Test results for Georgia schools rise again in 2024, remain below pre-pandemic outcomes

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia students showed progress on standardized tests given in the 2023-2024 school year, but it’s far from a quick rebound to pre-pandemic achievement levels as students in some grades and subjects aren’t showing a clear recovery.

The Georgia Department of Education released the annual Milestones test results Friday. Students in grades 3 through 8 as well as high schoolers take tests in math and English language arts, while a few grades take science and social studies tests. Federal law requires most of the tests.

Because the state administered a math test for a redesigned math curriculum, those scores won't be available for several more months.

Officials in the Georgia Department of Education continue to express confidence in ultimate recovery.

“We saw gains in all grades and courses for English language arts, with the exception of grade 3, which had a one percentage point decrease,” Allison Timberlake, deputy state superintendent for assessment and accountability, told reporters Thursday in a briefing.

Proficiency levels — the share of students meeting expectations for what they should know — averaged 43.5% in English language arts in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. In 2024, they averaged 39.5%, up a percentage point on average from 2023.

There were strong gains in proficiency for fifth grade students, where the 48% proficiency level topped the 45% pre-pandemic level, and in sixth grade. Those fifth grade students in English language arts were the only ones to record proficiency levels above where they were before the pandemic, across 12 tests administered in multiple grades and subjects.

But proficiency for fourth grade students rose by only 1 percentage point, where third grade levels fell by 1 point. Third graders were in four-year-old prekindergarten in the spring of 2020 when schools were closed for about two months because of COVID-19, and were in kindergarten in 2020-2021 when Georgia students were mostly attending in-person but instruction was still heavily impacted by the pandemic. She said that those students early literacy skills may have been more harmed by the disruption than older students.

One issue is that those students may not have attended school at all during the pandemic. Prekindergarten and kindergarten enrollments were significantly depressed in Georgia in the 2020-2021 school year. Parents aren’t required to enroll their children in either grade, and some parents chose to keep their children home instead of enrolling them during the pandemic.

It wasn’t until March 2024 that 4-year-old prekindergarten enrollment exceeded the level of March 2020 and kindergarten enrollment has never recovered, which may in part be a reflection of falling birth rates.

Dana Rickman, the president of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, said the nonprofit group is concerned that as districts finish spending federal COVID-19 aid by September, they could have trouble continuing to improve achievement levels.

“We know that schools are still struggling with the unique challenges that emerged during the pandemic,” Rickman said.

Achievement levels on three high school tests in American literature and composition and U.S. history rose while scores on the high school biology test declined. Achievement levels for eighth grade students in science and social studies were mixed.

Officials in the state Department of Education have downplayed the importance of standardized testing under Republican state Superintendent Richard Woods.

Lawmakers this year mandated that the tests be used to assign a single 100-point achievement score to schools and districts for the first time since 2019. The state could also produce such scores for results from the 2022-2023 school year, but it's unclear if officials will do so.