With the shock over the poor statewide results of Georgia's CRCT testing settling down, Wilkes County teachers and students are dealing with the new realities of having to meet higher standards, even if it means going to summer school to catch up.

Notificationhas gone out to parents of students who failed part of the CRCT and will have to attend summer school, said Marie Echols, Wilkes County Director of Curriculum and Instruction. Some 52 fifth-graders, for instance, will have to go to the summer session, up from about 30 in an average year. Three additional teachers will be needed for summer school.

Math scores were lower than usual, Echols said, because of the rollout of a new set of standards, the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS).

"The GPS math curriculum is much, much tougher than the previous standards, and is aimed at bringing up Georgia students' math abilities to the national standard," she said. "Most of algebra is covered by the end of middle school, and that brings challenges."

In addition, the number of correct answers required to pass the 60-question test went up from 20 to 31, raising the bar even higher, she said. "Parents understand that the test was much more rigorous and required using and applying concepts, rather than just computation."

The new higher standards in math also mean the elimination of courses like Business Math, and exposes every child, including special education students, to algebra, statistics, and geometry much earlier. Holding all students to the higher standards, Echols believes, is possible with new teaching techniques that visiting experts have demonstrated in Wilkes schools. "More children can learn this math curriculum than we ever thought, but it has to be taught, and taught in a way they can understand. Teachers watching the experts were amazed to see their special ed students grasping these concepts and answering questions."

Wilkes County's results for the CRCT had plenty of good news, Echols said. "We really think that when the state-wide summaries come out in two weeks, our results here will be better than the state average, and better than the surrounding counties. Our elementary school kids did very well on the reading part, in fact, our reading scores across the board are good."

And even the worst news, that only 20 to 30 percent of sixth and seventh graders passed the Social Studies portion of the test, was largely relieved when the state threw out those results. "When the results came out, our sixth- and seventh-grade social studies teachers, especially, were disheartened and frustrated," Echols said. "They thought they had done a good job of teaching the curriculum, but the questions on the test were far more specific than they expected. So now, they're very happy and relieved that the state board threw those results out."

But the math test results will remain, challenging students and teachers across Georgia to attain the new mathematics standards for years to come, Echols said, and bringing up Georgia students' math abilities to the national standard.

This is the big change, Echols said. In the past, Georgia students were only expected to come up above the average for Georgia students. Now the bar is set much higher, to the national math standards. "It's just going to be a real challenge for a few years, but our teachers and students can do it. I know they can."