MACON, Ga. — The state released scores from the Georgia Milestones tests Friday. Those are the tests that measure how well Georgia students are learning their key subjects.
This year, the test counted for an upward of 20% of some students' total grades. So, how did Bibb County schools do this year?
We spoke with a person from the Bibb County Board of Education to understand what their test scores mean, and with some folks about how testing went for their families.
Kevin Adams is the Chief Information officer with the Bibb County BOE.
“Now, they're seeing the results on the Milestones that their hard work has paid off,” he says.
Adams says during the pandemic, test scores at every school dropped.
"This year we bounced back towards that trend area, so we're seeing some very positive results in that regard,” he explains.
Adams says that grades 3-8 and high school saw improvements in English and Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science. He says he's proud of both students and teachers.
"They have faced a lot of challenges due to COVID-19 that has been introduced to the education system. They have been very resilient.”.
Adams says there are still things to work on to improve scores. 15-year old Lily Romeo agrees.
"They should try a bit harder to encourage the students, that's it,” she says.
Lily says the schools did a great job in preparing students for testing, however…
"They could've been more encouraging with the way they were teaching and preparing us for milestones, because it has been a good couple years since we've taken milestones. It was just the anxiety,” Lily explains.
Sally Moody is principal of Appling Middle School in Macon.
"Of course, we'll get in the classrooms and continue to monitor instruction,” she says.
Moody says her teachers are already working on taking classes to communicate better and….
"We’re making sure that the students know their data and own their data. We’ll be making sure that the students are on board to increase and perform as well,” she says.
Moody says that Milestones scores during the pandemic didn’t depict what their students are capable of due to the optional testing in 2021. She says the results were skewed because the whole student body wasn’t participating. She says now test scores are better than last year. However, there is still work to be done.
"We're not where we need to be until we have every one of our kids is reading on grade level, so there's still a lot of work to do, but the conditions are right to create it,” Moody says.
We also reached out to Houston County schools. They said they out performed the state average in every content area and most scores are back to pre-pandemic levels.