“To be honest I have not drilled down in to all of the results”, Dougherty School Superintendent Butch Mosely stated.
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The Milestones measure learning across four levels, as opposed to three, which was done by the previous statewide test, the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, or CRCT.
“Due to the late release of this data, only now are we able to analyze the results of our first administration of the new Georgia Milestones Assessment, said Rockdale Superintendent Richard Autry”.
The new Milestones assessment also ties in with Georgia’s school accountability system.
In high school end-of-course results, Gwinnett students were above the state average in six of eight sections.
In more than half of the tested grades, local students outperformed the state.
However, the 2015 CCRPI is a “hold harmless” year since it was the first year Georgia Milestones was administered. The results for American Literature and Composition were similar with 69.3 percent at or above the Developing level. “We have to use the key processes we put in place to investigate what caused positive and negative patterns”. The new levels place students in categories of “beginning learners”, “developing learners”, “proficient learners”, and “distinguished learners”.
At the high school level, DCSS had several high schools test at or above the state average when it comes to percentage of students who tested above the “Developing Learning” category.
For fifth-graders, the percentage of CCSD students achieving developing to distinguished scores was 79 percent for English language arts (73 percent Georgia); 84 percent for math (74 percent Georgia); 77 percent for science (70 percent Georgia) and 80 percent for social studies (75 percent Georgia).
Third-grade math (41.9 percent to 38) and science (41.9 to 34). Social studies scores were at 37 percent proficiency and distinguished in third grade, 47 percent in fourth grade and 37 percent in fifth grade.In eighth-grade ELA, 23.3 percent were Beginning Learners; 39.9 percent were Developing Learners; 30.9 percent were Proficient Learners; and 5.8 percent were Distinguished Learners. Georgia law also requires fifth-graders and eighth-graders to be at least a Developing Learner in math to be promoted to the next grade.
The Georgia Department of Education has released results from last spring’s Georgia Milestones.
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“These results show a lower level of student proficiency than Georgians are used to seeing, but that does not mean Georgia students know less or that teachers are not doing a great job – it means they’ve been asked to clear a higher bar”, Woods said in the September release. “Our previous assessment, the CRCT, set a few of the lowest expectations for student proficiency in the nation, and that can not continue”. Georgia Milestones sets higher standards for our students and evens the playing field with the rest of the nation – and that’s essential if our students are going to succeed in college and their chosen careers, both of which are nationally competitive arenas. People need to realize these tests are much more hard than what we’ve seen in the past. The Georgia Milestones included open-ended questions in English language arts and math, requiring students to explain their answers. This places a premium on literacy skills and may be reflected in lower scores for schools with higher poverty rates, more students with special needs or more students for whom English is not their home language, Greene said. Previously the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) used CRCT and EOCT results for all areas but Milestones results will now be used to calculate school and district CCRPI scores. Shirley Chesser, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning for Rockdale County Public Schools, told Board of Education members last week that the tests are not comparable to the CRCT and are not pass/fail assessments. “It’s also why the district, under my direction as curriculum director, is in the initial stage of creating systemic instructional practices that are implemented across all grade and content levels”.
