Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter/ The Howard School Principal and Principal of the Year LeAndrea Ware, right, helps unveil Hamilton County Schools student achievement scores at the Tennessee Aquarium on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 in Chattanooga, Tenn.Less than a week after Hamilton County Schools officials announced that the district had received the top designation for student growth in the state – a Level 5 TVAAS score – top local leaders responding to a new Power Poll said they think public schools here are improving.
Out of the 82 business, civic and government leaders who responded, 78% said schools are getting better and 82% said the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment Scores (TVAAS) indicate schools are making improvements.
Since Superintendent Bryan Johnson took the helm of the district in July 2017, he has said he wants Hamilton County “to be the fastest-improving district in the state of Tennessee.” Last week, Johnson and his team announced what some called “historic” and “unprecedented” student academic growth and achievement.
Based on this year’s TNReady results and TVAAS scores, 32 schools in Hamilton County were named reward schools, which are among the top 20% in the state. The district received the highest level of academic growth across all measurement areas: literacy, numeracy, literacy and numeracy, social studies and overall – and 21 schools also individually earned Level 5 scores across the board.
Just over half – or 57% – of poll respondents rated the overall quality of public schools as fair, though, with only 31% rating school overall quality as good or excellent and 11% rating them as poor.