by Joe Kirkpatrick

Lately, you cannot hardly pick up the local newspaper without seeing something about "Michigan Avenue -- Bradley County's Blue Ribbon School."  I'm sure Michigan Avenue is a good school, but the implication of being a "Blue Ribbon School" leads one to believe it is the best of the best. 

Now, for a person who is not a professional educator, my article this month is going to be a bit hard to follow.  In fact, the way the state grades schools is hard to follow!

The latest thing in evaluating schools is something called "value added" score.  The "value added" score of a school has nothing to do with the overall "TCAP" (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program).  TCAP scores are arrived at by giving every child in grades 3-5 a comprehensive test consisting of reading, language arts, math, science, and social studies. 

This test gives an accurate evaluation of how a student stands up academically against the national average.  "Value added", on the other hand, is how much a student improves over their scores of the previous years.  Classroom teachers in Tennessee are judged primarily by the value added score, not the TCAP score.  This is great for teachers and schools who have below average TCAP scores, because they have  improved.  However, if a school has high scores year after year, the teachers and that school are penalized and given a low value added score.

In the Bradley County School System, the overall average in grades K-5 for TCAP scores is 55.4 for the 2002 school year.  Remember, this is the true

test of how students rate against all other students, and schools against schools in the nation.  The national average is 50, and the average scores for the Bradley County system for all elementary schools is 52.4, so the system is above the national average.  The overall score for the Cleveland City School System is 54.6, also above national average.  Nearby Hamilton County Schools barely beat the national average with a score of 50.6.

Now, you can have all the hype, all the press, all the awards, but just like in a football game, the score at the end of the game reflects the true winner.  In the Bradley County system, who is the real winner?  How about in the Cleveland City system?  How about in South East Tennessee?
Blackfox 52.4
Hixson 55.8
Michigan "Blue Ribbon School" Avenue 58.4
Stuart 58.6
Hopewell 60.2
E L Ross 60.8
Big Ridge 63.0
NORTH LEE 65.0
Lookout Mountain 75.8

It's easy to see, other than Lookout Mountain, a community of old money financially blessed blue blood families, North Lee School beats all the other schools hands down.  Every year, year after year.  The kicker?  Under the President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, all teachers must be "highly qualified."  Under the guidelines of this program, the majority of teachers at North Lee School do not meet the requirements set forth and are not deemed "highly qualified."  GO FIGURE!

Note: 2003 TCAP scores had not been posted at the Tennessee Department of Education website at the time I wrote this article.  Should another Bradley Co. Or Cleveland City School have higher score than North Lee, I will note it in a future column.