'Report card' ranks Georgia schools

ATLANTA - Schools in Forsyth and Habersham counties lead the way in northeast Georgia in the 2002 Report Card for Parents from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

Settles Bridge Elementary in Forsyth, North Hall Habersham Middle, and Forsyth Central High topped their respective categories among schools in our area.

Meanwhile, McEver Elementary, North Hall Middle, and North Hall High outranked all other schools in Gainesville and Hall County. Compared to the rest of the state, McEver ranks 82nd; North Hall Middle, 86th; and, North Hall High, 82nd.

The report uses standardized test results and other criteria such as the amount spent on each student and poverty levels to arrive at its rankings.

The Foundation says for the first time the report card is interactive and provides users total access to objective and statistically reliable data about Georgia's public schools.

"For the first time, parents have the freedom to conduct their own comparisons about schools," said Foundation President Rogers Wade. "Instead of giving them a prepared report, we're making available to them all of the data and a handy tool to access it. We are basically empowering parents to get all of the facts about their children's schools."

The 2002 Report Card, available on the Internet at www.gppf.org, features an interactive database that provides statistical data about Georgia's public schools. Parents can query and research the report card to help them make informed assessments about the quality of public education in our state.

"The new Georgia Public Policy Foundation report card is fantastic. It gives parents an incredible range of information to help them determine how their child's school is performing," said Stuart Butler, vice president for Domestic and Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org). "This is a powerful new tool that will make it far easier for Georgia parents to demand real accountability from their schools."

This year's Report Card includes the following data: district spending per student, enrollment, all test subject scores, and data disaggregated by gender, race/ethnicity, English proficiency, disability and socioeconomic status. The primary measure of student achievement in the report card is the average of the percentage of students passing the reading and math sections of the 2001 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.

The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a think-tank formed in 1991, is a nonpartisan, member-supported research and education foundation that promotes free markets, limited government and individual responsibility. It is the only private, nonpartisan research organization in Georgia that focuses on state policy issues.