Posted Friday, June 6, 2014
June 4, 2014 – The Georgia Department of Education will implement a new
testing system, the Georgia Milestones Assessment System (Georgia
Milestones) during the 2014-2015 academic year. The new system will
replace both the CRCT and the EOCT.
Georgia Milestones will be aligned to the Common Core Georgia Performance
Standards (CCGPS) and will require more from students than the CRCT and
EOCT it replaces, in order to better prepare students for college and
career and to provide a more realistic picture of academic progress. A
major benefit of the new system is that it is one consistent testing
program across grades 3-12, whereas previously students took a series of
individual tests.
The increased expectations for student learning reflected in Georgia
Milestones may mean initially lower scores than the previous years’ CRCT
or EOCT scores. That is to be expected and should bring Georgia’s tests
in line with other indicators of how our students are performing, State
School Superintendent Dr. John Barge said.
The new testing system will include open-ended questions to better gauge
students’ content mastery. With some exceptions for special education
students with specific testing accomodations, Georgia Milestones will be
administered entirely online by the fifth year of implementation, compared
to 35 percent online administration of the EOCT in 2013-2014.