Georgia Milestones tests may not factor in promotion, retention

The Georgia Milestones assessments may not play a role in whether students pass or fail a grade this year after all.

At the request of the Georgia Department of Education, the state school board’s rules committee is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to waive that requirement from the process by which students are promoted to the next grade for the 2015-16 school year.

Under the current rules, a student would have to score as a “developing learner” — the second of four scoring categories, ahead of “beginning” but behind “proficient” and “distinguished” — in third grade reading, fifth grade reading and math, and eighth grade reading and math in order to pass to the next grade.

“The waiver of the promotion/retention rule is being sought in the interest of our third-, fifth-, and eighth-grade students given the stakes involved for these students ... because some may have experienced problems due to technology issues,” Matt Cardoza, chief communications officer for the state education department, wrote in an email.

Those technology issues included a lag in the online system April 19 that caused students to get stuck in one section of the test. Cardoza said that Data Recognition Corp., the testing contractor for Georgia Milestones, was able to resolve the issue that day.

“But once the lagging had begun, it took some time to catch up,” Cardoza said. “Districts reported things were much more smooth during subsequent days.”

He also noted that there were other problems with student responses not being transmitted quickly enough for the children to move on through sections immediately. Schools had to push those responses through manually at times.

“Many districts tested with only minor incidents,” he said. “Other districts encountered challenges that took time to resolve.”

In Bibb County, however, test results won’t completely be thrown out as a factor for whether students move on to the next grade. Superintendent Curtis Jones said that more than 71 percent of the county’s tests were done online and no glitches were reported.

“We had a pretty flawless implementation of testing this year,” he said.

As such, district educators and administrators will still consider test results when decisions are made on promotion, even if the state rule is relaxed. Since Jones expects that the Milestones results will take their planned role statewide in that promotion process beginning next year, a student who isn’t on grade level but is passed on anyway as though the test never happened could face trouble down the road.

“That’s not doing that student any good,” Jones said.

What the waiver in state requirements would allow is flexibility in handling those situations. That could include passing students on to the next grade with “substantial support,” such as after-school or weekend tutoring.

Regardless, the district will offer retests and summer school options for students who don’t have satisfactory scores on the Milestones tests, and Jones says he hopes students and families will take those opportunities seriously.

“We are attempting to change the culture in our school system, and that culture says that you need to be held accountable for what you can do or cannot do,” he said.

Some students did have issues with the test, though, said parent Michelle Wimbush. Her daughter, Mekenzie, is a fifth-grader at Alexander II Magnet School. Wimbush said that issues with the computers caused Mekenzie to need extra time for some test sections, but she was able to finish the assessments.

“Still, they did have problems,” Wimbush said.

Wimbush said she was fine with the Milestones results being used “as a tool” in the promotion process, but she was skeptical about using it as a hard requirement at any point, particularly if students have good grades otherwise.

“A lot of them don’t do good with tests,” she said.

As for how the Milestones results will impact schools and teachers, the “student growth” component for the assessment was already not going to be a part of the teacher and school leader evaluations for this year, Cardoza said. High school tests are now slated to account for 20 percent of grades in certain courses.

“It's too early to make that decision on end of course tests because they just started this week, and there have not been the same issues with technology,” Cardoza said.

This story was originally published May 2, 2016 at 9:47 AM with the headline "Georgia Milestones tests may not factor in promotion, retention."