Starting in the 2014-15 school year, all Georgia high school students will have to take Milestones tests in place of EOCTs. While this switch has been in the works since Common Core was introduced in 2010, APS changed its finals policy due to the new test’s lengthy processing time.
APS spokeswoman Kimberly Willis Green explained that the new Milestones system will replace both the EOCT in high school and the CRCT in lower grades.
“[The Milestones] require more from students than the CRCT and EOCT it replaces,” Green said. “It focuses on preparing students for college and career and provides a more realistic picture of academic progress.”
Before this year, students took EOCTs as a mandatory final exam valued at 20 percent of a student’s overall grade. Because the test scores were factored into final grades, the exams had to be graded quickly. As a result, the EOCT was made up entirely of multiple-choice questions.
The new Milestones tests, however, have additional requirements in order to align with Common Core standards, including free-response and extended-response problems. The implementation of these sections means that test grades won’t be available until the next school year starts, making it impossible to include them in the final grades for this semester.
Principal Timothy Guiney said that in the fall of last year, the state’s Department of Education informed all of the districts of this problem, and APS then turned to principals within the district for input.
“The Milestones is still part of the school accountability for CCRPI (Career and College Readiness Performance Index) purposes,” Guiney said. “However, for grading purposes, [it can’t be used], so the district, through feedback from high school principals, went with the option that we will have a final exam… that will count for 20 percent.”
The board has decided that these finals will be in place for the spring of 2015. Many of the specifics, however, are still up in the air. The board has already determined, for example, that the tests will be written by a committee in order to ensure they line up with Common Core standards. Volunteer teachers will serve on test-writing commities for the four common classes, but whether the teachers must teach the subject for the test they are writing has yet to be determined.
The district also hasn’t decided if teachers will be able to administer their own exam in addition to the district test, or how the tests will apply to AP classes. Guiney said that he doesn’t see much of a reason for teachers to give an additional final in most classes, considering that students will already take both the district final and the Milestone tests, both of which are, or will be aligned to the standards.
The Milestones tests and district finals will be administered in ninth-grade literature and composition, American literature and composition, coordinate algebra, analytic geometry, biology, physical science, U.S. history and economics classes.
The district tests’ structure will find a middle ground between the EOCT and Milestones tests. They will be mainly multiple choice, but language arts and math tests will most likely have some constructive-response questions. Science and social studies courses may require constructive responses as well, but that is yet to be determined. The district also has plans to have the tests be taken 100 percent online by 2020, compared to last year’s EOCT’s online testing rate of 35 percent. These changes should decrease the cost and increase the security.
The tests will only apply to Milestones classes, so the majority of electives and some core classes will continue as usual, with Student Learning Objective tests with individually made tests from the student’s own teacher, at least for the first year of implementation.
Since the test still needs to be written, many details are still up in the air, but the district hopes that the new tests will improve accuracy and efficiency.
