CRCT results by school are out: What do they mean?
The individual school CRCT results are finally out and a summary of Barrow County school results was published in the Journal last week.
But there’s more data to look at, much of it of interest only to a numbers geek. Many people just want a broad brush of what the data says, not the detailed numbers.
In an effort to cut through the piles of data and give context to what they really mean for Barrow County students, parents and educators, here’s a brief rundown on each Barrow County school based on 5th and 8th Grade results:
• Yargo Elementary School was by far the strongest local elementary school in the county based on 5th Grade CRCT results. The school was in the top one-third of Georgia schools in every subject area. But it wasn’t all cheering at YES. Compared to last year, YES did worse in both Science and Social Studies.
• Bramlett Elementary School also had some good results, but was in the top one-third of the state only in English/Language Arts and Science while it was in the middle one-third in all other subject areas. Still, BES improved in every area except Science from the year before.
• Kennedy Elementary School was in the top one-third in the state in Math results, but was only in the middle of the pack in all other categories. KES did not improve its 5th Grade CRCT results in Science or Social Studies.
• Like KES, Statham Elementary School was in the top one-third of some 1,200 elementary schools in the state in Math, but fell in the middle in all other areas. SES did have across the board improvement from 2010 with a big jump in Science.
• County Line Elementary School also improved from last year in every subject area, especially in Math, but overall didn’t have any results in the top one-third of the state.
• Bethlehem Elementary School improved in three subject areas, but did worse in Science and Social Studies from the year before. BES was in the middle one-third of state results in four areas, but was in the bottom one-third in Science where it was also below the state average.
• Auburn Ele-mentary School did worse this year than last year in four out of five categories — and where it did improve in Social Studies, it still had an extremely high failure rate of 37 percent. AES was below the state average in four out of five areas and was in the bottom tier of state schools in English/Language Arts. The AES failure rate was in double-digits across the board.
• Holsenbeck Elementary School posted the poorest CRCT performance in Barrow County with high failure rates in every category. It was worse than the state average in every category and was in the bottom one-third of Georgia elementary schools in three out of five categories.
In the middle schools:
• Haymon-Morris Middle School had the strongest local results, having improved in all five content areas from the year before. HMMS was in the top one third in the state results in Math and Science and was in the middle of state results in the other three content areas.
• Westside Middle School also had some strong results finishing in the top one-third of the state in ELA and Math, but the school lost ground in four out of five areas from the year before. WSMS was worse than the state average in Science.
• Winder-Barrow Middle School was in the top one-third of state schools in ELA, Science and Social Studies, but was in the bottom one-third of all Georgia middle schools in Math. WBMS did show improvement in all categories from 2010, but was still below the state average in Math.
• Russell Middle School had the worst local results and was in the bottom one-third of state middle schools in ELA, Math and Social Studies. RMS did worse this year than last year in every category and was below the state average in every category.
So what does this mean overall?
Generally speaking, the BCSS has made some improvements on its historically-weak Math testing, especially at the elementary school level. But the system continues to struggle with Science and Social Studies with both of those categories having high failure rates and not much progress is being made. More work with a stronger curriculum and stronger teaching needs to be done in those two areas.
And the system needs to focus on three schools that had overall poor results: Russell Middle School, Holsenbeck Elementary School and Auburn Elementary School. Those three schools were worse than the state average in just about every category. Somebody should be held accountable for those schools’ lack of performance.
Finally, the other schools that are somewhere in the middle should be pushed to continue to improve and move into the top one-third of state schools. Being just average isn’t good enough in today’s competitive education environment.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
In an effort to cut through the piles of data and give context to what they really mean for Barrow County students, parents and educators, here’s a brief rundown on each Barrow County school based on 5th and 8th Grade results:
• Yargo Elementary School was by far the strongest local elementary school in the county based on 5th Grade CRCT results. The school was in the top one-third of Georgia schools in every subject area. But it wasn’t all cheering at YES. Compared to last year, YES did worse in both Science and Social Studies.
