Summary:
The city of Sparks, Georgia is home to two schools - Cook County Middle School and Cook Elementary School. While the middle school has consistently performed well, ranking in the top half of Georgia middle schools, the elementary school has struggled, ranking in the bottom half of the state's elementary schools.
Cook County Middle School has a 3-star rating and outperforms the county and state averages on the Milestones Assessments, particularly in Algebra I and 8th-grade Math. In contrast, Cook Elementary School has a 2-star rating and has struggled to match the county and state averages in English Language Arts and Mathematics, though it has seen some success in 5th-grade Science.
Both schools have similar per-student spending and student-teacher ratios, suggesting that funding and resources may not be the primary driver of the performance gap. The high percentage of free and reduced-price lunch recipients at Cook Elementary School, however, indicates that the school is serving a predominantly low-income student population, which could be a contributing factor to its lower performance compared to the middle school. Further investigation into the underlying factors, such as curriculum, teaching quality, and school leadership, could help inform strategies to support and improve the education system in the area.
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