With the state changing to a new testing system this fall, local school officials said the last Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests go round for Bryan County was about par for the course for a system many believe to be among the best in the state.
In short, Bryan County students in grades three through eight for the most part performed as well as, or better, on the CRCT than those in other districts, according to Bryan County Schools Superintendent Dr. Paul Brooksher.
He called the results, “a true testament to the exceptional group of educators and students that make up the Bryan County Schools community.”
The state is moving from the CRCT to what it calls the Georgia Milestones Assessment System, or GMAS, beginning now, according to Dr. Brad Anderson, the system's assistant superintendent for instruction and learning.
“The new assessment system is one consistent program across grades three through 12, rather than a series of individual tests,” Anderson said. “It will include open-ended questions to better gauge student content mastery and, with some exceptions for special education students with specific testing accommodations, will be administered entirely online by the fifth year of implementation.”
In the meantime, the last year of CRCT testing showed more students meeting or exceeding standards in most of the content areas, Anderson said, and officials “were pleased with the result overall,” but administrators want to study the numbers further.
There were signs improvement is needed.
For example, only 62.9 percent of sixth graders at Bryan County Middle School passed the math portion of the test in 2014, according to the Georgia Department of Education website. Last year, 81 percent of sixth graders at BCMS passed the math test.
Statewide, 84 percent of sixth graders passed the 2014 math test while at Richmond Hill Middle School, 94.6 percent of the school’s sixth graders passed the math portion. 

And schools in South Bryan tended to test well across the board, with the percentage of students “meeting or exceeding standards” at Carver Elementary, Richmond Hill Elementary and RHMS higher than 90 percent across every grade level and in every subject. In some cases, it was nearly 100 percent.
North Bryan schools for the most part also exceeded or met the state results and in some cases nearly 100 percent of students passing in reading. For example, 97 percent of eighth graders at BCMS met or exceeded standards in that area, mirroring a statewide trend in improved reading scores.
What’s more, a quick look also shows the county’s students as a whole tended to perform best in reading, though the percentages meeting or exceeding standards dropped in other areas. Scores for third graders across Bryan County showed 97.1 percent of them passed reading; that fell to 93.8 percent passing language arts; 90.3 percent in math; 87.5 percent in science and 92.8 percent in social studies.
By contrast, 92 percent of the state’s third graders passed the reading portion of the test; 88 percent passed language arts; 81 percent passed math; 77 percent passed the science test and 84 percent passed the social studies portion.
Other grades showed similar results. The numbers will be used to help the schools improve, the system’s top administrator said.
“With this being the last year the CRCT will be administered in grades 3 through 8, we are committed to studying our scores by school,” Brooksher said. “The data that we glean from disaggregating our scores will provide each school with supporting evidence as they develop their 2014-2015 school improvement plan.”
The CRCT results just released are from tests conducted in April.
Note: To see complete results, go to www.gadoe.org.