This spring – five years after the COVID pandemic broke out – Georgia students in grades 3-12 participated in the Georgia Milestones Assessment System, known as Georgia Milestones. The test this year assessed students’ skills and knowledge in English language arts, math, social studies, and science.
There are many ways to interpret the results across subjects, grade levels, schools, and school districts. Statewide, student performance stayed the same since 2024 or improved on most of the tests; the state administered 20 tests across grade levels, and students were steady or improved in 13 of them. Gains were particularly notable in math, where most grades progressed from last year, and students in grades 4 and 8 exceeded pre-pandemic performance – gains that follow the rollout of Georgia’s new, state-developed K-12 Math Standards in 2023-24.
For Metro Atlanta in particular, the so-called COVID slide was so significant – in other words, students’ performance levels dropped so much – that it’s been possible for students to make progress compared to last year and still not be at the levels where they were before the pandemic. That’s the case in many schools, where students are making gains, and there is still a long way to go before most students are performing at pre-pandemic levels, let alone proficient across subjects.
Later this year, the state will release how students in different subgroups performed on the test, and we’ll have data to suggest how well Metro Atlanta schools and districts are closing opportunity gaps. For now, here are three Metro Atlanta-specific takeaways from the 2025 Milestones results:
As the saying goes, students learn to read until third grade; after third grade, they are reading to learn. So, literacy gaps become learning gaps. Unfortunately, third-grade students’ performance statewide and in many Metro Atlanta counties continues to lag.
Students statewide and in almost every Metro Atlanta county are backsliding in English language arts – in other words, they are performing worse in 2025 than in 2024, and their 2024 performance levels were already lower than the 2019 levels. The only exception is Fulton County, where students have fluctuated from 48.5% in 2019 to 50.2% in 2024 and 49.8% in 2025.
This regression does not bode well for students’ performance in future grades.
redefinED atlanta invests in bold ideas, exceptional educators, and community-driven solutions across public schools in Metro Atlanta, and many showed significant progress on this year’s Milestones exam. For example:
Across Metro Atlanta, the pattern is the same – students’ performance dipped from 2019 to 2021 and is slowly rebounding since. In Clayton County, for instance, schools achieved almost two points of growth in math from 2024 to 2025.
Within Atlanta Public Schools, there are also bright spots. In Douglass and Jackson Clusters, across both math and English language arts, students’ performance was better in 2024 than in 2019 and better in 2025 than in 2024. That’s consistent progress.
These gains are helping narrow the gaps between the state and APS in math and English language arts, which were smaller in 2025 than in 2019, particularly in English.
And yet there is still a tremendous amount of work to do to better support student achievement. The state is leaning in; for the first time, all K-3 teachers in the state started the school year trained in research-based structured literacy. In addition, the state is expanding professional learning opportunities statewide and will continue placing literacy coaches in the highest-need elementary schools across the state.
redefinED atlanta will continue to do its part as well. We invest in powerful ideas and proven solutions that help create better schools and opportunities for every student, and calling out the positive trends in this blog are just one part of our efforts to uplift points of progress.
Students, educators, and families across Metro Atlanta are doing their best to recover from the pandemic. They are making progress, and their efforts – all of our efforts – must continue.
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