Georgia At The Top For Classroom Technology

Georgia is a leader in classroom technology--so says a new report from Education Week. It says both Georgia and West Virginia received perfect scores on the study’s report card for states with widespread technology available to students. The report details more than 90-percent of fourth and eighth graders in Georgia have access to a computer. Also highlighted is Georgia’s requirement for teachers and educators to get technology training and licenses.

Mandated Student Fitness Tests Pass Through Legislature

Legislation now passed through the General Assembly would require Georgia students to take an annual physical fitness test. While supporters say the plan is to help foster a healthier Georgia, opponents of the legislation worry it could single-out obese students. The bill now goes to Governor Sonny Perdue's desk for a signature. If signed into law, it becomes effective for the 2011-2012 school year.

DoE testing educator rating system

Georgia’s Department of Education is piloting a statewide program to professionally rate teacher educational skills.

The field study will include some 190 elementary, middle and high schools, and is meant to improve teaching performance standards.

A Department of Education official says the training program was developed over the past two years, in part, by the Board of Regents.

The training will enable administrators to rate teachers’ professional skills according to established criteria, rather than according to a supervisor’ subjective impressions.

Sessions will bring school principals and administrators together with a cross-section of teachers with varying experience, and in various subjects, including music, art and physical education.

The field testing will continue until April 2009, after which it may be implemented statewide.

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GA school officials to revisit social studies standards

State school Superintendent Kathy Cox says by the end of this week she will announce the formation of a committee to revisit standards for social studies teaching. This comes in the wake of preliminary results this week that show about a quarter of 6th and 7th graders failed in social studies testing within the state’s standardized testing. Early results from the Criterion Reference Competency Test also showed that roughly one-in-three 8th graders did not pass the math portion of the CRCT.