Great numbers of test-passers don’t always signify the greatest amount of learning. That’s one message in data the state education department released Thursday, which is designed to gauge how much students “grow.”
The data shows, for example, that students at some of metro Atlanta’s top schools, who may have few problems passing state tests, are not learning as much in some subjects as their peers at other schools.
Trying to measure how much students at each school learn in a year, regardless of whether they passed state tests, is part of a shift from grading schools almost entirely on pass/fail rates, which favor schools with low poverty.
For the first time, anyone can go online and check out a school's growth performance by grade level, subject and demographic factors like race and poverty. Schools can be compared against each other, though officials caution this data shouldn't be the only measure parents consider in choosing a school.
We explore some of the implications of this change in Friday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Read about it on myajc.com.
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