The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement has released its “report card” for school districts across the state for the 2018 – 2019 school year. In the report, Columbia County maintained a B average while Richmond County schools received a solid F grade.
In the breakdown, Columbia County’s overall performance is 84% over other districts in the state. The report shows that the graduation rate is at 92% and the number of students who are college or career ready stands at 62.5%.
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In Columbia County the highest performing schools receiving an A grade were Parkway Elementary, River Ridge Elementary, Riverside Elementary and Stevens Creek Elementary.
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Meanwhile, Richmond County did not fare anywhere near as well as its sister county. In terms of overall performance, Richmond County only rates at 4% compared to the state average. The graduation rate stands at 75.1%, but only 37.8% of graduates are considered ready for college or a career.
It gets worse. Only 51% of eighth graders are reading at or above the state level as opposed to 78.4% in Columbia County.
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Only Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School managed to score an A rating, while both A.R. Johnson Magnet High School and the Richmond County Technical Career Magnet School managed a B rating. Every other school in the county scored a C or worse.
It must be noted that Richmond County spends more money per pupil than her sister county. According to the report, Columbia County spends an average of $8,474 compared to Richmond County that spends an average of $8,985 per student.
Richmond County School Board member Venus Cain is defiant and says that the rating system is flawed. Columbia County School Superintendent Dr. Sandra Caraway seems to agree even though her district received an overall B.
“It is our opinion that the letter grades in this report do not always accurately reflect the quality of student learning and great work faculty and staff perform each day. The Columbia County School District, one of the top performing districts in the state, earned a letter grade of B based on the identified measures. That is disappointing” Caraway said in a statement.
“However, comparisons with other states’ measures indicate that GOSA’s measures are more stringent and a letter grade by GOSA standards would be one letter grade higher in other states,” she continues. “So, by other states’ measures, our schools have a report card we can be proud of!”
Cain goes a step further and calls the grading system a political ploy from the Governor’s Office.
“This was some office set up by Governor Deal,” Cain says. “Everyone knew at the time that he was trying to take over the school system. We don’t even know how they come up with these ratings.”
Cain says the school board uses numbers put out by the State Board of education’s College and Career Ready Performance Index. However, research shows that the CCRPI puts out very similar results.
As of 2017, Richmond County scored 64.5% in overall performance and Columbia County’s average was at 81.7% which still shows Columbia County with a solid B rating and Richmond County failing.
“We are making progress,” Cain said. “Our teachers are busting their butts trying to teach these kids.”
That still doesn’t explain the rating disparity between two school systems that are geographically next to one another. Cain says that Columbia County and Richmond County should not be compared as they are totally different.
“The demographics and racial makeup are not the same,” she says. “If you want to compare our system to another system, then compare us to Chatham County.”
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However, there is a disparity between those two systems as well.
According to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, Chatham County scores 41% in overall performance compared to Richmond County’s 4%. Chatham County has 58% of students graduating as college or career ready as opposed to 37.8% in Richmond County.
Using the CCRPI, Chatham County scores at 72% compared to Richmond County’s 64.5%.
It doesn’t matter which data set or grading matrix is used—Richmond County is still failing across the board; but Cain maintains it is not the school board’s fault.
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“You can’t put it on the board,” Cain says. “We are policy-makers and we have to follow state and federal guidelines. Those guidelines change from year to year. We are basically a ceremonial board and we have to do what the state tells us to do.”
Cain says that Richmond County’s failing grades are a community problem.
“We have parents that don’t care,” she said. “Our teachers try to reach them all year, but they don’t call back until their child is failing and they wanna cuss us out. If the students and their parents aren’t interested in learning, what are we, as a school board, supposed to do?”
Scott Hudson is the Editorial Page Editor of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
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