TN Ready scoring glitch hits county schools
Anderson County officials and the public were informed during the Anderson County Commission meeting Monday, Nov. 20, that Anderson County School System is one of the districts that have been hit by the TN Ready assessment scoring glitch that has been reported in schools in districts statewide.
Anderson County Schools is on the list of schools that have had student exams incorrectly scored, reported Dr. Tim Parrott, Anderson County Director of Schools, to Commissioners Monday.
“We had 240 student tests at Clinton High School that were scored incorrectly. This has been corrected, but we don’t know if others were scored incorrectly. We are not allowed to see the correct answers,” confirmed Parrott.
Anderson County Schools is one of 33 districts across the state to have received incorrect scores from the state’s testing vendor Questar.
Students scored best in Science, but Science scores do not count for accountability.
“This year the state only used Math and English for accountability. This means that Science and Social Studies did not factor into the final scores even though students spend up to half of their time in these courses. Next year the state will add Science to the mix, but we still will not receive any data for Social Studies,” added Parrott.
Parrott said the scoring errors are concerning, and that Anderson County Schools officials have been sending in appeals to the state department of education all week trying to get answers and more information on what is being done by them to correct the glitch.
There are four levels of “final determination” for school districts: in need of improvement, progressing, achieving, and exemplary.
Anderson County’s final determination by the state for last year was “in need of improvement.”
“The accountability determination of ‘in need of improvement’ from the state this year is not a true representation of the students and the staff of Anderson County Schools. Our students are being successful in and out of the classroom. However, at the end of the day we must own the scores. We have a plan in place to address the areas of need. I have met with all principals to discuss their school scores and we presented the accountability data to the School Board. The concerns we have with the accountability system for Anderson County are the same concerns from districts across the state,” Parrott said.
The school system also missed the growth goal in 3-8 math.
“These growth scores for students were calculated by comparing the students on the old test taken two years ago to the new test taken this year,” explained Parrott on the missed growth goal.
Other findings school administrators found upon reviewing the data from the state were that high school students at both county schools did not meet the participation rate for the ACT (school administrators discovered not all student exams were counted correctly and have sent an appeal); the school district had a graduation rate of 95.3 percent, which was higher than the state’s 89 average, but did not exceed the school district’s goal of 97.2; the school district met the goal for Students with Disability in English 3-5 and 9-12 and in 9-12 Math; more students scored 30 or higher on their ACTs; one student scored a perfect score on the ACT; and more than 102 graduating seniors have reached all the college ready benchmarks for the ACT.