KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Department of Education released new school rankings Thursday. One factor in those ratings is student scores on the TN Ready English/Language Arts exams.
Education experts said third grade is the benchmark year that determines whether a student is more likely to succeed in school or the workforce. While the scores in East Tennessee are climbing, there is still a lot of work to be done.
"By the time they reach third grade, if they're not reading on grade level then they're going to have a hard time as they progress later on," Knox County Imagination Library program manager Danielle Velez said.
That's part of the reason the Dolly Parton Imagination Library sends children books every month from birth to five years of age.
"There's so much that we can do before they start school to be reading to them and showing them how letters work and just growing their brains," she said.
In 2016, then-Governor Bill Haslam and his wife Crissy announced the "Read to be Ready" program. The program was created to get 75% of Tennessee third graders proficient in reading by 2025.
"Tennessee is making incredible strides in education, but we're not making the gains we need to in reading," Haslam said in a video.
The 2018 average in East Tennessee for third grade students demonstrating they are on track or have mastered reading benchmarks was 35.7%.
In 2019, it climbed less than a percentage point to 36.5%. The statewide average is about 36.9%.
Despite the overall progress, half of the 26 East Tennessee school districts had their third grade reading scores decline.
Union, Campbell, Anderson, Cocke, Grainger, Loudon, Fentress, Jefferson, Scott, Clairborne and Roane counties, as well as Oak Ridge and Sweetwater, saw their percentages of third graders proficient in reading drop. Sevier County's percentage did not change.
Knox, Blount, Cumberland, Monroe, Hancock, and Hamblen counties, in addition to Alcoa, Maryville, Newport, Clinton, Lenoir City and Oneida schools saw their percentages rise.
Maryville City Schools is the closest to former Gov. Haslam's 75 percent goal at 62.6%. Oneida followed behind after a more than 20-point improvement in the last year.
"We want all of our students to achieve success early on in school so that they can be successful, not only throughout the rest of school, but also in the workforce and throughout life in general," Anderson County reading interventionist Kelley McDonough said.
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Anderson County Schools tracks students' reading progress throughout their time in the district and pulls them aside if their scores are lagging behind.
"The students that are maybe having difficulty with reading, we make sure that we put them into the best intervention that's going to serve their needs," McDonough said. She also said Anderson County teachers receive special instruction through Successful Start at Georgia State University.
"It really equips teachers with knowledge so that they can therefore better their instruction with the students," she said.
In order to reach the 75 percent threshold by 2025, East Tennessee schools will have to improve by about 6.5 percent a year.