In view of teacher and parent complaints of glitches with the Georgia Milestones, the state does not plan to use scores in retention and promotion decisions in elementary and middle school.
However, the state Department of Education has not yet decided whether scores on the end-of-course Milestones given in high school will be used for 20 percent of student grades. Across Georgia, schools reported technical glitches that delayed or interrupted online testing, especially Fulton County where widespread outages marred testing.
As one Fulton parent said, “I think this is about the fifth email I’ve had on the same subject from our middle school (just received): ‘Parents, we have experienced significant issues today with our internet which has affected our testing progress for the day. I will share an updated version of the testing schedule this evening with hopes that we are back online in the morning. The internet outage has also affected our ability to send/receive emails and phone calls today as well. I will keep you posted.’ S0, yeah, if this is about the fifth email, Georgia has a problem.”
According to DOE spokesman Matt Cardoza, “We will be asking the state Board of Education to waive the promotion retention for three through eight. it’s too early to make that decision on end-of-course tests because they just started this week and there have not been the same issues with technology we saw with the end-of-grade tests.”
The scores will likely also not influence teacher and school ratings, although that decision has yet to be approved, said Cardoza.
For more details on this issue, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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