(a) The State Board of Education shall adopt a student assessment program consisting of instruments, procedures, and policies necessary to implement the program and shall fund all costs of providing and scoring such instruments, subject to appropriation by the General Assembly. Each local school system may elect to administer, with state funding, nationally norm-referenced instruments in reading, mathematics, science, or social studies in grade three, four, or five and in grade six, seven, or eight, subject to available appropriations, with assistance to such school systems by the State Board of Education with regard to administration guidance, scoring, and reporting of such instruments. Each local school system is strongly encouraged to implement a program of formative assessment and intervention in reading for kindergarten through third grade and mathematics for kindergarten through fifth grade to ensure that students are on track to meet grade-level expectations. The State Board of Education shall review, revise, and upgrade the content standards. Following the adoption of such content standards, the State Board of Education shall contract for development of end-of-grade assessments to measure the content standards. Such assessments in English, language arts/reading, and mathematics shall be administered annually to students in grades three through eight, and such tests in science and social studies shall be administered annually to students in grades three through eight. These tests shall contain features that allow for comparability to other states with whom establishing such comparison would be statistically sound; provided, however, that no such comparison shall be conducted which would relinquish any measure of control over assessments to any individual or entity outside the state. This action shall be completed according to a schedule established by the State Board of Education. Writing performance shall be assessed, at a minimum, for students in grades three, five, eight, and 11 and may be assessed for students in additional grade levels as designated by the State Board of Education. Writing performance results shall be provided to students and their parents.
(b) The nationally norm-referenced instruments provided for in subsection (a) of this Code section shall provide students and their parents with grade equivalencies and percentile ranks which result from the administration of such instruments. End-of-grade assessments shall provide for results that reflect student achievement at the individual student, classroom, school, system, state, and national levels. The State Board of Education shall participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and may participate in any other tests that will allow benchmarking this state's performance against national or international performance. The results of such testing shall be provided to the Governor, the General Assembly, and the State Board of Education and shall be reported to the citizens of Georgia. Further, the state board shall adopt a school readiness assessment for students entering first grade and shall administer such assessment pursuant to paragraph (2) of subsection (b) of Code Section 20-2-151. One of the components in the awarding of salary supplements as part of a pay for performance or related plan under this article may be assessments of student achievement.
(b.1) The State Board of Education shall notify local school systems and individual schools of the results of the assessment instruments administered under this Code section at the earliest possible date determined by the state board, but not later than the beginning of the subsequent school year. In the event the state board is unable to provide timely results in the first year of implementation of a substantially new assessment instrument, the provisions in paragraphs (2) and (3) of subsection (b) of Code Section 20-2-283 shall not apply.
(c) The State Board of Education shall have the authority to condition the awarding of a high school diploma to a student upon achievement of satisfactory scores on instruments adopted and administered by the state board pursuant to subsection (a) of this Code section and the end-of-course assessments adopted and administered by the state board pursuant to subsections (f) and (h) of this Code section. The state board is authorized and directed to adopt regulations providing that any disabled child, as defined by the provisions of this article, shall be afforded opportunities to take any test adopted by the state board as a condition for the awarding of a high school diploma. Such regulations shall further provide for appropriate accommodations in the administration of such test. Such regulations shall further provide for the awarding of a special education diploma to any disabled student who is lawfully assigned to a special education program and who does not achieve a passing score on such test or who has not completed all of the requirements for a high school diploma but who has nevertheless completed his or her Individualized Education Program.
(d) (1) The State Board of Education shall develop or adopt alternate assessments to be administered to those students with significant cognitive disabilities, receiving special education services pursuant to Code Section 20-2-152, who cannot access the state adopted content standards without appropriate accommodations to those standards and for whom the assessment instruments adopted under subsections (a) and (f) of this Code section, even with allowable accommodations, would not provide an appropriate measure of student achievement, as determined by the student's Individualized Education Program team.
