Georgia's high-stakes testing program isn't so high-stakes after all.

A state law aimed at stopping so-called "social promotion" says students in grades 3, 5 and 8 should repeat the year when they fail certain standardized tests.

LOUIE FAVORITE/AJC (ENLARGE)

Shawna Tamakloe getting her 5th-grade math and reading class ready for CRCT summer school at Indian Creek Elementary School in Clarkston.

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But school districts are promoting the vast majority of those students anyway, even if they fail a second-chance retest, or blow it off altogether, an analysis of 2006 and 2007 state data by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reveals.

The findings show state and local educators are balking at enforcing the 2001 law — routinely resorting to an appeals process that allows schools to promote students who never pass the tests.

"They've used that as the rule rather than the exception," said former Gov. Roy Barnes, who championed the law. "Did people think that I was not serious?"

Barnes added that the more students are pushed along without meeting grade-level standards, "the greater the probability of a dropout."

This year, schools across Georgia are inundated with the most failures on the eighth-grade math Criterion-Referenced Competency Test since it became required for promotion in 2006.

About 38 percent of eighth-graders — more than 46,000 statewide — bombed the math test this spring.

Thousands are attending remedial sessions at their schools, hiring a private tutor or rejiggering vacation plans to accommodate the summer retest they hope will be their passport to ninth grade.

State Superintendent Kathy Cox defended schools' use of the appeal process, which allows promotion if the principal, parent and teacher agree. When she worked on the bill as a state representative, she said, she believed it would be used mainly to identify and help struggling students — not to retain large numbers of them.

She said retention "should be a last resort."

"I don't think that just holding a kid back and putting them back through the same content, the same grade ... with in many cases the same set of teachers, is necessarily in the best interest of the child," Cox said. "They don't necessarily need to repeat the entire year."

Lawmakers hoped the no-pass, no-promotion law would stop the practice of advancing children because of their age rather than their skills.

But it was controversial from the start. Critics feared the law would disproportionately hinder black students, along with those who are learning English or have disabilities.

Some said retaining students en masse based on a single test would lead to more — not fewer — dropouts.

Yet the state Legislature pushed forward. As the new rules were phased in, anxiety about passing math and reading tests under threat of retention became an annual rite for Georgia students.

Since the law went into effect, the state education department has not looked yearly at how many students were retained because of the tests.

The AJC obtained state databases — with students' names removed — that contained spring CRCT scores, summer retest scores and students' grade level the following fall for 2006 and 2007.

In total, the newspaper examined nearly 800,000 students' test results and promotion status, focusing on those who stayed enrolled in Georgia schools.

Students are supposed to pass math and reading tests in eighth and fifth grades, and reading in third grade, to move up. For those CRCTs, the newspaper found 10 to 20 percent of students failed on their first try in 2006 and 2007.

But only a small percentage were ultimately retained: 2.5 percent of eighth-grade testers, 1.7 percent of fifth-graders, and 2.9 percent of third-graders.

Even students who failed a retest were rarely held back. In 2007, for instance, 92 percent of the nearly 9,500 eighth-graders who couldn't pass the math CRCT were promoted.

Spokesmen for several metro Atlanta districts said that despite the law, school officials continue to look at student performance beyond the CRCT when deciding whether to retain.

Clayton County was the most likely of any metro district to promote students who either failed or did not take high-stakes CRCT retests, the newspaper found. About 97 percent of Clayton students in that category moved up.

In response to questions, the district issued a statement that said the philosophy of prior administrators was to promote students who failed and provide them remediation.

New leaders, the statement said, are focused on making sure students get extra help before they take the test. The district is also looking to improve summer school.

In Coweta County, about 90 percent of students who never passed high-stakes CRCTs were promoted. Connie Davis, director of school improvement and testing, said research shows retention is generally not beneficial, and the district has safeguards in place to make sure students catch up.

"We just feel we have a procedure in place to not let them fall through the cracks," she said.

Statewide, skipping the retest didn't usually bring on retention, either.

About one in five students missed the retest after failing a high-stakes CRCT in 2006 and 2007. Eighty percent were promoted anyway.

State law allows for a parent, teacher and principal to promote a student who fails a retest after reviewing his or her other work.

But neither the legislation, nor the state board rules, explicitly allows schools to promote students who fail and never try to pass the retest. In response to a "frequently asked question," the state Department of Education's Web site states: "Both state law and State Board of Education (SBOE) Rule require that each student 'shall' be retested."

But Dana Tofig, the DOE spokesman, said the state has been advising districts that an exception in the board rule gives them more flexibility. It allows students who don't take a CRCT on "any of the designated testing date(s)" to appeal retention.

Among districts in metro Atlanta, Gwinnett had the highest percentage of failing students who did not take a retest: nearly 54 percent. Almost nine in 10 were promoted anyway.

In a prepared statement, district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said the appeals process gives the district leeway.

"Retaining a student is a serious decision ... one that is not made on the basis of one question or one test," she wrote.

The district provides extra support for failing students, and while performance standards are important, she wrote, "an uncharacteristic failing score or a score that does not reflect a student's academic progress should not have a negative impact on the student."

Cox said the number of retest skippers statewide was a concern. She said some parents resist the requirement.

"There are just honestly a lot of folks who really push back at high-stakes testing," she said. "They say, 'You know what, I'm not going to put my child through that again.' "

At the other end of the spectrum, some students do not have supportive parents who will make sure they get remedial help and take the retest, she said.

Cox said she could not say definitively whether social promotion remains a problem, but she added that grade inflation has been a bigger issue in recent years.

"I think what this law is trying to do with the test is conquer that issue more so than 'social promotion,' " she said. The law forces schools to create a plan for failing students, which ensures that teachers receiving them in the next grade know what skills to work on, she said.

Some districts are more likely to retain than others, the data shows.

Gainesville is among the most likely, promoting just 61 percent of students who never pass high-stakes CRCTs.

The district's dropout rate was above the state average in 2006 and 2007. But Associate Superintendent David Shumake said he could not say without further study whether retention had a role in the dropout rate.

Gainesville schools look at other measures along with the CRCT in deciding retention, he said, but if students "haven't mastered the standards, they don't need to move forward."

Hinging promotion on high-stakes tests gained popularity as part of the school accountability movement that also produced No Child Left Behind, the federal law that sanctions schools and districts that fail to meet progress goals.

Research into whether retention helps or hurts students has yielded mixed results.

Robert Linn, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado who has tracked testing trends for decades, said schools should make promotion decisions based on more information than a single test.

"You have kids that do not do well on tests, but there may be other evidence that they are doing fine," he said. But he also criticized Georgia's approach.

"I'm not a big fan of having a policy that is bandied about that's saying, 'We're really doing something about social promotion,' " he said, "... and that being somewhat misleading to the public."

North Fulton parent Leslie Scarpa said school officials told her that even though her son Chris had failed the math CRCT, she could request he be "administratively placed" in ninth grade without a retest because he had earned a B in class.

Instead, Scarpa signed her son up for the retest — and forked over $37.50 an hour for private tutoring. After learning that most schools promote most students regardless of their CRCT performance, Scarpa said the hype around the high-stakes tests is detrimental for students.

"It just puts undue pressure on the kids," she said.