COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Recently released test results from both Richland County school districts show that overall student achievement has mostly improved. However, a majority of students are not meeting expectations.

The SC Ready Test is an annual assessment of students’ performance in grades three through eight in subjects such as reading and math.

Test results paint a “worrying picture” for SC students in math, while reading and writing improve

Test results showed that students across the state were significantly below state expectations in reading, writing and math.

WIS News 10 compared Richland County School District One and Richland County School District Two’s test scores for 2024 with previous years.

“While there is much to celebrate here, I believe there is also an urgent need for further action,” said Patrick Kelly of the Palmetto Teachers Association.

It’s a challenge facing districts across the state, including Richland School Districts One and Two. But leaders of both districts say they’re making progress.

“We have seen gains in all grade levels except one,” said Craig Witherspoon, superintendent of Richland One.

The grade level Witherspoon is referring to is eighth grade.

In English Language and Literature (ELA), just over 26% of students met expectations. This is still an increase from last year, when only 22% of such students met expectations.

The situation was different in mathematics: here only 10.5% of students met expectations, which represents a slight decrease compared to the previous year (11%).

“We’ll continue to analyze what we’re doing. We’ll look at the data and see what we need to do going forward. What worked, what strategies and supports there are for things that didn’t work, and what we might need to tweak. But once again, we’ve seen growth,” Witherspoon said.

Eighth-graders in Richland Two performed slightly worse in English than students in Richland One. Only 23.8% of these students met expectations in this area, a decrease of almost 6% from the previous year.

Newly appointed Chief Academic Officer Jennifer Morrison points to a change in the way students took the withdrawal test last year.

“We switched from paper tests to online testing,” she said. “Generally, Richland Two gets a waiver from the Department of Education, but last year they couldn’t get one and we didn’t find out about it until late.”

Morrison said this time they would be prepared for online testing.

Looking at Richland Two’s math scores, only 13.5% of eighth-graders met expectations. That’s the same as the previous school year and an increase from 2019, when just over 9% of eighth-graders met expectations.

In response, Morrison said, “I think we continue to recover from COVID. COVID was a big blow across the board, with final exams, especially in middle school, and I think Richland Two, our community and everybody is still trying to recover from that. And it takes a while for that to happen. Progress is being made; it just takes a while for that to happen.”

Morrison said this time around, they are pushing students to read more to improve their ELA scores, and they are encouraging parents to keep that assignment at home.

As for math, Morrison said they are working on improving their math curriculum, which is specifically tailored to the needs of students in their district to further improve their math scores.

Statewide averages in reading and math fell short of the South Carolina Department of Education’s goal of having 75 percent of students performing at or above grade level.

You can view the SCREADY results for the state and all districts here.

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