October 2nd, 2019 – 4:00 PM
Courtney Crumley (Rome City Schools) –
According to the Georgia Department of Education, for the second year in a row,
Georgia public-school students outperformed their counterparts in the nation’s public schools on
the SAT, recording a mean score of 1048, nine points higher than the mean for U.S. public
schools. Among the district rankings, Rome High School ranked 29th out of the 180 districts in Georgia
with an average score of 1069. Also important to note, the overall average of 1069 is 21 points above the state average and 30
points above the national average.
“We had a very high participation rate for the SAT this past year, as we saw an increase of
almost 50% in participation with 147 test takers in 2018 and 218 test takers in 2019. The
participation also went up in each demographic area as well,” says Rome City Schools
Superintendent Louis Byars. “I am very proud of the scores achieved by our students and hope
that they continue along this path to success.”
Georgia outperformed the nation’s public schools by nine points in Evidence-Based Reading and
Writing (ERW) and performed on par with their national counterparts in math. The State’s
participation also rose to 67 percent of public-school graduates in the class of 2019, up from 66
percent in 2018 and 59 percent in 2017.
Quoted from a release written by the Georgia Department of Education, State School
Superintendent Richard Woods is also proud of the teachers and students in Georgia’s public
schools. “While we would of course like to see an increase in scores every year, I’m still pleased
to see us well above the national average even as participation increases. For the second year, our
students beat the national average on a test that was once used to label Georgia as ‘last in the
nation’ in education. In the same year, they recorded an all-time-high graduation rate and increases
in NAEP and Georgia Milestones scores. I’m feeling optimistic about the future of
public education in Georgia, and grateful for our educators and students who make it possible.”