How did local public school districts stack up in reading levels this year?

The unveiling of Georgia Milestones testing results is always highly anticipated for teachers and administrators around Georgia, for better or worse.

That day arrived last Friday, as the Georgia Department of Education released its course competency test scores for all school districts in Georgia. The results are from the 2023-2024 school year.

The Milestones test is administered to public school kids in grades 3-12 and “designed to provide information about how well students are mastering the state-adopted content standards in the core content areas of English/Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies,” according to the Georgia Department of Education. The test is given around the end of each semester and basically measures “course competency.”

The 2023-2024 Math results won’t be released for another few months, but scores for the other three subjects were made publicly available late last week.

A component of English/Language Arts scoring is “Reading.” The Reading score is derived from a combination of multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions that focus on vocabulary and the ability to interpret text passages.

Around here, the Bleckley County School District continued to shine and turned in the highest cumulative Reading score in Middle Georgia. For whatever it’s worth, the Bleckley County School District and Monroe County School District typically turn in the top Milestones scores in this part of Georgia.

Below are the Reading scores for grades 3-8 in the Bleckley County School District. The first number represents the percentage of students reading “at above grade level,” while the number in parentheses is where that score ranks among all 180 city/county school districts in Georgia:

• 3rd grade – 79.3 percent “at above grade level” (18th-best out of 180 districts/90th percentile)
• 4th grade – 70.6 percent “at above grade level” (17th-best out of 180 districts/91st percentile)
• 5th grade – 85 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 21st-best out of 180 districts/88th percentile)
• 6th grade – 62.2 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 48th-best out of 180 districts/73rd percentile)
• 7th grade – 82.8 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 10th-best out of 180 districts/94th percentile)
• 8th grade – 80.5 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 30th-best out of 180 districts/83rd percentile)

Meanwhile, the Twiggs County School District recorded a relatively high amount of variance in its Reading scores between the different grade levels. For example, according to the results, the percentage of TCSD fifth graders reading “at above grade level” ranked in the 78th percentile among Georgia’s 180 “city” and “county” school districts. However, the number of seventh graders reading “at above grade level” was in the second percentile and 177th out of 180 districts.

Below are the Reading scores for grades 3-8 in the Twiggs County School District:

• 3rd grade – 50 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 150th-best out of 180 districts/17th percentile)
• 4th grade – 41.7 percent “at above grade level” (143rd-best out of 180 districts/21st percentile)
• 5th grade – 79.5 percent “at above grade level” (39th-best out of 180 districts/78th percentile)
• 6th grade – 56.9 percent “at above grade level” (75th-best out of 180 districts/58th percentile)
• 7th grade – 37.2 percent “at above grade level” 177th-best out of 180 districts/2nd percentile)
• 8th grade – 64.4 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 124th-best out of 180 districts/32nd percentile)

Moving on to the Wilkinson County School District, as a whole, students at Wilkinson County Middle performed notably better in Reading than those at Wilkinson County Elementary. A solid majority of WCSD seventh and eighth graders read “at above grade level,” which is a far contrast to fourth graders at WCES, where only 26.2 percent of students were above grade level.

Below are the Reading scores for grades 3-8 in the Wilkinson County School District:

• 3rd grade – 38.5 percent “at above grade level” (172nd out of 180 districts/4th percentile)
• 4th grade – 26.2 percent “at above grade level” (176th out of 180 districts/2nd percentile)
• 5th grade – 50 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 169th out of 180 districts/8th percentile)
• 6th grade –48.9 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 122nd out of 180 districts/32nd percentile)
• 7th grade – 63.8 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 100th out of 180 districts/44th percentile)
• 8th grade – 68.3 percent “at above grade level” (tied for 99th out of 180 districts/45th percentile)