Major changes coming to high-stakes tests for Georgia public schools. Here’s the breakdown
Public school students in the Columbus area are among those in Georgia most affected by the changes to high-stakes testing announced Thursday for the 2020-21 school year.
To reduce the pressure of the state’s standardized accountability tests amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia Department of Education superintendent Richard Woods has waived the promotion/retention consequences of the Georgia Milestones tests for school districts with flexibility contracts called Charter System or Strategic Waiver School System.
The school districts in Muscogee and Harris are strategic waiver systems. Chattahoochee County is a charter system.
Instead, those districts should use “input from teachers and parents, placement committees, class performance and formative tools (such as quizzes) to determine the need to promote or retain their students at the end of the 2020-21 school year,” the GaDOE news release says.
Woods also is providing options for administering the End-of-Course tests this school year.
“Districts are given the flexibility to assess students during the winter mid-month or spring administration windows, as needed, to ensure a more appropriate amount of instructional time is available prior to the administration of the EOC,” the news release says. “Districts can also request extending their local testing window later in the school day to include afternoon and evening testing sessions and/or utilize a compressed testing schedule due to the updated Georgia Milestones test design, which includes a significant decrease in student testing time.”
Woods plans to recommend at the Oct. 1 Georgia Board of Education meeting that the weight of the EOC be cut from 20% of the course grade to 0.01%. State law forbids it to be completely erased.
These moves are Woods’ promised response to the U.S. Department of Education’s announcement Sept. 3 that it wouldn’t consider testing waivers for the 2020-21 school year. Woods said then that Georgia would follow federal law but would take action to remove the high-stakes pressure of the tests.
Georgia was the first state to announce its intent to apply for a waiver.
“I remain disappointed and disheartened by the federal directive to administer high-stakes tests in a pandemic,” Woods said in the news release. “Georgia will abide by federal law, but we are not going to layer additional stress and burden onto our students and teachers during this time. In this environment, these tests are not valid or reliable measures of academic progress or achievement, and we are taking all possible steps at the state level to reduce their high-stakes impact.”
The Ledger-Enquirer asked local school officials for their reaction.
“I appreciate the intent and efforts of Superintendent Woods to mitigate the anxiety and adverse impact associated with high-stakes testing that would otherwise be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Muscogee County superintendent David Lewis told the L-E in an email. “As noted in the release, some of the recommendations will be considered at the October State Board of Education meeting and others are being reviewed by the governor’s office to possibly be addressed through executive order. Therefore, any reaction to those steps would be premature.
“However, I am gratified that the state recognizes the need for common-sense flexibility with respect to student promotion/retention decisions and local testing windows that optimizes instructional time and opportunities for student success. Likewise, I am very pleased that, like our district, the state is focusing on formative assessments to identify gaps and inform instruction to address individual student growth and learning needs resulting from the COVID-19 school closures last spring.”
ChattCo superintendent Kristie Brooks also praised Woods.
“I applaud Superintendent Woods and the compassionate leadership he is displaying on behalf of Georgia public education,” she told the L-E in an email. “Accountability is critical, but it can be accomplished in a manner that is reasonable and makes common sense during a global pandemic.”
ChattCo is using a nationally standardized test, Brooks said, “to guide instruction, support student goal setting, and monitor the growth of our students. This will be the basis that ChattCo uses to determine strengths and areas of needed improvement. More importantly, we will continue to evaluate how our students are displaying work skills and how they emotionally adjust to the new way of life we are experiencing. We will continue to utilize our wrap-around services, social skills training, and in school counseling and groups to better support the whole child.”
Harris County School District assistant superintendent for instruction Dave Dennie expressed mixed reaction to the moves.
“During this pandemic, we are glad the superintendent and Georgia Department of Education are acknowledging the challenges being experienced by students, teachers, and administrators,” Dennie told the L-E in an email. “We will be watching to see what is decided about lowering the percentage of weight of the Georgia Milestone score that is applied to the final course grade.
“With regards to providing districts a waiver with some new options for determining promotion and retention, we have been a waiver district for years and already have those options in place.
“Regarding flexibility for administering the EOCs, since we have block scheduling — meaning most of our winter classes end when the semester ends — we probably would not push off winter EOCs to spring. . . . That would be exceedingly difficult for us. However, as we get ready to test this winter, the idea of flexibility regarding how we give the assessments may be useful, especially concerning how we assess our virtual students.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 5:03 PM.
