MOULTRIE — Colquitt County Schools educators are alarmed at the staggering number of students who failed to meet standards on Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) tests this spring.

They are not alone. Colquitt County School Superintendent Leonard McCoy said many other administrators in South Georgia have told him their districts’ scores have suffered similarly. This drop is more dramatic than in past transitions to the new Georgia Performance Standards (GPS).

“More and more, we’re being told that it’s a statewide issue,” McCoy said.

Nearly half of Colquitt County eighth graders did not achieve expected standards in mathematics, and more than half of seventh graders failed to meet standards in social studies. Social studies is not a promotional criteria for students but math is, so that means that the number of students attending summer school this year will balloon.

“I have been very surprised they [the Georgia Department of Education] have been so silent all week,” Assistant Superintendent Mo Yearta said. “I do know from calling up there and talking to the DOE person in charge of social studies ... that they have had meetings almost every day. ...

“They’re not giving us any guidance as to where the problem lies,” Yearta said.

The school officials hope some answers will come forth Monday. State Superintendent Kathy Cox has called for a conference call that afternoon to address the issue, McCoy said.

“When there is a dramatic shift in student performance to the degree that seems to be experienced in many school districts, it’s usually indicative of issues with the tests or with an overly aggressive implementation schedule for new standards,” he said.

School administrators had expected a tough transitional year into the new GPS in eighth grade math, because this was the first year of standards implementation in that grade. These numbers, however, were a shock, Yearta said. The eighth graders this year were the first to be taught to GPS standards in math when they were in the sixth grade, but the problem, she said, is that they have no foundation skills from grades K through 5.

“A lot of the work in grades K through 5 leads in to the sixth, seventh and eighth,” she said. “... It’s not just something that is taught in eighth grade. The way they’ve rolled it out has made it difficult for some students, because they don’t have those foundations.”

Of note, she said, these eighth graders will be the first ninth graders to come under the state’s new graduation rules and the first to take Math I, which requires an end-of-course test.

In addition to Grade 8, this year was the first year for GPS standards implementation in grades 3 and 5. These grades also performed poorly in math.

Also, this is the first year that GPS was taught and tested in social studies in middle school. In social studies, grades 6 and 7 were the poor performers on the CRCT.

“I’ve been on the telephone with all the surrounding districts and even some further away,” Yearta said. “It seems to be statewide that this is an issue in seventh grade social studies. Sixth grade social studies is weak too but not as severe as the seventh grade.”

It’s not the students, and it’s not the teachers, she said, but it’s the state’s implementation of these new standards that has caused an undesirable domino effect.