Area scores all over the place
The Tennessee Department of Education, after years-long delays, returned this year to assigning letter grades to its public schools to give parents a more complete picture of each individual facility.
In Georgia, its state education department went the other way, requesting and receiving from the Biden administration a permanent waiver of federal requirements to publish its overall 0-100 score for the state, local districts and individual schools.
In response, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, which had published a report card for parents before the state began to compile and release such data, has returned to its roots and released a college and career ready performance index for the Peach State, its districts and individual schools.
Across the state, elementary, middle and high school clusters all saw drops from pre-COVID scores in 2019 to 2023. Middle schools saw an 8% decline (77 to 70.8), high schools a 6.8% fall (78.8-73.5) and elementaries a 5% drop (79.9-75.9).