The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) last week released the list of 426 schools in the state that fall into the bottom quartile on its weighted index of scores from the state’s College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI).
None of Oconee County’s 12 schools were on the list of “failed” schools, but several schools in neighboring districts were.
Three elementary schools in Barrow County Schools received scores in the bottom quartile, as did four elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school in Clarke County School District.
One middle school in Elbert County Schools, one middle school in Greene County Schools, one high school in Oglethorpe County Schools, and one middle school in Social Circle City Schools also were in the bottom quartile.
Parents of children attending those schools can participate in the Georgia Promise Scholarship Program, allowing them to apply for $6,500 per year in vouchers to be used for home schooling, other schooling costs, or tuition at approved private schools, including two of the private schools in Oconee County.
The list of “failed” schools released last week replaced lists released earlier that were found to be flawed, based on the classification of the schools using the weighted index created by GOSA.
Oconee County Schools issued a news release on Jan. 29 stating that all of Oconee County’s 12 schools had an A grade on the GOSA index.
It had issued a news release on Dec. 4, after the Georgia Department of Education had released the scores on all five of the components of the CCRPI, singling out the performance of Oconee County Schools on two of those five components.
Single Index Scores
GOSA scores each school in a school system, but it also provides an overall system score, which is the average score across the schools in the system. The list of failed schools was an average of scores for 2023 and 2024.
In 2024, Oconee County’s system score was 95.3, up from 91.7 in 2023.
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Only 11 schools were used in the GOSA index in 2023, since Dove Creek Middle School was not yet open.
The lowest scoring Oconee County school in the system in 2024, on the COSA single score index, was at High Shoals Elementary, with a score of 91.5.
The highest score was at Oconee County Primary School, with a score of 98.6.
Oconee County Primary has Pre K, K, and grades 1 and 2. Grades 3, 4, and 5 are at nearby Oconee County Elementary School.
Scores increased from 2023 at all of the schools except High Shoals Elementary School (which saw a decrease of 5.1 points), Rocky Branch Elementary School (decrease of 2.0 points), and Oconee County High School (decrease of 3.3 points).
The largest increase was at Oconee County Primary school, with a gain from 2023 to 2024 of 9.7 points on the weighted single score index.
In its Jan. 29 news release, Oconee County Schools reported that “For the first time in Oconee County Schools history, each school in the district recorded an A as an overall grade in the College and Career Ready Performance Index.”
Neither GOSA for its single item index nor the Georgia Department of Education for the CCRPI currently uses a letter grade, but, in the past, the Georgia Department of Education considered a score of 90 and above an A grade.
The Oconee County Schools news release on Jan. 29 did not reference the 2023 scores.
Surrounding Districts
Oconee County’s District score of 95.3 on the GOSA index is much higher than the statewide score of 78.9 or of that of any of the other 12 districts included in the Northeast Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency, with which Oconee County Schools often compares itself.
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Districts with the next highest score are Jefferson City (83.8), Commerce City (82.2), and Walton (82.2).
Clarke County Schools were the most improved, with an increase of 17.0 points, and Madison County Schools showed the greatest decrease in scores of 18.7 points.
Two districts that often compete with Oconee County for top scores on statewide tests are Forsyth County and Buford City Schools.
Both systems outperformed Oconee County Schools in 2023, but each saw a drop in scores in 2024 from a year earlier.
The state as a whole reported an increase in scores of 4.9 points from 2023 to 2024.
According to the GOSA data, Forsyth and Oconee counties stand out in terms of the percentage of students not Economically Disadvantaged.
In Oconee County 18.6 percent of the students in the schools were labeled as Economically Disadvantaged in 2024, compared with 18.1 percent in Forsyth County. (The counties are the two wealthiest in the state, in that order, as measured by median household income.)
The percent Economically Disadvantaged is 69.8 in Elbert County Schools, 64.0 in Clarke County Schools, and 69.6 in the state as a whole,
Students certified as Economically Disadvantaged fall into at least one of the following categories: living in a family receiving (SNAP) food stamp benefits; living in a family receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits; or are identified as homeless, an unaccompanied youths, foster children, or migrants.
Single Index Creation
The Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, passed by the Georgia General Assembly last year, requires the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA) to create a list of the lowest performing 25 percentile of public schools in Georgia each year.
GOSA used five component scores from the Georgia Department of Education CCRPI: Content Mastery, Progress, Closing the Gaps, Readiness, and Graduation Rate in creating the indices for 2023 and 2024.
