The state school superintendent on Monday laid out the plan to replace the recently waived No Child Left Behind Act.

"No Child Left Behind was a good beginning to accountability," said John Barge, addressing the Rotary Club at First Baptist Church in Gainesville. "There are good pieces of No Child Left Behind, but there are also many shortcomings."

Georgia, along with nine other states, was allowed last month to waive the federal regulations.

Instead, the state this fall will begin measuring school success according to the College and Career Ready Performance Index.

The accountability system will scrap the "teach for the test" mentality associated with No Child Left Behind, instead focusing on preparing students for the next level in their education and/or eventual career.

"Unintentionally, because everything rode on the test scores, we created an environment in many of our schools that the most important thing was passing the test," Barge said.

The new index will be on a 0-100 scale, much like a student's report card. It will be based on three individually weighted scores: student achievement (70 percent), yearly progress (15 percent) and closing the achievement gap (15 percent). The weights of each score are still unofficial.

Different indicators will be considered, focusing on whether a student is ready for the next level. In high school that may mean measuring how employable a student is. In elementary and middle school, it focuses on whether a student is ready for the next grade.

"We can teach children knowledge all day long, but unless we teach them what to do with that knowledge and how to act, then we haven't prepared our children to be successful," Barge said.

One of the biggest differences between the new index and No Child Left Behind, Barge said, is the way subgroups are counted. Previously, if a subgroup failed, then the whole school was subject to fail the Adequate Yearly Progress performance standard. Subgroups are any 25 or more students within a school that share a common attribute including ethnicity/race, economically disadvantaged, disabilities and English language learners.

Now, if a subgroup does not perform, it will be targeted and dealt with individually instead of reflecting on the entire school.

The state also will scrap the Georgia High School Graduation Test in favor of eight End of Course Tests.

Schools will still be categorized, based on how well they meet the new standards.

The three federally mandated categories are as follows:

• Priority schools: The bottom 5 percent based on student achievement. The schools must be classified as Title I.
  Focus schools: The 10 percent of schools in the state that have the largest achievement gap between "high needs learners" and "non-high needs learners." These schools cannot be on the priority schools list.
• Reward schools: Otherwise known as Title I Distinguished schools, or the top 5 percent of schools in Georgia.
  The state added one more category.
• Alert school: Can be a non-Title I school but shows poor numbers in one or more subgroups. Services and resources, both state and federal, can aid these schools along with priority and focus schools.

"If we were going to get a waiver, we needed to use their definitions for those three groups of schools," Barge said.

After the state establishes a baseline of information, it must resubmit its proposal to the federal level toward the end of the year.