Parents opt out some Gwinnett students from Milestones tests

Sixty Gwinnett students opted out of the Georgia Milestones tests this year, a district official told school board members last week. Last year, 40 Gwinnett students opted out. Gwinnett has more than 176,000 students.

Milestones tests were created to measure how well Georgia students were learning and give teachers a way to track progress from year to year. But parents have taken their children out of the tests, complaining that there is too much testing, and for other reasons. An opt-out movement has grown across the United States, but has not caught on in Georgia.

Last year, Fulton County was far ahead of other metro districts in the number of students opting out. Parents removed 909 of its 95,000 students from the exams, a district spokeswoman said. As of Thursday, the total was 145 exempted students.