Higher standards means fewer pass Georgia’s new K-12 tests

Georgia's education leaders warned that the new mandatory public school tests would be harder to pass, and preliminary results suggest they were right.

A smaller proportion of students scored “proficient” or better on the first edition of the Georgia Milestones tests than on the mandatory tests they replaced. The Milestones, keyed to the national Common Core standards, were given for the first time last spring, and statewide averages released this morning show a smaller percentage of students passed than those who came before them did on the old Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and high school End of Course Tests.

“These results show a lower level of student proficiency than Georgians are used to seeing, but that does not mean Georgia students know less or that teachers are not doing a great job – it means they’ve been asked to clear a higher bar,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said. “Our previous assessment, the CRCT, set some of the lowest expectations for student proficiency in the nation, and that cannot continue.”