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New evaluation method gives special attention to some Georgia schools

March 14th, 2012

When Georgia received a waiver from part of the federal “No Child Left Behind” law last month, state education officials came up with a new way to evaluate schools.

Now, the Georgia Department of Education has identified 78 of the state’s lowest-performing schools as “priority schools.”

State superintendent John Barge says there are three ways to become a “priority school.”

A school that, for two years, has seen less than 60% of its students graduate, or is currently receiving a school improvement grant,

“And a third way, which would probably be a majority of the schools that are on the list, achievement,” he says.

Barge says now “achievement” includes all subject areas. That’s a switch from No Child Left Behind, which just focused on math and reading.

Barbara Lunsford is the associate superintendent for school improvement. She says the next step is meeting with the schools to develop an improvement plan,

“We will have staff that will be able to actually go out and work with the schools and their teams. We will broker if they need additional content support in a subject area, we will work with our curriculum folks here.”

Both Barge and Lunsford say the goal of the new system is to provide support, not sanctions.

Lunsford says the department expects to identify the next tier of schools, called “focus schools” by next week.