East Cobb News

One of the most complicated measurements of academic progress in the state of Georgia has been streamlined in order to become less complicated. But the Cobb CCRPI scores for 2018, which were released Monday, are lower across the board than last year.

The drops include schools in East Cobb, which still had some of the highest figures in the Cobb County School District and in Georgia.

The CCRPI—which stands for College and Career Ready Performance Index—is a state accountability measure that gauges overall achievement results and how schools are preparing students for the next level of education.

Cobb’s average of 79.6 (out of a maximum score of 100) is nearly three points higher than the state average, but lower than the 82.9 score from 2017.

Student performance is assessed in several ways, and they differ according to school level. They include content mastery, progress, closing performance gaps, readiness and graduation rates.

The Georgia Department of Education made some changes to its formula in the spring (here’s a PDF that breaks it all down, but as stated above, it’s really complicated). These changes were done to reduce the number of indicators to measure.

‘They’ve redone the math’

It’s the third time in the last five years that the state has changed the formula, and both Georgia and Cobb officials are urging parents not to compare 2018 scores to those in years past.

“Whatever analogy you want to make—apples to apples, oranges to oranges—this is reflected across the state,” said John Floresta, the Cobb schools chief strategy and accountability officer. “They’ve redone the math.”

He said the changes that are being felt the most are at the elementary school level.

One was to remove “challenge points” for “exceeding the bar” activities that allowed some schools to get a score of more than 100 points.

The other major calculation that affected scores was the “closing the gap” measurement. In essence, Floresta said, there’s now a lower ceiling for the highest-performing schools, while that ceiling has been raised for lower-performing schools.

A good example is at Timber Ridge Elementary School in East Cobb, which last year had a score of 100.5, a school that “exceeded the bar.” This year, Timber Ridge’s CCRPI score is 93.3.

Like many schools in East Cobb, Timber Ridge students did very well in content mastery at 98.6 and also scored above 90 in progress and readiness. But Timber Ridge’s closing the gap number, which comprises 15 percent of an elementary school’s score, was 78.6.

“The frustration is with the principals and staff more than anything else,” Floresta said. “It’s the reality of how they’ve redone the categories. We just want to know what our kids know.”

On the other hand, Mt. Bethel Elementary School was a perfect 100 in closing the gap, along with Wheeler High School.

Those East Cobb elementary schools that had double-digit drops had closing the gap scores that in some cases were below 50 (full East Cobb school results here).

Ups and downs

Some East Cobb schools came close to the maximum in 2018: Walton High School (96.3), Lassiter High School (95.8), Simpson Middle School (94.7) and Dodgen Middle School and Hightower Trail Middle School (both 91.8).

At the elementary school level the leaders included Mt. Bethel (95.6) and Timber Ridge’s 93.3. They were among the 19 schools in Cobb that had averages of 90 or more.

Some schools did report sizable increases in their CCRPI scores from 2017. Among them are Simpson Middle School, which jumped from 89.9 to 94.7, one of the biggest moves up among Cobb middle schools.

Seven schools got perfect scores of 100 in content mastery, including Walton, Lassiter, Pope, Dickerson Middle School and Murdock and Sope Creek at the elementary school level.

“Although we are glad to see strong CCRPI scores yet again, we are more focused on supporting our teachers to identify what their students know and immediately acting on what they learn about their students,” Cobb schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said in a statement.

School-by-school breakdowns have been provided by the Cobb County School District, and you can click on this page to see the full table.

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