North Fulton Schools Continue to Lead in CRCT Scores
categories: Schools
The CRCT Test, officially the Criterion-Reference Competency Test, is a state-wide test taken every Spring to measure how well students are learning the state curriculum. Sounds dull: Standardized tests. Let’s see if we can make this more interesting.
The results for 2007 have been released by the Georgia Department of Education and their analysis is that 2007’s results are better than 2006’s. The test is designed to measure how well students are learning the Georgia Performance Standards. Apparently, they are getting better. Of the nineteen tests administered, scores were up on sixteen. That is definitely progress.
I have taken the scores from all the elementary schools in Fulton County and created a tool for you to search and compare across schools. When people are evaluating North Fulton as a place to live, they definitely want to know which are the better schools.
I will offer the following caveat, though. These are standardized test results. They are only one measure of a school’s ability and you can argue all day about whether the test is fair and viable. For better or worse, though, these are the numbers that we have to compare schools. Remember that your child could go to the “best” school by the numbers and get a teacher who didn’t work out so well with your child.
To the numbers, please. These were the top points that I found when combing the elementary school data. (The percentages mentioned are the percentage of students NOT meeting the standard.)
1. Shakerag leads as the #1 performance school in the district for the second year in a row. Across all subjects and grades, on average only 1.3% of students did NOT meet the basic standard.
2. Shakerag was the best performing school across all grades in Math (0.99%).
3. Summit Hill was best performing across all grades in Reading (0.69%).
4. Crabapple Crossing was best performing across all graded in Language Arts (1.14%).
All these percentages are very small, to the point where it is just a few kids missing a few questions. The tenth best school over all is State Bridge Crossing and it has a score of 3.99%, which is still very low (good). Remember, this is like golf ;-> The lower the score the better.
The Rule of Thirds
There is a pretty wide disparity in the Fulton County School System between the achievers and the non-achievers. While Shakerag’s student were ripping through their tests, students at College Park Elementary might as well have been flipping coins.
One-third of the schools, eighteen to be exact, achieved at scores below 5%. All eighteen were in North Fulton, on both sides of GA-400.
There is a middle third that performs at between 5% and 20% and a final third where one in five students or worse are not meeting the state mandated standards.
The Perfect Scores
Just as an observation in the data, I did notice that there were some schools at some grades and subjects where everyone met the minimum standard. Now that is truly No Child Left Behind.
In the first grade, Wilson Creek, Shakerag, Crabapple Crossing and New Prospect had perfect scores in reading. Wilson Creek and Shakerag also had perfect scores in math.
In the second grade, Shakerag was perfect in ALL SUBJECTS (math, reading and language arts). That is a great accomplishment. Summit Hill was perfect in reading and Crabapple Crossing perfect in language arts.
In the third grade, Mountain Park Elementary showed it’s mastery of the subject matter, bringing the title back to the west side of GA-400. Mountain Park was one of the “original best schools” some years ago before many of the newer schools were built. It is still one of the better schools around and the third graders proved it by acing math, reading and language arts.
I’ll leave you to your leisure to check out fourth and fifth grades. Go here to see the data.
One of my favorite books when in school was How to Lie with Statistics. Check me out…how did I do? No matter how you spin it, though, North Fulton’s elementary schools are leading the pack. Stay tuned for analysis if the middle schools and North Fulton compared to the surrounding schools districts for Forsyth, Cobb and Gwinnett Counties.
