DEEP DIVE: How did Lowcountry counties do compared to the state on the S.C. READY?

by Aaron Dixon

BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) - This year’s S.C. READY scores across Beaufort, Jasper, and Hampton counties have shown improvement from previous years in reading and math, but there is still work to be done.

Especially, if these school districts hope to meet the state goal of having 75% of their students testing at grade-level by 2030.

Across the state, hundreds of thousands of students took the South Carolina College-and Career-Ready Assessments or S.C. READY assessments.

“Today, students not only receive content, but they must also demonstrate application of knowledge,” Chief Instructional Officer for the Beaufort County School District, Dr. Mary Stratos, said. “Students have to apply those theories in practice.”

It tests kids in third through eighth grades in language arts and mathematics, while also testing fourth and sixth graders in science.

If we look at how our counties did compared to the state in Language Arts, we see that, depending on grade level, between 77.1% and 85.6% of students approached, met, or exceeded expectations.

In Jasper County, that number fell to between 51.1% and 61.1% of students reaching that mark.

Then Beaufort County students scored at or near the state average.

While some Hampton County grade levels fell below, they saw three grade levels exceed the average.

Here is where our counties compare to the state's results in language arts.

Then, if we take a look at Math, Hampton and Beaufort counties were in line with the state average, except for a few grade levels in Hampton that fell below 50% of their students approaching, meeting, or exceeding expectations.

Jasper County only saw between 33.2% and 58.2% of students reaching that mark.

Here is where our counties compared to the state's results in math.

WTOC asked several parents in Jasper about these scores and they feel that their students are learning more and the scores are slowly improving.

Beaufort County says their scores have gone up over the last five years, and just this year, they had 10 schools increase scores by 20 points, while 18 schools increased their scores by 10 points.

“These types of numbers are showing that you, the student, that you are taking that agency for your learning, but guess what else you’re teachers are aligning their instruction to what you’re going to be measured on,” Dr. Stratos said.

Lastly, if we take a look at how fourth and sixth-graders tested in science.

Here is where our multiple counties' scores compare to the state's results in science.

All three of the counties fell just below the state average, but in Jasper County, only 39.9% of fourth-grade students and 44% of sixth-grade students approached, met, or exceeded expectations in that subject.