Our much-beleaguered school system appears to be making steady progress as Eastside and Newton high schools both saw their average SAT scores rise in reading and math in 2012, though Alcovy unfortunately saw drops in both areas.

The numbers are far from perfect as our average scores are still below state and national averages. Reaching these benchmarks is vital, and we'd love to see significant gains immediately, but we realize these things take time and steady improvement is still a positive.

We agree that we can't stick our head in the sand, but there's also no reason to rashly blast school system administrators. We have the confidence that Superintendent Gary Mathews has the best interests of students in mind, and we know he's diligently working on steering Newton toward more success.
It was just a few short years ago that we were reporting the steady decline of test scores in the county.

As we have stated here before, it's absolutely essential that we have a progressive school system that will help us not only produce children who find success later in life but also help community leaders attract quality industries to improve everyone's quality of life.

We congratulate the teachers, students, parents and concerned community members who are working hard to see that our school system regains the status of one of the best in the state.

We need to work even harder as a community to create an environment in which our children excel.