(2) A student's Individualized Education Program team shall determine appropriate participation in assessment and identify necessary accommodations in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and state board regulations.
(e) The State Board of Education is authorized to adopt rules, regulations, policies, and procedures regarding accommodations and the participation of limited-English-proficient students, as defined in Code Section 20-2-156, in the assessments described in this Code section.
(f) The State Board of Education shall adopt end-of-course assessments for students in grades nine through 12 for all core subjects to be determined by the state board. For those students with an Individualized Education Program, each such student's Individualized Education Program team shall identify necessary accommodations in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and state board regulations.
(g) Under rules adopted by the State Board of Education, the Department of Education shall, subject to appropriations by the General Assembly, release some or all of the questions and answers to each end-of-grade assessment administered under subsection (a) of this Code section and each end-of-course assessment administered under subsection (h) of this Code section after the last time such assessment is administered for a school year.
(h) The State Board of Education, through the Department of Education, shall administer the end-of-course assessments for core subject areas as defined by state board policy. By the 2015-2016 school year, the State Board of Education shall make all end-of-course assessments available online and shall establish rules and regulations to maximize the number of students and school systems utilizing such online assessments.
(i) The Department of Education shall develop study guides for the end-of-grade assessments and end-of-course assessments administered pursuant to subsections (a) and (h) of this Code section. Each school system shall distribute the study guides to students who do not perform satisfactorily on one or more parts of an assessment instrument administered under this Code section and to the parents or guardians of such students.
(j) The State Board of Education shall adopt rules and regulations requiring the results of core subject end-of-course assessments to be included as a factor in a student's final grade in the core subject course for which the end-of-course assessment is given.
(k) In addition to the assessment instruments adopted by the State Board of Education and administered by the Department of Education, a local school system may adopt and administer criterion-referenced or norm-referenced assessment instruments, or both, at any grade level. Such locally adopted assessment instruments may not replace the state's adopted assessment instruments for purposes of state accountability programs. A local school system shall be responsible for all costs and expenses incurred for locally adopted assessment instruments. Students with Individualized Education Programs must be included in the locally adopted assessments or provided an alternate assessment in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
(l) In adopting academic skills assessment instruments under this Code section, the State Board of Education or local school system shall ensure the security of the instruments in their preparation, administration, and scoring. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, meetings or portions of meetings held by the state board or a local board of education at which individual assessment instruments or assessment instrument items are discussed or adopted shall not be open to the public, and the assessment instruments or assessment instrument items shall be confidential.
(m) The results of individual student performance on academic skills assessment instruments administered under this Code section shall be confidential and may be released only in accordance with the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C. Section 1232g.
(n) Overall student performance data shall be disaggregated by ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, disability, language proficiency, grade level, subject area, school, system, and other categories determined by policies established by the Office of Student Achievement.
(o) Student performance data shall be made available to the public, with appropriate interpretations, by the State Board of Education, the Office of Student Achievement, and local school system. The information made available to the public shall not contain the names of individual students or teachers.
(p) Teachers in kindergarten through grade 12 shall be offered the opportunity to participate annually in a staff development program on the use of tests within the instructional program designed to improve students' academic achievement. This program shall instruct teachers on curriculum alignment related to tests, disaggregated student test data to identify student academic weaknesses by subtests, and other appropriate applications as determined by the State Board of Education.
(q) The State Board of Education shall consider the passage by a student of an industry certification examination or a state licensure examination which is approved by the State Board of Education or a COMPASS score approved by the State Board of Education when considering whether to grant such student a variance or a waiver of one or more end-of-course assessments required by the State Board of Education pursuant to subsection (c) of this Code section in order to obtain a Georgia high school diploma; provided, however, that the state board shall not grant a variance to a student unless the student has attempted and failed to pass the relevant end-of-course assessment or assessments at least four times.
Section: 20-2-280 20-2-281 20-2-281.1 20-2-282 20-2-283 20-2-284 20-2-285 20-2-285.1 20-2-286 NextLast modified: October 14, 2016