The latest round of standardized school tests are out in Newton County and the very good news is that students in grades three through eight have shown a 73 percent improvement over last year's scores.

The bad news is that Newton County schools are still below the state average.

But we are not going to dwell on that, the 73 percent improvement shows a unified effort by administration and teachers to improve the education skills of our students.

We doff our hats to them and our students for their efforts and we look for even more progress as new programs take effect.

For all we know by the time the Atlanta school cheating debacle is over and we determine what the real state average for these tests are, we actually might find out that we have improved more than we realize.

As we have said many times before in this space, it is essential that we have top notch education system here in Newton County in order for our county to emerge from this terrible economic strain we are under.

We still think we are on the right road to that improvement.