Georgia students made more gains on the high school writing test this year, with the percentage of test-takers meeting or exceeding state standards now at 93 percent.
That’s an increase from the 91 percent who met or exceeded standards in 2011 and a 5 percentage point rise from 2007, when the test now being used was introduced.
“This is yet another example of how more and more Georgia students are meeting the higher expectations we have set for them,” Georgia School Superintendent John Barge said in a statement touting the test scores. “Writing is a critical skill in every career, and these scores show that more of Georgia’s students are being prepared for success after high school.”
Students must pass the writing test to receive a high school diploma, but they can take it multiple times in their junior and senior years. The graduation test that included English/language arts, math, science and social studies was phased out last year, but the writing test remains as one that must be completed successfully before graduation.
To pass, students must earn at least 200 out of a possible 350 points.
In addition to an overall increase in the percentage of students who met or exceeded standards on the writing test, the gap in performance between black, Hispanic and white students narrowed.
Nine of 10 black students met or exceeded the writing standard; 87 percent of black students met or exceeded the standard in 2011. With 90 percent of black students meeting or exceeding the standard, their performance is only 6 percentage points shy of the performance of white students. That gap was 10 percentage points in 2011.
Hispanic students fared slightly better than black students, with 91 percent meeting or exceeding the standard. The gap between Hispanic and white student performance on the writing test is now 5 percentage points. It was 13 percentage points in 2011.
Special education students taking the writing test for the first time as 11th-graders also made gains. Seventy-two percent of those students met or exceeded the standard, an increase of 6 percentage points from 2011.
There is a 23-percentage-point gap between the performance of 11th-grade special education students taking the test for the first time and all 11th-grade students taking the test for the first time. That gap stood at 34 percentage points in 2011.
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