Metro schools graded with new report card

ATLANTA — For the first time, state public schools have received number grades on their performance.

Tuesday marked the debut of the College and Career Ready Performance Index. The new system is meant to be a more comprehensive measure of a school's performance than that used under the No Child Left Behind Act. The state Department of Education said the new report card is meant to let the public know how a school is doing with easy-to-understand scores.

Each school received a score out of 100. The highest scoring high school in the metro Atlanta area is the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, which earned a 99.8. Earlier this year, U.S. News and World Report named the Lawrenceville high school one of the top three in the nation.

The highest scoring middle school is DeKalb County's Wadsworth Magnet School for High Achievers, with a 101.4, and the top elementary school is the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics, with a 102.7. Click here for a more detailed list.

The overall score is made up of three areas: achievement counts for 70 percent; progress is 15 percent; and achievement gap accounts for the remaining 15 percent. Each of those areas is broken up into subcategories.

Atlanta Public Schools, marred by a massive cheating scandal, dominated the bottom of the list. The elementary, middle and high schools with the lowest scores are Atlanta’s University Community Academy elementary school (41.6), University Community Academy middle school (47) and Booker T. Washington High School (46). University Community Academy is now closed.

WSBTV