Friday, May 23, 2003

Fifth grade writing scores continue the upward trend

The trend of high achievement in the Fulton County School System is again evident in the results of the 2003 Grade Five Writing Assessment.

According to results released by the Georgia Department of Education, Fulton fifth graders continue to outperform the state and metropolitan averages, particularly in the top performing areas of "Engaging Writer" and "Extending Writer."

The 2003 writing assessment is a test that requires fifth grade students to write a paper of no more than two pages on an assigned topic. It is read and evaluated independently by a minimum of two graders who place each paper into six developmental stages- The Emerging Writer, The Developing Writer, The Focusing Writer, The Experimenting Writer, The Engaging Writer, and The Extending Writer.

Each category evaluates the strength of the writing, with "Emerging" - the lowest stage of the six categories - denoting writing that needs the most improvement and "Engaging" and "Extending" - the top two categories - denoting writing that shows the highest skill.

Fulton County increased the percent of students in the Engaging Writer or Extending Writer category by more than 10 percent over last year and more than 17 percent since 1999. Twenty-six of Fulton County's schools showed more than a 10 percent increase in the percent of students in these top two stages and 10 schools showed more than a 20 percent increase.

The release of the fifth grade scores follows earlier news from the Georgia Department of Education showing that Fulton eighth graders also excel in writing. Results from the 2003 Middle Grades Writing Assessment test show 95 percent of Fulton eighth graders on or exceeding targets set by the state. As with the fifth grade scores, there was a significant increase in the number of eighth graders scoring in the upper ranges of the test.