Georgia’s annual report card is out. Here’s how Bibb and Houston schools performed.

Georgia’s annual report card on how schools and districts are performing showed increased scores for Bibb and Houston schools overall, while the state’s overall score for all schools dipped slightly.

Bibb County schools scored 68.5 up 1.3 points from the previous year, according to the 2019 College and Career Ready Performance Index released Friday by the Georgia Department of Education.

Houston County schools scored 83.1, up 6.5 points. That compares to the state’s score of 75.9, down 0.7 of a point.

The CCRPI is an accountability tool for measuring how well public schools and school districts prepare students to achieve college and career readiness goals.

The index, based on a 100-point scale, has five overall components of content mastery, progress, closing gaps, readiness and, for high schools only, graduation rate.

Statewide, the elementary school score was 77.1, down 0.7 of a point. The middle school score was 72.1, a decrease of 4.1 points. The high school score of 77 was up 1.7 points.

Bibb County elementary schools scored 72, up 2.3 points. District middle schools scored 64.7, down 1 point, and high schools scored 65.2, a 1.7 points increase.

“I’m very excited about the CCRPI result,” said Bibb County School Superintendent Curtis Jones. “I think it indicates the hard work the teachers and students have put in place.

“I think it reflects a result of the hard work over the last several years where we’ve focused on trying to get students to master the content, we’ve tried to use more technology to help reduce the learning curve and we tried to help teachers who were new to the district, and even new to the teaching profession, get better faster by having better control of their classrooms, building better relationships with kids,” Jones said.

Another indicator of that hard work was that 21 of 35 schools in Bibb showed increases in school CCRPI scores, Jones said.

Houston

Houston County’s overall score of 83.1 was 7.2 points above the state score.

Houston County elementary schools scored 85.8, up 12.8 points. The school system’s middle schools scored 81.4, down half a point. The high schools scored 80.7, up 2.8 points.

“We are pleased that the hard work taking place in our schools is showing results,” Houston County School Superintendent Mark Scott said a news release. “... Our schools outperformed the state in every single indicator across all grade spans.

“This improvement is directly attributed to our work through professional learning communities. I commend our administrators, teachers and students on this progress,” Scott said.

Of 38 schools in Houston County, 28 had an increased score, Scott noted.

Additionally, CCRPI scores are used to identify Turnaround Eligible Schools, which are low performing schools that have a three-year CCRPI average in the bottom 5% for the state. The state’s Chief Turnaround Officer, in collaboration with the districts that have schools on the list, identifies schools from the list for state intervention.

The 2019 Turnaround Eligible Schools list is pending from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.

Bibb County had nine schools on the list in 2018. Three of those schools — Appling Middle School, Ballard-Hudson Middle School and Veterans Elementary School — have been working with the chief turnaround officer for the state for two years.

Veterans Elementary improved 10.7 points from last year with a 2019 score of 60.5, according to state and Bibb school district data. Appling Middle School scored 47.7, down 16.1 points, and Ballard-Hudson Middle School scored 40.3, a 15.5 point decrease.

Houston County had no schools on the list or in state intervention.

In a state Department of Education news release on the CCRPI scores, Gov. Brian Kemp and state School Superintendent Richard Woods noted a need to refine the CCRPI measurement to ensure that it’s “a fair and stable measure that accurately captures school performance.”

This is an addition to the most recent change.

As part of the state plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) — the replacement for No Child Left Behind — changes were made to the CCRPI calculation. The 2018 CCRPI was the first to use the new calculation.

Both also acknowledged that work still needs to be done to support students and improve student achievement, according to the release.

Woods said in the release that he’s committed to work with state and federal officials to reduce the weight of standardized test scores in the CCRPI.

He also wants to move toward “a wider and deeper measurement of performance that reflects the true mission of K-12 public schools (of) preparing students for life,” the release said.

Jones, who also thinks that the CCRPI calculation needs additional tweaking, applauded that commitment.

“Georgia’s public education system continues to receive both national and state-level recognition for its K-12 performance,” Jones said in the state’s release. “Now the state school superintendent and the governor’s office are working hand-in-hand alongside local districts, which finally affords us the opportunity to develop a measurement that fully captures the success we’re seeing across multiple metrics.”