Pulaski, Catoosa, Warren, Fulton, Randolph led in writing leaps
Here are the top 10 schools in improvements on the SAT writing scores from last year to this year.
The AJC’s Matt Dempsey created three top 10 lists showing the biggest improvements in the math, verbal and writing parts of the SAT. Interestingly, many of the same systems registered improvements in all areas.
What did Pulaski, Warren, Dougherty, Atkinson and Wilcox do this year?
District School 08 09 Difference
Pulaski Hawkinsville High 433 492 59
Catoosa Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High 501 556 55
Warren Warren County High School 348 399 51
Fulton Connected Academy 478 525 47
Randolph Randolph Clay High School 392 438 46
Dougherty Monroe High School 400 443 43
Atkinson Atkinson County High School 408 448 40
Wilcox, Wilcox County High School 417 457 40
Wheeler Wheeler County High School 454 494 40
Jackson East Jackson High School 445 484 39
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
9 comments Add your comment
old teach
August 25th, 2009
5:02 pm
Improvements are usually a good thing.
However, what always bothers me about the reported
“Gains” in these reported scores is the fact that the improvement is a difference between the seniors of 2008 and the seniors of 2009. THEY ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GROUPS OF STUDENTS. This could mean that this years class had more motivated students , or fewer students NOT planning to go to college took the test this year, or fewer students for whom English is not their first language. It may be that decreased scores at one or more high schools indicate a shift in demographics or one of the things mentioned above.
When the CRCT scores are reported, they are the same….comparing 2008 7th grade scores to 2009 7th grade scores. Most teachers here could tell you that is not the way to measure progress.
Actual progress should be measured by comparing 7th grade 2008 CRCT scores at a specific school to the 2009 8TH GRADE scores of those same students.
Joy In Teaching
August 25th, 2009
6:36 pm
Let’s see: 9 blog entries in 2 days about TESTING. Not a peep about the fact that a gun was accidently discharged at a middle school in Macon today.
Apparently, Maureen isn’t really concerned about student safety, just whether they do better on a test that is ONLY one indicator of student success at a college or university.
Maureen's accountability metric
August 25th, 2009
6:56 pm
Joy in Teaching,
You wouldn’t be referring to the Maureen who moderates the Get Schooled blog would you? The one who wrote “let’s focus on rigor, rather than the SAT” in the middle of 8 other blogs on the SAT, conveniently pushing aside little minor issues like school violence and a major cheating scandal?
Reality 2
August 25th, 2009
9:32 pm
old teach,
I think you need to study statistics…
old teach
August 26th, 2009
12:47 am
REALITY 2…Have studied statistics. Stand by the notion that the best way to measure progress of a group of students is to pre test before instruction and post test THE SAME STUDENTS AFTER instruction.
Reality 2
August 26th, 2009
7:02 am
Pre- and post-testing may be the best, but cross sections or other sampling techniques can give us just as good information. When you have thousands of children involved, the difference between two groups can’t be that significant. That doesn’t mean any given group of kids a teacher has may be different from his/her previous groups. But, when you look at the group as a whole, it’s not going to be a major factor.
That’s what statistics is about, isn’t it?
Jeff
August 26th, 2009
8:42 am
Gee… wonder what Randolph has done in the past year…
Bobby Jenkins and Henry Cook (the Superintendent and Chair of the School Board, respectively) were *thrown in jail*… FINALLY.
When the students of Randolph County finally found out that people WOULD hold them accountable, rather than letting them and their leaders get away with dang near anything, their scores improved. Shocking!
Remember, this is the same Superintendent and Chairman whose racism and abuse of power is so blatant and so atrocious that if they were white doing it to blacks, they would have been in a federal penitentiary long ago.
Joy in Teaching
August 26th, 2009
9:06 am
It’s asinine to compare apples as a fruit with oranges as a fruit as they are different types of fruit. Which is better? They are different.
Yet people like Maureen and the Department of Education like to compare one group of students with an entirely different group of students in order to define “growth.”
When I was a kid, my dad marked my growth every year on the back of the bathroom door. He did it in order to mark my progress.
I mark my student’s growth in my class by giving them a pre test at the beginning of the course and a post test at the end of the course. The positive differentiation between the two tests show growth.
Should I show a student’s growth by comparing the post tests from this year with the post tests from last year? No…taht would be foolish. Yet that is what those who talk about the SAT, NCLB, and Maureen wants us to do.
Reality 2
August 26th, 2009
6:01 pm
Thousands of 5th graders this year as a whole group is VERY MUCH like thousands of 5th graders from last year. It DOES make perfect sense to compare them at that level. 20 kids in your class this year may be very different from 20 kids from last year. Statistics CAN tell us a lot, not everything.