(3n + 3)(3n + 1)
Hamilton County high school students can solve that Algebra 1 problem better than most students in Tennessee (and probably those of us graduates who never again needed to use our once-learned skills).
The local school district's percentage of students who are "on track" or have "mastered" Algebra 1 during the 2016-2017 school year - 18.7 percent compared to the state's 15.1 percent - is one of the bright spots in the TNReady scores released by the Tennessee Department of Education on Wednesday.
Hamilton County high school students (grades 9-12), compared to last year, also scored an average of 1.9 percent better in all tested subjects, including 3.25 percent in the subjects in which they improved (English 1, English 2, English 3, Algebra 1, geometry and chemistry).
The district's top improvement came in chemistry, where 33.7 percent of students, a rise of 4.9 percent from the 2015-2016 school year, are "on track" or have "mastered" the subject.
In that class, for those of us who have forgotten our chemistry, we would need to figure out, among other things, if the identity of an element is determined by the number of its protons, neutrons, electrons or its atomic mass.
Overall, the district improved in six subjects but worsened in three (Algebra 2, biology and United States history). Its average increase of "on track" or mastered" students in English scores was 3.53 percent. Its ranking in mathematics compared to other districts in the state rose 14.3 percent, according to the Hamilton County Department of Education.
We salute these district gains and echo Superintendent Dr. Bryan's Johnson goal of Hamilton County becoming "the fastest improving district in Tennessee." The gains are especially gratifying considering that the TNReady test, for which the 2016-2017 year was only its second for use, is considered to be, according to the district, "far more rigorous than the test given in years past."
If that rigor, in fact, is the case, the state as a whole has reason to celebrate as 54 districts saw an increase in their percentage of students who are "on track" or "mastered" in both mathematics and English. That included an increase in those designations in 102 districts in English and 61 in math.
We also appreciate the new Hamilton County superintendent's desire that "there must be a sense of urgency and a focus on excellence." No district, after all, wants to decline year over year in specific subjects, and even though Hamilton County declined only .2 percent in both biology and U.S. history, its drop was steeper - 2 percent - in Algebra 2.
More significantly, in eight of the nine subject areas, the district scores are lower than the state average. Indeed, they range from 3.1 to 9.1 percent lower than the state. They are farthest off the state norm in biology (5.9 percent), Algebra 2 (6.9 percent), chemistry (7.5 percent) and U.S. history (9.1 percent).
For those who have been out of school for a while, those courses call for students to be proficient in questions such as: Which phase in the cell cycle sees the replication of DNA? (biology), What is the inverse of f(x)=x+1? (Algebra 2), What's the difference between a solution, a suspension and a colloid? (chemistry), and What treaty ended the American Revolutionary War? (U.S. history).
The Tennessee Department of Education's newest release did not reflect the scores of the district's individual schools. Those scores, which are expected to be released later this year, will be important in determining just how any promised local-state collaboration in dealing with the district's lowest performing schools will be structured.
The district, according to its release, also can point to an improvement in its preliminary ACT composite scores, including greater gains at 14 of 19 high schools from 2016 to 2017 than from 2015 to 2016.
In addition, district students with "college ready" ACT scores of 21 or higher leapt from 36.6 percent in 2016 to 40.1 percent in 2017. Yearly jumps like that will make it much easier for Hamilton County students to do their part in achieving Gov. Bill Haslam's goal of 55 percent of Tennesseans having a college degree or certificate by 2025.
District-wide, Hamilton County has reason to celebrate after it made across-the-board literacy one of its strategic goals for the 2016-2017 school year. Its year-over-year scores and ACT gains show needed and noteworthy improvement. We hope when individual scores (including scores for grades 3-8) are released, the district's struggling schools - into which so much money and treasure have been poured - will be revealed to have led such progress.