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Cobb Fifth Graders Top State on Writing Test

Cobb County fifth graders continued to outperform their peers across the state on the 2010 Georgia Fifth Grade Writing Assessment. The average scale score for CCSD students was 215, five points higher than the state score of 210. Cobb’s scale score dropped three points from 2009, reflecting a statewide trend. Seventy-eight percent of Cobb students met or exceeded expectations on the writing assessment.

Thirty-seven Cobb elementary schools had mean scale scores higher than the state average, and 31 schools had scale scores above the district average of 215. A total of 27 schools saw an increase in their scale scores from last year, with Kennesaw Charter, Fair Oaks, Norton Park and King Springs showing the biggest gains in scale scores. Schools with the greatest increase in students meeting or exceeding expectations (a scale score of 200 or better) were Powers Ferry, Kennesaw Charter, Fair Oaks and Nicholson.

Overall, the highest scale scores were posted by Tritt (243), Mount Bethel (237), Shallowford Falls (235) and Sope Creek (235). Schools with the highest percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations were Tritt (97 percent), Mount Bethel (97 percent), Kincaid (96 percent), and Addison (96 percent).

Fifty-two percent of Cobb students with disabilities met or exceeded expectations, compared to just 38 percent across the state. Fifty percent of English Language Learners (ELL) in Cobb met expectations, which was slightly lower than the state average of 53 percent.

As a part of the statewide testing program, the Fifth Grade Writing Assessment was administered in March and requires students to write a composition on an assigned topic. The 2010 results will be the last for the Fifth Grade Writing Assessment. Due to state budget reductions, the test has been eliminated. The assessment provides fifth graders with a measurement of their writing performance and includes different aspects of writing domains. These domains include Ideas, Organization, Style, and Conventions. Domains are rated on a scale of 1 to 5. Performance of Cobb fifth graders as a whole was similar across all domains, ranging from 2.9 in Conventions to 3.1 in Style. This information can help students, parents, and teachers understand areas where students may need to focus their efforts to improve writing skills before taking the Eighth Grade Writing Assessment.

Each student paper is scored by professionals who have been trained to evaluate writing. Evaluators score student compositions on four qualities of effective writing. These qualities, or domains (Ideas, Organization, Style, and Conventions), of effective writing should be present in a composition regardless of the topic.

The scale score range for the Fifth Grade Writing Assessment is 100 to 350, and scores are reported in the following performance levels: Does Not Meet (100-199), Meets (200-249), and Exceeds (250-350).

Summary data for the Fifth Grade Writing Assessment by school may be found in Tables I and II.

View the release in Adobe PDF format with all data tables.

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