Teachers in Fayette County’s public schools are about to get another cybertool at their disposal, and this time it will help them monitor student assessments on statewide standardized tests.
The new statewide Longitudinal Data System will allow teachers to pull up a particular student’s grades along with results on the CRCT, high school graduation tests and high school end of course testing, the Fayette County Board of Education was told last week.
Teachers will only have access to the data of students who are currently in their classrooms, and not other students at the school, said technology department head Curt Cearley.
Teachers will be able to compare their entire classroom to the rest of the school and also the state, Cearley said.
The system will also display data comparing a given grade level or entire school for comparison purposes, Cearley said.
The system is being rolled out by the state of Georgia and is not costing anything for Fayette County, Cearley added.
Board member Lee Wright said his main worry about the system is to make sure students’ privacy is protected.
Cearley noted that teachers are routinely cautioned not to leave student data open on their computer terminals, for example.
“I think the training program probably needs to re-emphasize it,” Wright said.
Meanwhile, the benefit is huge for student assessment, said Board Chairwoman Terri Smith, noting that teachers wanting such data in older days had to dig through paper records stored in a vault.
“I believe this will solve that problem,” Smith said. “There was no looking at it before. It was too much trouble. So making it easier to access is definitely going to help teachers know their students.”
