The Griffin-Spalding County Board of Education discussed the dropout rate, CRCT scores and the appointment of new officials at its meeting Tuesday night.

“It’s a well-known cliche, ‘to get a good job, you need a good education,’” University of Georgia professor Jeff Jordan said.

He said despite this, students still drop out of school, much like how people keep smoking even though its effects are well-known.

In order to determine why the dropout rate is so high, Jordan conducted an experiment in all four local middle schools. The experiment looked at students’ willingness to delay gratification. He said the more impatient children were the ones more likely to drop out. He said one conclusion from the study was more immediate benefits for not dropping out would be helpful.

However, he cautioned against programs awarding academic achievement. He said students who would do well anyway earned the prizes, while those who did not succeed ended up giving up earlier.

Another conclusion of studies done with earlier age groups is that kindergartners are more willing to delay gratification than fourth-graders. He said he would continue his experiments, particularly with younger students, to see just when these attitudes “harden” and what could be done to change them.

Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Denise Burrell spoke about the Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores.

“We have the first of what will really be three releases of CRCT scores,” she said.

According to documents provided at the meeting, CRCT scores improved for the most part in English/language arts and in all grade levels in mathematics. They declined slightly in reading in every grade except first, seventh and eighth.

Burrell said the most concerns were in science, where there were small declines, and social studies, where there were large declines, including a drop from 87 percent passing to 67.5 percent passing in third grade, and a decline from 85 percent to 53.3 percent in fourth grade.

She attributed this to No Child Left Behind — science and social studies are being neglected to meet requirements in the “big three” of reading, mathematics and English/language arts.

She suggested one solution would be to teach reading using nonfiction books. Another solution would be to include more hands-on science work.

The board also appointed Christopher Forrer to serve as assistant principal at Anne Street Elementary School and LaJuana Carlisle to serve as administrator at Griffin-Spalding Alternative School.