Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Assessment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
DeKalb presents modest Milestones gains, wide racial and subgroup proficiency gaps
Summary
District officials showed modest year‑over‑year gains on several Georgia Milestones assessments and explained plans to use MAP screening and quintiles, but data revealed persistent achievement gaps for Black, Hispanic and some Native student subgroups.
At the Oct. 7 committee of the whole session, Dr. Alexander (S7) presented 2024 Georgia Milestones and new MAP‑based screening data, detailing proficiency rates by grade and subgroup and outlining next steps to support instruction.
The presentation showed incremental improvements in several grade bands — for example, grades 3–5 overall rose by 1.3% and grades 6–8 by 2.6% compared with 2023 — and highlighted areas of growth in specific assessments such as fifth‑grade ELA and several math end‑of‑course measures. Alexander emphasized the district’s move to MAP as a universal screener and explained how quintiles will be used to differentiate instruction and target interventions, including PLCs, leader plus‑two coaching, and unit‑by‑unit math training.
Board members focused questions on subgroup gaps. Alexander and Superintendent Horton acknowledged large proficiency disparities between the white subgroup and Hispanic, Black and Native student subgroups (gaps of 40–70 percentage points in some measures were cited in the slides). Presenters said MAP and targeted small‑group interventions, plus expanded professional development (for example LETRS training for structured literacy), are intended to accelerate growth for historically marginalized subgroups.
Members asked for cohort tracking, poverty analyses and school‑level dashboards. Alexander said the research office and MAP partner will provide more disaggregated analyses and that the district is building dashboards to drill down to school, teacher and student levels for the board in the coming months. Several trustees praised the incremental gains but urged continued focus on retention, program evaluation and the effects of non‑academic supports on students’ performance.
What happens next: district staff committed to provide deeper school‑level and subgroup analyses, a plan for accelerating lower‑performing subgroups, and examples of how MAP data will be used in professional learning communities and school action plans.
