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Thursday, June 7, 2007
The CRCT Scores Are Here! The CRCT Scores Are Here!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What’s that saying? Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Well, that’s the way I feel after coming back from a blissful vacation only to find that the annual Criterion-Referenced Competency Test scores were being released.
As you’ve probably read by now, the Department of Education released statewide-only results from this spring’s elementary and middle school exams yesterday. (Check out all the charts, graphs and statements state officials released here.)
What struck me was that when you look at the results of those tests that are now based on the new Georgia Performance Standards — a curriculum that’s supposed to be more academically rigorous than the old Quality Core Curriculum — the passing percentages ain’t too bad.
What’s more, across all tests — new and old — the overwhelming majority of kids are passing. In reading, language arts and social studies, passing rates in first through eighth grade range from 82 percent to 91 percent. Math has a wider variation, but most of the passing rates are higher than 80 percent.
Science is the definite low point, with passing rates ranging from 60 percent to 74 percent, depending on the grade level. But the bulk of school kids still are showing they’ve obtained at least the basic knowledge needed to pass the test.
So here’s my question: If the new state curriculum and corresponding standardized exams are supposed to be tougher, how is it that the passing rates are all relatively high? Is the test not as challenging as state officials touted it to be or are teachers and students really that much better prepared?
