Local College and Career Ready Performance Index scored a mixed bag, to be used as the baseline going forward
While it’s difficult to rate the effectiveness of how much weight to place on College and Career Ready Performance Index reports released this week, there still appears to be a measurable amount of pandemic-related learning loss in students statewide and in both local school systems.
With schools closed in the 2020 school year, and subsequent unscheduled missed days because of covid infections or school-wide breakouts, the results from 2019 are not directly comparable to this year’s results because of pandemicrelated changes to the reporting process.
Going forward, DOE will use 2022 data as a baseline for evaluating school improvement.
The Floyd County Schools and Rome City Schools reports — which were incomplete, due to a federal waiver, in the first reporting year since 2019 — are somewhat similar to the statewide results showing that only about two thirds of high schoolers have mastered core subjects at a level that would allow them to move on to the next grade.
States must collect this data under federal education law so schools can be evaluated and held accountable. Georgia also uses the data to determine which schools need special attention and support. Data for each school and district are on the College and Career Ready Performance Index website.
This year, the DOE applied for and received federal permission for exceptions in how it reports the data because of the COVID pandemic. As a result of the reporting modifications, the DOE did not assign overall letter or number grades to each school and district as it usually does.
A way to compare the value of the CCRPI scores is by comparing each school district with the state averages. However it’s only a one-shot glimpse of the data and doesn’t allow for the evaluation of a learning trend.
Using that method, there are significant contrasts in the overall performance of the city and county school systems. The state only reported two scores for the 2022 CCRPI, content mastery and readiness.
The section titled content mastery includes student scores on state assessments in English Language Arts, mathematics, science and social studies. The section titled readiness includes topics like literacy and computer science.
On average, Floyd students consistently scored above the state average in both the readiness and content mastery sections. Rome students, on average, performed below state averages with one exception where Rome High School students exceeded the state average in the readiness category by several percentage points.
Floyd County elementary schools averaged a 72.2 in content mastery and 75.0 in readiness. FCS middle schools averaged 64.6 in content mastery and 75.7 in readiness. The FCS high school averages ere 70.4 in content mastery and 76.5 in readiness.
On average, the highest scores in the county school system were in the Model and Armuchee districts with the lowest in the Coosa district.
Rome elementary school students averaged 51.5 in content mastery and 65.8 in readiness. Rome Middle School students averaged 53.6 in content mastery and 70.5 in readiness. Rome High students averaged 54.7 in content mastery and 76.5 in readiness.
On average, the highest scores in the district were at East Central and West End elementary schools with the lowest at Anna K. Davie, Elm Street and Main elementary schools.
Statewide, elementary school students scored 63 in content mastery and 71.8 in readiness. Georgia middle school students averaged 60 in content mastery and 75.1 in readiness and statewide high schoolers averaged 64.7 in content mastery and a 73.2 in readiness.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods, who was reelected to his third term in the office last week, acknowledged the pandemic has taken a toll on Georgia’s students.
“Georgia will continue to remain laser-focused on academic recovery,” Woods said. “We know the pandemic had an undeniable impact on student learning — it’s our role, responsibility, and privilege moving forward to ensure districts and schools have the resources they need to continue investing in students and combating the effects of lost learning opportunities.”