Local schools are deemed “clear” of tampering with CRCT results, according to an announcement last week from The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (OSA).
OSA again worked with CTB-McGraw Hill (CTB), the state’s testing vendor that develops and scores the CRCTs, to conduct a comprehensive examination of all answer documents for grades 1 through 8. The analysis focused on the number of wrong answers that had been erased and replaced with correct answers on individual student answer sheets in Reading, English-Language Arts, and Mathematics.
“This analysis done on the 2010 CRCT answer sheets, which is identical to that done last year on 2009 answer sheets, paints a very different picture,” said OSA Executive Director, Kathleen Mathers. “Far fewer classrooms were flagged across the state this time, and those flags were generally much smaller than flags seen a year ago. That’s certainly good news.”
In the analysis, CTB psychometricians scanned answer documents to identify total erasures per classroom, flagging those classrooms in which the number of wrong-to-right changes proved to be significantly higher than the state average.
OSA again placed schools into four categories based on the percentage of classrooms flagged within each school: clear of concern (0 percent-5 percent flagged); minimal concern (6 percent-10 percent flagged); moderate concern (11 percent-24 percent flagged); and severe concern (25 percent or more flagged).
In the Commerce School System, Commerce Primary School, with four classes flagged — 7.8 percent of the total — was placed in the “minimal concern” category. Commerce Middle School, with five classes (4.9 percent) flagged, and Commerce Elementary School, with zero classes flagged, were place in the “clear of concern” category.
All 11 Jackson County primary, middle and elementary schools were deemed “clear of concern.” East Jackson Elementary, East Jackson Middle, Kings Bridge Middle, West Jackson Intermediate, West Jackson Middle and West Jackson Primary schools all had zero classes flagged.
Only one local school — Jefferson Academy with 14 classes or 17.3 percent flagged — was placed in the area of “moderate concern.”
For statistical purposes, “classes” are groups of students counted for each part of the test. Thus each actual class would count as three classes in the analysis.
Statewide, 87 percent of Georgia’s elementary and middle schools fell into the “clear” category compared to 80 percent a year ago; 10 percent fell into “minimal concern” compared to 10 percent a year ago; 3 percent fell into “moderate concern” compared to 6 percent a year ago; and 0.5 percent fell into “severe concern” compared to 4 percent a year ago.
The Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) is a standardized assessment given to elementary and middle school students each spring in Georgia. The test is designed to measure how well students at each grade level have learned the state’s curriculum. CRCT results are used to determine whether schools have made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and are also the criteria by which some student promotion and retention decisions are made.
