the 2018-2019 school year (with 2017-2018 a bridge year). If the scores are no better than the modest gains across the state, or are worse, the argument of more time goes out the window.
With extra money, extra resources and extra scrutiny focused on the schools during the past year, we're hopeful of a big payoff.