(a) The State Board of Education shall adopt a student assessment program consisting of instruments, procedures, and policies necessary to implement the program and shall fund all costs of providing and scoring such instruments, subject to appropriation by the General Assembly. Nationally norm-referenced instruments in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies shall be administered to students in grades three, five, and eight. The State Board of Education shall review, revise, and upgrade the quality core curriculum. Following the adoption of this revised curriculum, the State Board of Education shall contract for development of criterion-referenced competency tests to measure the quality core curriculum. Such tests in English and language arts, mathematics, and reading shall be administered annually to students in grades one through eight, and such tests in science and social studies shall be administered annually to students in grades three through eight. This action shall be completed according to a schedule established by the State Board of Education. A curriculum-based assessment shall be administered in grade 11 for graduation purposes. Writing assessments shall be administered to students in grades three, five, eight, and 11. The writing assessments shall provide students and their parents with performance outcome measures resulting from the administration of such tests.

(b) The nationally normed assessments provided for in subsection (a) of this Code section shall provide students and their parents with grade equivalencies and percentile ranks which result from the administration of such tests. Criterion-referenced tests and the high school graduation test provided for in subsection (a) of this Code section shall provide for results that reflect student achievement at the individual student, classroom, school, system, and state levels. The State Board of Education shall participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and may participate in any other tests that will allow benchmarking this state's performance against national or international performance. The results of such testing shall be provided to the Governor, the General Assembly, and the State Board of Education and shall be reported to the citizens of Georgia. Further, the state board shall adopt a school readiness assessment for students entering first grade and shall administer such assessment pursuant to paragraph (2) of subsection (b) of Code Section 20-2-151. One of the components in the awarding of salary supplements as part of a pay for performance or related plan pursuant to Code Section 20-2-213 or other Code sections under this article may be assessments of student achievement.

(b.1) The State Board of Education shall notify local school systems and individual schools of the results of the assessment instruments administered under this Code section at the earliest possible date determined by the state board, but not later than the beginning of the subsequent school year.

(c) The State Board of Education shall have the authority to condition the awarding of a high school diploma to a student upon achievement of satisfactory scores on instruments or tests adopted and administered by the state board pursuant to subsection (a) of this Code section. The state board is authorized and directed to adopt regulations providing that any disabled child, as defined by the provisions of this article, shall be afforded opportunities to take any test adopted by the state board as a condition for the awarding of a high school diploma. Said regulations shall further provide for appropriate accommodations in the administration of such test. Said regulations shall further provide for the awarding of a special education diploma to any disabled student who is lawfully assigned to a special education program and who does not achieve a passing score on said test or who has not completed all of the requirements for a high school diploma but who has nevertheless completed his or her Individualized Education Program.

(d)(1) The State Board of Education shall develop or adopt alternate assessments to be administered to each student receiving special education services pursuant to Code Section 20-2-152 who does not receive instruction in the essential knowledge and skills identified in the quality core curriculum developed pursuant to Code Section 20-2-140 and for whom the assessment instruments adopted under subsection (a) of this Code section, even with allowable modifications, would not provide an appropriate measure of student achievement, as determined by the student's Individualized Education Program team. A student's Individualized Education Program may serve as an alternate assessment for that student. Students with alternate assessments shall not be counted for the state accountability purposes provided for in this article.

(2) A student's Individualized Education Program team shall determine appropriate participation in assessment and identify necessary accommodations in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

(e) The State Board of Education shall adopt end-of-course assessments for students in grades nine through 12 for all core subjects to be determined by the state board. For those students with an Individualized Education Program, the student's Individualized Education Program team shall determine appropriate participation in assessments and identify necessary accommodations in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

(f) Under rules adopted by the State Board of Education, the Department of Education shall release the questions and answer keys to each criterion-referenced competency test administered under subsection (a) of this Code section and each end-of-course test administered under subsection (e) of this Code section after the last time the instrument is administered for a school year. To ensure a valid bank of questions for use each year, the department is not required to release a question that is being field tested and was not used to compute the student's score on the instrument.

(g) The State Board of Education, through the Department of Education, shall administer the end-of-course assessments for core subject areas as defined by state board policy. The state board shall promulgate a schedule for the development and administration of all end-of-course tests by December 1, 2000.

(h) The Department of Education shall develop study guides for the criterion-referenced tests and end-of-course assessments administered pursuant to subsections (a) and (e) of this Code section. Each school system shall distribute the study guides to students who do not perform satisfactorily on one or more parts of an assessment instrument administered under this Code section and to the parents or guardians of such students.

(i)(1) The high school graduation test provided for in subsection (a) of this Code section shall continue in effect until all high school core subject end-of-course assessments have been developed and implemented, at which time the state board shall discontinue the test according to a schedule to be determined by the state board.

(2) The State Board of Education shall adopt rules regarding course exit requirements in regard to the implemented core subject end-of-course assessments before discontinuing the high school graduation test.

(3) Local boards of education shall have the option of allowing scores on end-of-course assessments to be counted as part of a student's grade in the course.

(j)(1) In addition to the assessment instruments adopted by the State Board of Education and administered by the Department of Education, a local school system may adopt and administer criterion-referenced or norm-referenced assessment instruments, or both, at any grade level. Such locally adopted assessment instruments may not replace the state's adopted assessment instruments for purposes of state accountability programs, except as otherwise provided in paragraph (2) of this subsection. A local school system shall be responsible for all costs and expenses incurred for locally adopted assessment instruments. Students with Individualized Education Programs must be included in the locally adopted assessments or provided an alternate assessment in accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

(2) The State Board of Education shall have the authority to grant waivers until Fiscal Year 2003 to local boards of education exempting said boards from the administration of the state criterion-referenced competency tests at any or all of the subject areas and grade levels for which the local board of education implements a locally developed criterion-referenced competency test or tests based on the Quality Core Curriculum which increases the expectations for student achievement beyond that of the applicable state criterion-referenced competency test or tests and meets all other requirements of this Code section, including reliability and validity requirements, with the exception of subsection (f) of this Code section. Local boards of education with such waivers shall submit to the State Board of Education school and local school system score reports of the locally developed criterion-referenced competency tests.

(k) In adopting academic skills assessment instruments under this Code section, the State Board of Education or local school system shall ensure the security of the instruments in their preparation, administration, and scoring. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, meetings or portions of meetings held by the state board or a local board of education at which individual assessment instruments or assessment instrument items are discussed or adopted shall not be open to the public, and the assessment instruments or assessment instrument items shall be confidential. (l) The results of individual student performance on academic skills assessment instruments administered under this Code section shall be confidential and may be released only in accordance with the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C. Section 1232g.

(m) Overall student performance data shall be disaggregated by ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, disability, language proficiency, grade level, subject area, school, and system.

(n) Student performance data shall be made available to the public, with appropriate interpretations, by the State Board of Education, the Office of Education Accountability, and local school system. The information made available to the public shall not contain the names of individual students or teachers.

(o) Teachers in grades one through 12 shall be offered the opportunity to participate annually in a staff development program on the use of tests within the instructional program designed to improve students' academic achievement. This program shall instruct teachers on curriculum alignment related to tests, disaggregated student test data to identify student academic weaknesses by subtests, and other appropriate applications as determined by the State Board of Education.