Cooper: Moving beyond 'satisfactory'

Jessica Hubbuch, a teacher at Howard High School, and Frenzica Mann, a teacher at East Lake Academy, help lead a breakout session during an Opportunity Zone initiative celebration event last fall at Orchard Knob Elementary School.
Jessica Hubbuch, a teacher at Howard High School, and Frenzica Mann, a teacher at East Lake Academy, help lead a breakout session during an Opportunity Zone initiative celebration event last fall at Orchard Knob Elementary School.

"We are satisfactory!"

It's hardly the slogan you'd want cheerleaders for your favorite football team to use to exhort fans.

But that's where the Hamilton County Department of Education is listed under the Tennessee Department of Education's recently released updated accountability system.

"Satisfactory" is the third of four designations under the accountability system - below "exemplary" and "advancing" and above "in need of improvement."

A year ago, Hamilton County was listed under the second designation, then called "achieving."

For 2018, though, several categories were included in the accountability system for the first time, including English learner proficiency assessment data, chronic absenteeism, Ready Graduate data, science data, and the requirement of a 95 percent ACT or SAT participation rate.

"Under Tennessee's accountability system, districts must increase achievement levels for all students and show faster growth in achievement for the students who are furthest behind in order to narrow achievement gaps," Chandler Hopper, deputy director of communications for the Department of Education, wrote in an email. "Our accountability model in compliance with the [federal] Every Student Succeeds Act includes indicators like chronic absenteeism and suspensions, ACT composites, English learner performance and TNReady scores."

The good news is that Hamilton County is not one of the 26 school systems listed as "in need of improvement," meaning those 26 districts did not meet their minimum progress goals and are not showing evidence of meaningful student progress based on achievement, growth, or subground improvement, as well as meeting 95 percent participation rate on state assessments and the ACT.

However, the Achievement School District (where five Hamilton County schools might have been placed had not the state and the district been able to work out a compromise), Davidson County (Metro Nashville), Kingsport City, Marion County and Monroe County are among the systems on the "in need of improvement" list.

The "advancing" list, on which are the most districts in the state, includes Bradley County, Cleveland City, Dayton City, Grundy County, Knox County (Knoxville), McMinn County, Meigs County, Polk County, Rhea County, Sequatchie County and Shelby County (Memphis). It also includes the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System, where Hamilton County Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson served before coming here.

Johnson's goal there - now here - was to be the fastest improving system in the state.

Regarding accountability of individual schools, nine Hamilton County schools are now on the state's priority list, meaning they landed there because they were in the bottom 5 percent of schools in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 and because they did not show high growth on TVAAS scores, or because they had a graduation rate of less than 67 percent in 2017-2018.

That added Calvin Donaldson Environmental Science Academy, Clifton Hills Elementary, Hardy Elementary School and The Howard School to the five schools that have been on the state's priority list for at least six years - Brainerd High, Dalewood Middle, Orchard Knob Elementary, Orchard Knob Middle and Woodmore Elementary.

Since the listing is based on test scores from the two years previous to 2017-2018, when testing glitches caused the scores to be deemed unusable for state rankings, Hamilton County officials already knew the schools' standing. That's why Johnson put all 12 schools - all schools in the feeder systems of Brainerd High and The Howard School - under an Opportunity Zone umbrella last fall.

All schools in the Opportunity Zone, including the original five priority schools now designated as part of a state-local Partnership Network, receive various additional supports in an effort to turn them around. And all priority schools in the state are eligible for additional funding - $10 million in each of the last two years - to support initiatives to improve student performance.

Every third year, when the state tabs its priority and reward (top 5 percent) schools, someone in Hamilton County Schools says it takes years to turn around low-performing schools. Fair enough. But now that list has four additional schools, and the original five have been on state watch lists for well over a decade.

We believe Johnson and his team are making changes and offering better assistance and opportunities that can improve these schools. As we have noted in the past, for Johnson's first year here, the district got a mulligan because of the glitches in statewide testing this spring.

On the other end of the spectrum, things already are looking up. For 2018, Hamilton County has 17 schools listed as Reward Schools, meaning they are improving in terms of achievement and growth for both all students and for student groups. That is the highest number of schools the district has had on such a list going back to 2012, according to the state education department website.

For the newly begun 2018-2019 school year, we hope what has been put in place will bring evidence of success among priority schools as well.

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