In the final count, did your school make AYP?

See which Atlanta area schools now meet AYP standards based on summer retests.

Here is the AJC list.

And here is a related story by Kristina Torres.

According to the story: The strongest showings continue to come at the elementary and middle school levels, although the state finally broke through the halfway point with its high schools. Last year and earlier this year, less than half of Georgia’s high schools met the required standard.

I was at a conference most of today on the state of education in Georgia, sponsored by UGA. There were some happy folks there whose school systems have now made AYP.

Also while I was at the conference, Gov. Sonny Perdue and school Superintendent Kathy Cox released  statements about the rise in Georgia’s graduation rate, which the state now says is 78.9 percent.

I wish that our elected officials would resist this crowing because I don’t think this high rate will stand when all states have to measure grad rates by a federal formula. Cox was more circumspect than the governor, wisely focusing on the increase rather than the actual rate, which outside groups place at closer to 60 percent than 80.

She said, “A three-point jump in our graduation rate means that nearly 4,500 more students graduated with a full diploma this year than did last year.  Our high school principals, teachers and students should take a lot of pride in the fact that more students than ever are graduating in Georgia. In a short period of time, we have increased by thousands the number of students who are graduating with a full diploma. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are making steady progress every year.”

Here is what the governor said:

“During my first year in office in 2003, our graduation rate stood at just over 63 percent. Since then, our efforts have been focused on helping students finish high school. We created the innovative graduation coach program which identifies at-risk students and creates individualized completion plans. Our Work Ready initiative engages local communities by requiring improvement in the graduation rate in order to qualify as a Certified Work Ready Community. As a result, local leaders and businesses are getting more involved in their schools, ensuring their hometown has an educated, talented workforce. Thanks to the hard work of our teachers, graduation coaches, principals and community leaders, we have seen tremendous improvement in the graduation rate of more than 15 percent in just six years. We are now on the cusp of achieving a benchmark goal of an 80 percent graduation rate by next year, and with another year of hard work and dedication I know we can achieve what some believed was impossible.”