2007 CRCT Scores

May, 2007 
 

Wow! 

CRCT scores are in, and they’re just great.  

The CRCT is a yearly test that 1st through 8th grade students in Georgia take. It’s important because it gauges how well we’re doing compared to the rest of the state. I’m not going to get in the gobbledy-gook of the changes that have occurred over the last few years – I’ll let the superintendents bore you with those cumbersome details – but I will tell you the CRCT is definitely getting harder.  

The test got harder, yet Morgan County kids did better than they’ve ever done before.  

Driven by initiatives of Governor Purdue and State Superintendent Kathy Cox, educators in Atlanta have done a lot of work to increase the rigor of our schools. It took a very long time, but they’ve finally come up with state-wide standards of what our kids need to know. Then, making a completely unexpected leap in logic, the folks in Atlanta came up with a state-wide curriculum to teach those standards. Go figure – a government bureaucracy where one hand actually knows what the other is doing.  

But that’s only part of this good-news story. Not only did they formulate this new curriculum, they did such a good job that it’s rated 4th best in the entire nation. That’s right, the Fordham Foundation, a very conservative and hard-to-please bunch of folks, (you should see what they say about Florida) thinks Georgia now has the fourth best educational program in America. 

But wait – it actually gets better. Over a several year process, the CRCT has gradually been reformatted to actually test the standards that we teach. Now, if you’re like me, you might find this utterly incomprehensible – a government program that sets a standard, executes that standard, and actually evaluates the results?  

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Folks in Atlanta can talk till their blue in the face – but did our kids actually learn anything? And are we going to integrate these “pie in the sky” standards into actual classrooms? 

Morgan County teachers faced this formidable mountain over the past few years. Not only did they have to change what and how they taught, but they’re students would be taking the hardest tests they’d ever seen. Team leaders had to learn the new standards and teach the standards to other teachers in order to realign the entire machine…all while teaching classes. The challenge was daunting – and there were difficulties – but the fruits of their labor are wonderful to behold. 

Scores throughout Georgia are up, but our scores are even better. I’m not going to go spit out a bunch of numbers (and there are hundreds and hundreds of numbers), but I would like to highlight a few areas, concentrating on our falling failure rates: 

Failure rates at the Primary School in 2000 were around 25%. This year, they’re down to single digits in every category. All of them were two times better than the state-wide rate.  

At the Elementary School, Fourth grade was simply unbelievable. The failure rates of every category (except science) were around 5%, three times better than state. Back in 2000, we were failing some of these categories by 38%! That is a stunning improvement. Third and Fifth grade failure rates were also in single digits, very close to Primary School averages. Even better, the “exceeds-standard” rates in all three grades were at record levels in math, science, and social studies. 

Some of the greatest gains were in the Middle School. Sixth grade halved every single failure rate, attaining single digits in every category except math and science. All Sixth grade failure rates were two times better than the state. Seventh grade halved their failure rate in math and posted record scores in “exceeds-standards” in math, science and social studies. Eighth grade failure rates averaged in the single digits, and they had their best ever “exceeds-standards” scores in language arts, math, and social studies. 

I could go on and on: the short story is that Morgan County failure rates in almost every category were less than half the state. I know I talk a lot about failure rates – believe me, there’re a lot of “exceeds-standards” stories out there too. The only reason I concentrate on failure rates is because it proves we’re making tremendous strides towards “no child left behind.”  

None of this happened by accident, and it didn’t happen with teachers content with doing what they’ve been doing for the past twenty years. This was a cultural change – a real change – an improvement in the quality of our children’s education.  

I commend these principals for leading this amazing transformation. But most of all I’d like to thank our teachers – the people who actually did the work – for their willingness to conquer these challenges. Your hard work and tireless dedication have given our schools the best year we’ve ever had.