Fayette County students again

scored higher than their peers in neighboring school districts on the

Spring 2003 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), according to

results released this week by the state Department of Education.

Students in grades 4, 6 and 8 take the CRCT each spring in the areas of

reading, English/language arts and math, testing students on their knowledge

of Georgia's Quality Core Curriculum (QCC).

According to the results, Fayette students overwhelmingly showed grade-level

proficiency in each of the subject areas tested, the best performance

in the Metro Atlanta area.

That's in contrast to Coweta, where students performed about average

across the boards. Henry County students topped the state averages in

every category, but in the troubled Clayton County school district, student

scores came in below average in every subject area.

Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, public information specialist for the school

district, said scores are categoriezed as not meeting standards, meeting

standards and exceeding standards.

"These standards represent what Georgia educators expect students

to know and be able to do at the end of the school year with respect to

the QCC," Berry-Dreisbach explained in a press release.

Overall, Fayette's students performed best in reading where each

grade level scored 90 percent or above in the "meets" and "exceeds"

categories combined. Additionally, in English/language arts and mathematics,

grade levels scored in the high 80-90 percent range. In comparison to

the state, Fayette's scores in the "meets" and "exceeds"

categories ranged an average of 10-20 percentage points higher on all

subjects across each grade level tested.

The largest gap between Fayette's scores and the state's is

in math where students scored 16-22 percentage points higher in the "meets"

and "exceeds" categories combined.

"We're in good shape," says Deborah Crockett who oversees

all testing for the school system. "We're looking closely at

those students who did not meet their performance levels and are critically

analyzing what we can do to bring them up to where they should be."

The CRCT not only measures the progress students are making, but its also

used to measure the improvement in instruction provided by the individual

schools.

Last spring's CRCT results will be used to calculate Adequate Yearly

Progress, or AYP, a critical component of the No Child Left Behind act.

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