Results released late Tuesday afternoon showed that the majority of third-, fifth- and eighth-grade students who were required to pass portions of the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test before being promoted met or exceeded state standards.

Gwinnett Schools officials say the results are an improvement in most subjects, but did not say how much of an improvement overall compared to previous years. They said the figures show that students and teachers are rising to the challenges presented by a more rigorous curriculum.

For example, even with the higher standards in reading for 12,263 third-graders, nearly 91 percent of them met promotion criteria, an increase over the 88.4 percent of students who met standards for reading in 2007.

Only 1,153 third-graders failed the reading test in 2008.

"Third-grade reading is pivotal in future performance," said Linda Mitchell, Gwinnett schools' executive director of student accountability, assessment and advisement. "That is when you change from learning to read to reading to learn ... . Our teachers and parents work with the students to keep pushing them to read more and to develop a strong vocabulary.''

The CRCT is taken by students in grades 1 through 8 to assess comprehension in the core subjects of reading, English/language arts, and math. Students in grades 3 to 8 also take the science and social studies curriculum exams.

Gwinnett County Schools students fared better than their counterparts in the state on the new math exam. Of the 11,926 eighth-graders required to pass the math test for promotion, 2,719 or about 22.8 percent of Gwinnett students, failed the test. Officials with the Georgia Department of Education said an average of 40 percent of eighth-graders failed the new math test statewide.

Mitchell said that even though Gwinnett eighth-graders achieved higher math scores than their state counterparts, the system is not satisfied with the results.

"We are pleased that they did do better, but 22 percent [22.8 percent] is a lot that did not meet grade level expectations," she said.

Some students who failed the math test will begin summer school classes later this week. The session will be held from June 26 to July 17. About 100 students took the CRCT re-test early in hopes of avoiding summer school.

Teachers also are being trained over the summer to improve their grasp of the math curriculum so they can better help students.

"We are developing benchmark assessments that teachers can use to see if their schools are on track," Mitchell said. "We have interventions like morning and after-school and Saturday [instruction] for kids who are not on target.''

According to Mitchell, in other CRCT tests required for promotion:

• Nearly 93 percent of 11,906 Gwinnett eighth-graders passed the reading exam. About 32 percent of them exceeded grade level expectations.

• A little more than 80 percent of county fifth-graders met the promotion criteria for the math exam, compared to 72 percent statewide.

• More than 90 percent of 11,862 fifth-graders passed the reading exam. Nearly 27 percent of them exceeded grade level expectations.

Parent Virginia Kerr said she is "happy" with the improved test scores and is even happier that children are being challenged by harder exams. Kerr has an 8-year-old at Sycamore Elementary and a 12-year-old at Lanier Middle. "You definitely need benchmarks to tell how the schools are doing," she said,

But Kerr said those benchmarks should be adjusted more frequently to make the curriculum even harder. "They need to increase the requirements for kids .. Georgia education is too soft. I went to school in both Florida and Georgia, and I had a much harder time in Florida."