Schools

Alpharetta Milton Students Have the 'Write Stuff'

Fifth grade assessments show most students meet or exceed state standards.

More parents of this year's fifth grade students at are bound to be happy with their children's writing abilities, as the school had a 13 percent increase in the percent of students meeting or exceeding state standards than last year.

Creek View students not only met the standards in the Grade 5 Writing Assessment, an astounding 36 percent exceeded them. Only four other elementary schools in Fulton County had a higher percentage of students achieving that.

Eleven schools showed gains of 10 percentage points or more in the percent of students exceeding standards, including three in Alpharetta-Milton: , Creek View and Lake Windward.

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“I’m pleased to see our students continuing to score so highly on the state writing assessments,” said Superintendent Cindy Loe. “Our focus on writing at the elementary level has paid off and I believe this will translate to equally high performance for the similar writing exams that occur in middle and high school.”

Creek View was one of four elementary schools in Alpharetta and Milton to show an increase. Eight of the nine schools within the two cities had at least 91 percent of fifth grade students meeting or exceeding standards. Only in Alpharetta was below that figure at 81 percent. The school's highest scores were two years ago, and fewer students have met the standards since then.

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According to recently released results, 87 percent of all Fulton fifth-graders met or exceeded state standards on the Grade 5 Writing Assessment–an increase of four percentage points over the previous year. Fulton also is four percentage points higher than the metro area and eight percentage points higher than the state.  

Lake Windward Elementary students bucked a trend, allowing the school to achieve its highest percentage of meeting or exceeding the writing standards ever at 95 percent. That reversed a downward trend. Cogburn Woods students likewise seemed to buck a trend. But which still had 91 percent of its students meeting or besting standards, is on a downward spiral from 97 percent in 2008 steadily down to 91 percent this year.

As a part of the statewide testing program, the Grade 5 Writing Assessment was administered to Fulton students in early March. The annual assessment provides fifth graders with a measurement of their writing performance. Students are assigned a topic in one of three genres–narrative, informational and persuasive–and are allowed two hours to write an essay. Papers are scored using a standardized system and rated as “Does Not Meet Standards” (scores of 100-199), “Meets Standards” (scores of 200-249) and “Exceeds Standards” (scores exceeding 250).

Results from the test help students, parents and teachers identify writing strengths as well as areas where additional focus is needed. A similar writing assessment is administered in eighth grade as well as during high school, when students take the writing section of the Georgia High School Graduation Test in their junior year.

School 2011 2010 2009 2008 Alpharetta 93 94 95 95 Birmingham Falls 97 na na na Cogburn Woods 92 88 94 98 Crabapple Crossing 97 95 94 96 Creek View 97 84 93 91 Lake Windward 95 87 89 91 Manning Oaks 81 83 87 86 New Prospect 96 97 90 98 Summit Hill 91 93 96 97

 


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