HAT Supports Education Reform

07/20/2010

HAT has joined the First to the Top Coalition, a statewide alliance of more than 30 business, community and education organizations that support education reform in Tennessee.

Today, the Coalition launched “Expect More, Achieve More”, a public-awareness campaign designed to reach parents of students in Grades 3 through 8 in advance of new statewide Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) scores being mailed to the home in mid-September. More information about the program is available at www.expectmoretn.org

The new scores, resulting from tests administered statewide in April 2010, are the first to reflect Tennessee’s new and higher academic standards. While state officials have made no formal projections, it is widely presumed that the new scores will show a steep drop-off in student proficiency in key subjects such as reading, mathematics and language arts. This is because Tennessee’s students are being held to higher academic standards for the first time, and it may take a while for students to catch up to the more rigorous coursework.