Graduation test results stay steady

Columbia County high schools showed little change in a state benchmark exam when compared to last year.

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As a whole, the county's students performed about the same on the Georgia High School Graduation Tests this year as students did in 2009.

The total percentage of county students passing the language arts portion of the exam this year was 94, down 1 percent from last year. Harlem was the only high school to improve its language arts score with 94 percent passing compared to 91 percent the year before.

Evans and Greenbrier high schools maintained their 94 and 96 percent scores, respectively, and Lakeside High dropped two percentage points to 94. Grovetown High, a first-year school, posted a 93 percent passing rate.

As with language arts, Harlem was the only school showing an improvement in math scores. Its students produced a 97 percent passing rate, up 1 percent from last year. Evans dropped 1 percent to 96, Greenbrier dropped 2 percent to 97 and Lakeside fell 3 percent to 95. Grovetown posted a 94 percent pass rate.

Harlem also posted gains in science with a 98 percent pass rate, which is four points more than in 2009. Evans fell three points to 96, Greenbrier dropped two points to 98. Like Harlem, Lakeside gained in science by 1 percent for an overall 97 percent pass rate. Grovetown had a 95 percent pass rate.

Writing seemed one of the biggest trouble spots for schools as none had more than 90 percent passing, which was the score posted by Grovetown. Lakeside had the lowest percentage of students passing the writing test with 82, which is 1 percent less than last year. Harlem, at 87 percent, remained the same. Evans and Greenbrier both fell 1 percent to 87 and 88, respectively.

In the first year of testing in social studies under the Georgia Performance Standards curriculum, Evans had 90 percent of its students pass, Greenbrier had 91 percent, Grovetown was at 86 percent and Lakeside was at 89 percent. Harlem performed the worst of the county's schools at 75 percent passing.

"That will get better," Superintendent Charles Nagle said of Harlem's social studies score.

In every testing category, the school system posted as good as or higher scores than the state averages.

The GHSGT is the benchmark exam used to determine a high school's adequate yearly progress, along with graduation rate.