A final report released by the Georgia Department of Education (GDOE) last week shows that Gordon Central High School did not meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) standards, after a subset of students was retested in July.

Gordon Central fell short on the English/ Language Arts portion of the Georgia High School Graduation Test by about two percent, according to the final report. According to the AYP benchmark for this portion of the test, 90.8 percent of students had to meet or exceed AYP standards; the school achieved an 88.1 percent meeting rate.

Overall, 9 out of 10 county school met AYP standards this year, but the school system, as a whole, did not meet AYP standards because Gordon Central fell short.

However, the system did exceed the state average of 72.71 percent for school systems.

This state average was lower than the average of 77.17 percent in 2010, according to a statement released by the GDOE, due to higher standards on graduation and CRCT tests.

Superintendent Bill McCown echoed this statement, adding that a hike in standards may be the reason Gordon Central met AYP last year, but not this year.

“Students and teachers worked very hard last year to meet ever increasing performance goals set by the state Department of Education,” he said. “As a result of the instructional leadership of our administrators and the data-driven academic focus of our teachers and instructional coaches, our test scores continue to increase.”

McCown said he is now looking forward to next spring, when Georgia will announce its alternative to AYP.

The GDOE is currently requesting a No Child Left Behind waiver offered by the federal government to dismiss Georgia schools from the AYP measure system. Georgia is proposing to replace the AYP system with Georgia’s CCRPI (College and Career Ready Performance Index), according to a press release from GDOE.

State Superintendent John Barge said in a statement that the CCRPI would be a more complex measurement of schools, school districts and the state education system. He said the index would use a number of accountability indicators such as college/career preparation and student attendance and also focus more on individual school progress.

What is AYP?

AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) is a part of the No Child Left Behind Act that measures the achievement of schools, districts and states, according the U.S. Department of Education’s website, www.ed.gov.

The Georgia Department of Education determines AYP by evaluating scores from the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) and the Georgia High School Graduation Test, along with other criteria, such as attendance records and graduation rates, according to the GDOE’s website.

Every year, the federal government has certain goals schools must reach in order to attain AYP status. (See chart for requirements).

Schools that miss the mark for at least two consecutive years are labeled as “need improvement,” and face sanctions designed to help them improve, according to www.doe.k12.ga.us.

Gordon County schools met AYP standards last year.

More information about AYP and how schools performed, visit www.doe.k12.ga.us.