DON’T LET COVID TAKE THE FALL FOR SCHOOL FAILURES

Would you like to really know how Hamilton County and Tennessee students are doing in school? Would you like to know what and how they are learning? Well, good luck with that.

In recent weeks, the Chattanooga Times Free Press brought you an analysis of our local schools data, finding that nearly two thirds of a public school students, 63%, were not making their grade level in all subjects. Only 37% — just over a third — had passing proficiency scores across all subjects.

We noted that we usually talk only about 3rd-grade reading scores, but it seems too many people assume the youngsters will catch up. The TFP’s analysis, on the other hand, offers stark proof they don’t. If our schools and students have a problem at the third grade, a dark learning cloud hovers over them for the rest of their lives.

This week, we don’t have better news.

The district announced Monday evening that Tennessee education officials for the 2020-21 school year named 13 Hamilton County schools as “Reward schools” and identified 13 “Level 5” schools (the highest designation possible) and removed Brainerd High from the dreaded “priority list” (the state’s 5% of lowest performing schools or high schools with less than a 67% graduation rate).

That all sounds fine, right? Wrong. Really wrong.

That list of 13 reward schools is down from 32 reward schools in the 2018-19 school year — and down from the 25 reward schools the year before. Reward schools are those that are improving overall student academic achievement and student growth for all students. About 20% of schools in the state were considered reward schools in 2018, and we had 32 of them. Now we’re down to 13?

And let’s talk about our 13 Level 5 schools this year. In the 2018-19 school year, we had 45 such schools.

The banner headline on TFP’s Aug. 15, 2019, front page read: “No magic involved” Hamilton County Schools student growth scores show ‘historic, unprecedented’ progress, officials say.”

Wow. What a drop.

Yes, school performance nationwide has dropped, and the fingers of blame generally point to the COVID-19 pandemic and forced school shutdowns.

Reality check: Hamilton County and the majority of Tennessee schools completely shut down only for about five spring weeks at the end of the 2020 school year.

In the following fall of 2020, Tennessee schools were ordered to reopen and Gov. Bill Lee required schools to allow parents to opt-out their children from masking requirements. Hamilton County chose not to require masks, anyway.

The result was unsurprising: Illness in our schools was rampant and Tennessee became a top spot in the nation for the most school-by-school quarantine-related closures in the first part of the school year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Our schools weren’t shutdown; they were routinely disrupted.

But COVID wasn’t the only culprit, and we all know it. Our school scores were abysmal long before the first case of novel coronavirus found its way to Tennessee. With four years of new energy from then-Superintendent Bryan Johnson, we saw that “No magic involved” headline over local school gains. Then with COVID and the loss of Johnson to a better job, Hamilton County took a double whammy. Tennessee, of course, has its own ongoing school problems. Less than a month ago, Tennessee Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn delayed — for the fifth time — a plan to start giving A-F grades to the state’s 1,800-plus public schools. Heaven forbid a school passing and failing picture be more easily understandable to us challenged parents and grandparents.

Schwinn blamed the newest pause on — wait for it — the inconsistency in data caused by three years of pandemic.

Specifically, Schwinn cited uneven participation rates of students taking state tests under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program. The state relies on those test results over multiple years when evaluating teachers and student growth and rating the effectiveness of schools and districts.

Here’s the thing: Those same inconsistencies exist with the obtuse grading system we’re fed like pablum from the “reward” and “level 5” and “priority” schools.

Those same inconsistencies showed up in the scores for Brainerd (and have for years, according to our researcher) that the TFP analyzed recently. Here’s just one snapshot: In

169 rows of data in a spreadsheet about Brainerd testing for grades 9-12, all but 41 contained one or more asterisks — representing unknowns or blanks in columns intended to show the testing participation rate and/or the percent of those tested who met or exceeded proficiency.

In other words, the Brainerd data raises more questions than answers. But even with those inconsistencies, the state decides to take Brainerd High School off the priority list that had made it eligible for additional federal funding — something that must have helped because Brainerd’s 2021 graduation rate was 74.8%.

Hamilton County still has eight schools on the priority list — all struggling with a majority of minority and economically challenged students.

Inconsistencies have long plagued our testing. That should not be used as an excuse for the state to delay making its assessments about schools more transparent.

On so many levels, Tennessee is failing our school children and setting our state and county up for still more workforce woes.

We think it’s highly unlikely Gov. Lee, Schwinn and Tennessee lawmakers will reevaluate their priorities. That means we here at home must lean on local mayors, commissioners, council people and school board members to step up.

Our community must reorder its priorities to put our public school children front and center.

If our students don’t succeed, our city and county won’t succeed either. It’s just that simple.