Sewanee Elementary Leads the Way in TCAPs-- Broadview & North Lake Named Reward Schools

by K. G. Beavers, Messenger Staff Writer

With Tennessee’s new accountability system to show progress in public school testing, there are new reporting categories including reward, focus and priority status. These new categories replace the No Child Left Behind status designations of target, school needs improvement, corrective action and restructuring. 

In Franklin County, North Lake Elementary and Broadview Elementary are reward schools based on performance. A reward school can be in the top 5 percent of overall performance in proficient and advanced achievement goals. A reward school can also be in the top 5 percent of schools where progress is achieved the fastest, based on value-added scores and growth in TCAP reading/language arts, math and science.

While SES had the top TCAP scores in almost all testing categories across the county, SES is not a reward school. 

“We did not meet the gap closure with our economically disadvantaged students,” said SES principal Mike Maxon. “That subgroup did not grow enough academically,” he said. 

SES also had a decline in two subgroup scores between the 2011 and 2012 reading/language arts TCAP test. In 2011, 60.5 percent of economically disadvantaged students were proficient and advanced. In 2012, 55.3 percent were proficient and advanced.

In 2011, 81.8 percent of SES students with disabilities scored proficient and advanced in reading/language arts. In 2012, 78.5 percent scored proficient and advanced proficient/advanced in reading/language arts.

“The issue for Sewanee was the gap between the economically disadvantaged and the non-economically disadvantaged. Also, if a school had measures that declined they could not be a reward school,” said Franklin County Director of Schools Rebecca Sharber.

For SES, 77.8 percent of all students were proficient and advanced in math, compared to 67.2 percent of Broadview and 66.4 percent of North Lake students. In reading/language arts, 77.8 percent of all SES students were proficient and advanced. For Broadview, 61.6 percent of all students were proficient and advanced. For North Lake, 67.7 percent of all students were proficient and advanced.

In science, 82.1 percent of all SES students were proficient and advanced, compared to Broadview with 75.5 percent and North Lake with 78.1 percent. In social studies, 93 percent of all SES students were proficient and advanced. For Broadview, 96.5 percent of students were proficient and advanced, while North Lake had 92.7 percent scoring proficient and advanced.

SES also led in TCAP scores between the subgroups, except for the economically disadvantaged subgroup in reading/language arts. 

In the fifth grade TCAP writing assessment, SES had the highest score in the county with a score of 4.5 out of 6. Cowan Elementary was next with a score of 4.4. Broadview and Decherd both scored a 4.2. North Lake and Clark Memorial both scored a 4.1. Huntland and Rock Creek both scored a 3.9. 

SES also had the highest grade in achievement, which is a measure of overall student performance. 

At the middle schools, North Middle School improved in math with 39.4 of all students scoring proficient and advanced. In reading/language arts, North declined slightly from last year’s testing results to 44.6 percent of all students proficient and advanced.

South Middle School improved to 32.4 percent of all students proficient and advanced in math. South had a slight decline in reading/language arts with 48.8 percent of all students proficient and advanced.

For complete information, go to <http://www.tn.gov/education/re​portcard/index.shtml>.