Page High also finalist for schools with dramatic improvements

Brentwood Home Page news reports
Williamson County Schools was named a finalist for the first SCORE Prize Awards for 12 schools and districts in Tennessee with the most dramatically improved student achievement in spite of the challenges they face.

WCS joins Loudon County Schools and Maryville City Schools as the three finalists for the district award, and the county's Page High School is also a finalist for individual high schools.

Winners of the SCORE Prizes will be announced at an event at the historic Ryman Auditorium at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20. The event will be hosted by SCORE Chairman and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and will feature a performance by Grammy-nominated country music star Josh Turner. Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman also will make remarks.

The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works with state and local governments to encourage sound policy decisions in public education and advance innovative reform on a statewide basis.

SCORE will award $10,000 to the elementary, middle, and high school and $25,000 to one district in Tennessee that have most dramatically improved student achievement.

Winners are chosen in a two-step process: The first stage identified finalists through a multi-staged criteria selection process that set benchmarks for attendance rate, TVAAS growth, and TCAP improvement, and awarded bonus points for ACT college-readiness benchmark rates and college-going rates, among others. The second stage consisted of site visits of the finalists to document the policies and practices that have enabled schools and districts to make significant gains in student achievement.

“In awarding The SCORE Prize, SCORE aims to recognize those schools and districts in Tennessee that are doing the hard work of education reform,” said SCORE Chairman and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. “These schools and districts are preparing more and more students for college and the workforce. We will highlight and share their best practices, and show other schools and districts throughout Tennessee that improvement is possible.”

The SCORE Prize event is being held in conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Education’s annual LEAD Conference.

The 12 SCORE Prize finalists are:

District: Loudon County Schools; Maryville City Schools; Williamson County Schools

High:  Fred J. Page High School, Williamson County; Maryville High School, Maryville; Mt. Juliet High School, Wilson County

Middle: Jo Byrns High School, Robertson County; Power Center Academy, Memphis; South Cumberland Elementary, Cumberland County

Elementary: Charlotte Elementary, Dickson County; Fairview Elementary, Anderson County; John Sevier Elementary, Maryville