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Fayette students
again tops on state tests
By
J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com
Fayette County students again scored higher than their peers in neighboring
school districts on the Spring 2003 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test
(CRCT), according to results released this week by the state Department
of Education.
Students in grades 4, 6 and 8 take the CRCT each spring in the areas of
reading, English/language arts and math, testing students on their knowledge
of Georgia’s Quality Core Curriculum (QCC).
According to the results, Fayette students overwhelmingly showed grade-level
proficiency in each of the subject areas tested, the best performance
in the Metro Atlanta area.
That’s in contrast to Coweta, where students performed about average
across the boards. Henry County students topped the state averages in
every category, but in the troubled Clayton County school district, student
scores came in below average in every subject area.
Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, public information specialist for the school
district, said scores are categoriezed as not meeting standards, meeting
standards and exceeding standards.
“These standards represent what Georgia educators expect students
to know and be able to do at the end of the school year with respect to
the QCC,” Berry-Dreisbach explained in a press release.
Overall, Fayette’s students performed best in reading where each
grade level scored 90 percent or above in the “meets” and “exceeds”
categories combined. Additionally, in English/language arts and mathematics,
grade levels scored in the high 80-90 percent range. In comparison to
the state, Fayette’s scores in the “meets” and “exceeds”
categories ranged an average of 10-20 percentage points higher on all
subjects across each grade level tested.
The largest gap between Fayette’s scores and the state’s is
in math where students scored 16-22 percentage points higher in the “meets”
and “exceeds” categories combined.
“We’re in good shape,” says Deborah Crockett who oversees
all testing for the school system. “We’re looking closely at
those students who did not meet their performance levels and are critically
analyzing what we can do to bring them up to where they should be.”
The CRCT not only measures the progress students are making, but its also
used to measure the improvement in instruction provided by the individual
schools.
Last spring’s CRCT results will be used to calculate Adequate Yearly
Progress, or AYP, a critical component of the No Child Left Behind act.
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