Tennessee 2005 Report Card

State report card shows school system moving forward

The state of Tennessee released school report cards in November, 2005, and the Knox County School system has made significant improvement in several areas while maintaining a strong overall performance.

Much of the information contained on the report card was released this summer as federal No Child Left Behind performance data, but the report card carries some additional performance data and value added scores along with letter grades in most areas.

"I am very excited about the improvement we have shown at many schools and system wide in our value added scores," said Dr. Charles Lindsey, superintendent of schools for Knox County. "Our performance in the four tested areas of math, social studies, science and reading and language arts is three A's and a B. This is up from three C's and a B last year. Our achievement performance as a system has been strong, but the value added scores indicate that we are moving toward even better achievement performance"

The scores from the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System indicate a student's individual educational growth over the course of a school year. A grade of C means a student learned all that was expected. Grades of A and B indicate more than one year of growth was achieved in the school year.

"I am proud of the work our administrators and teachers have done to meet the No Child left Behind act requirement to have all teachers highly qualified," said Lindsey. "Over 90% of our teachers are currently highly qualified and we are on track to meet the 100% goal by the end of the school year as mandated by NCLB."

All Knox County teachers are properly licensed by the state, but the added requirements of NCLB have caused the school system to have to adjust the way it manages teacher assignments and training.

"The report card shows what a solid school system we have," said Dr. Donna Wright, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Knox County Schools. "As a rule our schools offer students a challenging curriculum and our students meet the challenge. I am very excited about the general trend we are seeing in the increasing numbers of students who are performing on grade level.

"We have instituted a number of programs in recent years that are beginning to make a significant impact on our student performance," said Wright. "We have a number of early childhood initiatives that have really taken hold, and the curriculum pieces of the Project GRAD Program are now fully implemented in 10 of our inner city elementary schools. I think the fact that 26 of our schools have straight A's in value added and the remainder have primarily A and B grades speaks volumes for the work teachers and students are doing in Knox County."