The Hamilton County Schools district accentuated the positive in its comments about the TCAP data released last week by the Tennessee Department of Education, and this year there was more positive to accentuate than there was to paper over.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that the district garnered better proficiency marks in the four general subjects of English language arts (ELA), math, science and social studies than the state, and not by a little. District students bettered the state marks by 2.4% in social studies, 2% in math, 1.6% in science and 1.5% in ELA.
And with the exception of eighth-grade math and high school United States history, district students exceeded their state counterparts or came within less than a percentage point of doing so in the 28 tested areas.
In six tested areas (fifth-grade math, high school English 2, fifth-grade science, sixth-grade social studies, fifth-grade ELA and fourth-grade math), district students were from 3% to 8.3% better than the state.