Score on the first four of these come from the Georgia Milestones Assessment System standardized tests.
The index includes the graduation rate component only for high schools, and the Content Mastery measure is weighted up and the Progress measure is weighted down if only one measures is used in the assessment of Progress.
Students from the “failing” schools are eligible to attend private schools approved by the Georgia Education Savings Authority. In Oconee County, at present, those are Athens Academy and Westminster Christian Academy.
Prince Avenue Christian School is not on the released list of approved schools, but applications remain open.
Oconee County Schools has excess capacity in each of its 12 schools, but the Georgia Promise Scholarship Program vouchers only can be used at private schools.
GOSA released lists of “failed” schools at the end of November and in early December, according to media reports, but withdrew them each time when errors were found in the designation of the schools on the list.
At least one school system that competes with Oconee County for top ranking on many indices, Forsyth County Schools, has one middle school that was in the bottom quartile list released on Feb. 14.
CCRPI Five Components
The Georgia Department of Education (GADOE), which gathers the data behind the CCRPI, does not produce a single score, but instead reports scores of from 0 to 100 on each of the five components.
Content Mastery includes student scores on statewide assessments in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.
Progress measures how much growth students demonstrate in English language arts and mathematics and how well English learners are progressing toward English language proficiency.
Closing Gaps measures how well schools meet annual improvement targets for student subgroups.
Readiness includes literacy scores, student attendance, the percentage of students succeeding in “beyond the core” instruction, accelerated enrollment, pathway completion, and college and career readiness measures.
Graduation Rate includes both the four and five-year graduation rates. It is a high school component expressed as a percentage.
In its Dec. 4 news release following the release of the 2024 CCRPI scores by the Georgia Department of Education, Oconee County Schools reported the Content Mastery and Readiness scores for 2024 for Oconee County Schools and made no mention of the other three components of the CCRPI.
CCRPI Scores Across Components
I downloaded the CCRPI data for 2024 and 2023 for Oconee County Schools and looked at the five component scores for the individual schools as well as at the scores by school level.
In both 2024 and 2023, the school summaries do not correspond with the individual school reports for Progress and Closing Gaps.
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As a result, in my analysis I followed OCS’s lead and focused on Content Mastery and Readiness, where discrepancies between the school scores and the summary schools were small or nonexistent.
I also looked at graduation rates for both 2024 and 2023.
Three of the six elementary schools had a perfect score in 2024 on Content Masterly, as did the sole primary school. Scores at all seven of the elementary schools and primary school improved from a year earlier.
Scores on the Readiness component also were high across those seven schools, though they had decreased slightly from 2023 at three of those schools.
Middle School scores at all three schools were high on both Content Mastery and Readiness, and for Malcom Bridge and Oconee County Middle School, where 2023 measures were available, the 2024 score were improved from 2023.
Content Mastery scores were high at both North Oconee High School and Oconee County High School in 2024. Scores were noticeably lower on the Readiness component.
Both measures shows slight declines at North Oconee High School and slight gains at Oconee County High School.
Graduation rates improved at both high schools from 2023 to 2024.
News Releases
The Dec. 6 Oconee County Schools news release on the report of the CCRPI scores for 2024 focuses on how those scores rank across the state.
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"OCS achieved a milestone as the 12 schools combined for the district’s highest-ever CCRPI results," according to the news release.
“We are proud of the sustained progress reflected in the CCRPI scores, which highlights the hard work and dedication of our students, educators, and families,” Superintendent Jason Branch is quoted as saying.
“These results demonstrate the commitment to academic excellence and the shared vision of preparing each student for a successful future,” the quote continues.
The Jan. 29 news release does not indicate that the results being reported resulted from a new calculation by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement of the data released by the Georgia Department of Education in December.
The release says that each of the schools in the district received an A grade on the CCRPI and then quoted Branch as saying “This milestone reflects the dedication and hard work our students, teachers, and staff put in each day.”
“We are incredibly proud of this historic achievement, and it’s the direct result of a collective K-12 effort,” the quote continues. “Having every school with all A’s on this statewide report card shows what’s possible when we work together toward the district’s goals.”
In his Superintendents Report to the Board at its meeting on Feb. 3, Branch told the Board, “As you probably have seen on social media, we have a College and Career Ready Performance Index we call CCRPI.”
“And for the first time in our district history, all 12 schools reported an overall grade of A,” he continued.
“To our knowledge,” he said, “we are the only district in the state that has that across the board.”
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