{"id":11705,"date":"2016-08-25T22:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T03:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/?p=11705"},"modified":"2016-08-25T17:43:09","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T22:43:09","slug":"nearly-1300-more-tennessee-students-eligible-for-the-hope-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/2016\/08\/25\/nearly-1300-more-tennessee-students-eligible-for-the-hope-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 1,300 More Tennessee Students Eligible for the HOPE Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TennesseeNashville, TN<\/strong> – Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced that newly released data from ACT show that nearly 1,300 more Tennessee public school students became eligible for the HOPE scholarship in 2016 by achieving composite scores of 21 or higher.<\/p>\n

With more Tennessee students than ever before taking the ACT, Tennessee public high school students held steady at a 19.4 average score, whereas nationally scores declined as more students participated.<\/p>\n

\"1,300<\/a>

1,300 more Tennessee public school students became eligible for the HOPE scholarship in 2016<\/p><\/div>\n

For each subject area, scores of Tennessee public school students either increased slightly or remained constant, with no score declining.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Tennessee improved its national standing in 2016 among the 18 states that require students to take the ACT, climbing to seventh in the nation when looking at the average composite of both public and private school students.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Tennessee ranked eighth among the then-13 states that required the college readiness assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur ACT results show Tennessee is on the right track,\u201d McQueen said. \u201cOur school districts are focusing in new ways on ensuring students have the ability to take the assessment, and more students are accessing HOPE scholarship funds and demonstrating that they are college and career ready. While we still have room to grow, I believe in the potential of every Tennessee student, and we have built momentum toward our goal of a statewide average of 21 on the ACT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Results from the ACT serve as a critical measure to indicate college and career readiness. One of the department\u2019s three goals, as detailed in the department\u2019s strategic plan, Tennessee Succeeds<\/em><\/a>, is to raise the average ACT composite score to 21 by 2020. This achievement would allow even more Tennessee students to be eligible for the HOPE scholarship and access those resources to pay for college.<\/p>\n

To support this effort, and to ensure that all students are given the opportunity to take the exam, the department has implemented the inclusion of ACT participation rates as one component of the district accountability framework. The renewed focus this year on increasing access to the assessment helped to drive an increase in participation of almost 3,000 students.<\/p>\n

In addition to the statewide testing date in the spring, the state is offering and funding a new ACT retake opportunity<\/a> this year, which is available to all public school seniors who took the exam as a junior. Tennessee is the first state to offer this opportunity on a statewide scale. Combined data from Tennessee public and private school students show that students who retake the exam increase their scores by at least one point on average when retaking the exam and score at least three points higher than juniors who only take the test once. However, only 47 percent of students take advantage of that option.<\/p>\n

District scores<\/h3>\n

The data available today are based on students\u2019 most recent ACT scores, not their best ACT scores\u2014 meaning that if a student took the ACT multiple times, the score included in today\u2019s data is his or her last score, not necessarily the highest one. The department will publish districts\u2019 best scores on the state report card this fall, however, there were some notable gains in Tennessee\u2019s school districts based on the data available today.<\/p>\n

[320left]Twelve school districts already have an average composite at or above 21, and 45 Tennessee school districts have an average ACT composite above the state average of 19.4.<\/p>\n

Germantown Municipal Schools had the highest ACT composite in the state for its public school students, posting a 24.1 average. Additionally, Union County Public Schools posted the largest gains in the state from 2015 to 2016, raising its average composite by 1.8 points to 19.2. Knox County Schools had the highest average composite out of the four large urban districts in Tennessee at 20.5.<\/p>\n

Three districts both substantially increased the number of students who took the ACT and also increased their ACT composite scores: Smith County Schools, Houston County School District, and the Achievement School District.<\/p>\n

Additional takeaways from the 2016 ACT results:<\/strong><\/p>\n