After increasing proficiency rates in English and math for the past two years, the percentage of Hamilton County Schools students who performed at or above grade-level expectations held largely steady during the 2023-24 school year, according to newly released test scores.
The majority of county students did not meet or exceed grade-level expectations in any subject under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program: a 38.9% proficiency in English, 44.4% in science and 44.9% in social studies. The overall math proficiency rate is expected to be released in the late fall after the Tennessee Department of Education reassesses its high school math standards.
Scores are down slightly compared to last year — less than a percentage point difference in each subject — but they remain above the 2021 and 2022 scores. In 2023, the district saw its best test scores since the start of the pandemic.
“We did a lot of work last year to see those gains and to be able to keep those gains is really exciting,” Shannon Moody, the district’s chief strategy officer, told reporters Monday. “I hope, too, that they’ll (parents) continue to push us to seeing the gains that we want to see in our strategic plan. We know we want to be able to dig into some of this work and figure out how we make those consistent, steady gains recurring year over year without losing any ground anywhere.”