Hamilton County Schools’ results on the spring 2021 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests are truly a good news/bad news scenario.
The good news is the county outperformed the state in 24 of 28 tested areas, a mammoth jump from outperforming the state in three of 21 tested areas during the 2016-2017 year, the last one before the arrival of now-outgoing Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson.
The bad news is that, overall, math and English proficiency scores dropped for the district.
If we weren’t in the middle of a global pandemic, the bad news would be the big news because going backward is rarely the right direction. But scores dropped all across the state – and country for that matter – because so many students were forced to attend class remotely late in the 2019-2020 school year and for part of the 2020-2021 year.
Johnson, who leaves next week for a job in the private sector, said Hamilton County should use the scores as a baseline and never look back.