• Bramlett Elementary School also had some good results, but was in the top one-third of the state only in English/Language Arts and Science while it was in the middle one-third in all other subject areas. Still, BES improved in every area except Science from the year before.
• Kennedy Elementary School was in the top one-third in the state in Math results, but was only in the middle of the pack in all other categories. KES did not improve its 5th Grade CRCT results in Science or Social Studies.
• Like KES, Statham Elementary School was in the top one-third of some 1,200 elementary schools in the state in Math, but fell in the middle in all other areas. SES did have across the board improvement from 2010 with a big jump in Science.
• County Line Elementary School also improved from last year in every subject area, especially in Math, but overall didn’t have any results in the top one-third of the state.
• Bethlehem Elementary School improved in three subject areas, but did worse in Science and Social Studies from the year before. BES was in the middle one-third of state results in four areas, but was in the bottom one-third in Science where it was also below the state average.
• Auburn Ele-mentary School did worse this year than last year in four out of five categories — and where it did improve in Social Studies, it still had an extremely high failure rate of 37 percent. AES was below the state average in four out of five areas and was in the bottom tier of state schools in English/Language Arts. The AES failure rate was in double-digits across the board.
• Holsenbeck Elementary School posted the poorest CRCT performance in Barrow County with high failure rates in every category. It was worse than the state average in every category and was in the bottom one-third of Georgia elementary schools in three out of five categories.
In the middle schools:
• Haymon-Morris Middle School had the strongest local results, having improved in all five content areas from the year before. HMMS was in the top one third in the state results in Math and Science and was in the middle of state results in the other three content areas.
• Westside Middle School also had some strong results finishing in the top one-third of the state in ELA and Math, but the school lost ground in four out of five areas from the year before. WSMS was worse than the state average in Science.
• Winder-Barrow Middle School was in the top one-third of state schools in ELA, Science and Social Studies, but was in the bottom one-third of all Georgia middle schools in Math. WBMS did show improvement in all categories from 2010, but was still below the state average in Math.
• Russell Middle School had the worst local results and was in the bottom one-third of state middle schools in ELA, Math and Social Studies. RMS did worse this year than last year in every category and was below the state average in every category.
So what does this mean overall?
Generally speaking, the BCSS has made some improvements on its historically-weak Math testing, especially at the elementary school level. But the system continues to struggle with Science and Social Studies with both of those categories having high failure rates and not much progress is being made. More work with a stronger curriculum and stronger teaching needs to be done in those two areas.
And the system needs to focus on three schools that had overall poor results: Russell Middle School, Holsenbeck Elementary School and Auburn Elementary School. Those three schools were worse than the state average in just about every category. Somebody should be held accountable for those schools’ lack of performance.
Finally, the other schools that are somewhere in the middle should be pushed to continue to improve and move into the top one-third of state schools. Being just average isn’t good enough in today’s competitive education environment.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.
Also, Mike I wish you were not such a hate monger and just stuck to the facts. It is so unprofessional when a news writer starts tell his readers how they should feel rather than just sticking to the facts.
Your call that somebody should be held accountable in the three schools on the low end of these scores is another personal attempt by you to reach off the page and strike out at local workers. Schools are complex operations and looking for a scapegoat just so you can extract your pound of flesh is sad . . . just sad.
Why don't you get off your but and do some real reporting? How about investigating what is going on right at the high ranking schools and contrast that to the other schools? Of course you would have to actually get off your computer and walk around, conduct interviews and such, or is that asking too much?
However, I wonder if Mike realizes that, whenever we rank a group of schools, teams, etc., SOMEBODY has to be on the bottom? He always makes it a point to call out the "bottom" school in a district. He did it for Jackson County as well (both this year and last). The simple truth is, even if every school in Barrow or Jackson scored in the top one-third of the state, one of the schools in each county would have the "lowest" scores in the county. It is a simple matter of logistics. To coin a phrase from the children among us, "Duh."