Gainesville, Hall schools report cards

ATLANTA - With a few keystrokes on the computer, Tim Callahan was able to retrieve the cold facts Monday about his local school system, Hall County, and the gap he'd been told existed between the graduation rates of white students and Hispanics.

``I had heard anecdotally that it was hard to keep Hispanic students in school because of jobs. So I looked at the completion rate and it was lower than for white students,'' he said.

He wasn't surprised, but now, instead of hearsay, he had fact. The graduation rate for white students was 68.7 percent. For Hispanic students, it was 41.5 percent.

The data came to Callahan courtesy of the Office of Student Achievement, which just hours earlier placed online a massive amount of material from the latest Georgia school reports.

It wasn't the first time the data had been made available to the public. But for the first time, the data was broken down by race, economic status and other categories.

Callahan, who is spokesman for the 57,000-member Professional Association of Georgia Educators, called it ``good information for conscientious parents who have computer and high-speed access lines.''

But not everybody has such access, he said.

``My hope is, they will augment this with some printed materials. People are not totally communicating via the Web,'' he said.

ATTENDANCE & GRADUATION RATES

Attendance worsened last year in Gainesville and Hall County schools, as did graduation rates, according to the reports.

In both systems, the absentee rates increased, with 50.3 percent of students in the city system missing five or fewer days; in the county, that number is 65.7 percent.

Graduation rates were lower than 2001-2002, and lower than the state average - significantly so in the city.

DROP-OUT RATES

In both systems, the drop-out rate for grades 9-12 were higher than the state average - though it improved in Hall County, compared to last year. In Gainesville, it was higher than the previous school year.

NATIONAL TESTING

National test results show both systems lower than last year in all five components except the Hall County English scores which were the same as 2001-2002. Both systems were below the state and national average across the board except for the composite and reading scores among Gainesville students, which were above the state average; the city's English average was the same as the state's.

REPORTS ARE REQUIRED

The report cards are required under the federal No Child Left Behind education reform act and Georgia's school reform laws, pushed by former Gov. Roy Barnes in 2000.

Currently online is data on attendance, graduation rate, dropout rate and college entrance exams.

Martha Reichrath, executive director of the Office of Student Achievement, said additional data including school scores on Georgia's Criterion-Referenced Competency Test will be posted in the next few weeks.

Jocelyn Whitfield, director of government relations for the Georgia Association of Educators, said, ``We're glad the information is out there and think that once the site is complete it will be even more beneficial.''

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)