For decades school districts have been handing out report cards. Administrators and teachers alike have been grading students on their abilities and achievements with A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s and F’s.
Now the tables are turning and it’s the schools that will soon be receiving letter grades come this April.
The Michigan State Board of Education has recently passed a new standard for accreditation for local schools called Education YES! – A Yardstick for Excellent Schools. The new system will assign individual school buildings letter grades and state accreditation instead of reviewing and awarding an entire district.
“This is something that the state has put in place very quickly,” said Karen Eckert, Oxford Schools curriculum coordinator. “It is so new that there are still lots of questions about it and there will be changes to it as we go along.”
Under Education YES!, school buildings will receive a cumulative grade based on two broad areas: measures of school performance and measures of student performance. Each of these broad areas includes three grades from three specific subcategories.
The measures of school performance makes up about 33 percent of a building’s final letter grade and is based on:
n indicators of engagement – the state will be looking at programs that enable schools to track whether not each student has attained critical skills, programs that focus on continuous improvement in students and programs that measure a building’s work toward curriculum alignment in the school and across the district.
n indicators of instructional quality – the state will be measuring the preparation of teachers for their assignment and the professional development available to them and taken by them, whether or not early childhood programs are available for at-risk students, whether or not extended learning opportunities are provided at the higher grade levels, whether or not arts education and humanities for all students is offered, and the level of student participation in advanced course work such as dual enrollment.
n indicators of learning opportunities – the state will be reviewing family involvement within the school building, whether or not open lines of communication are available, the student attendance record, the high school dropout rate, any programs developed for individual four-year education and employment plans, and an inventory of school facilities.
A school building will be given a grade in each of these three areas. Those grades will then be averaged into a total grade for the measures of school performance.
The measures of student achievement makes up 67 percent of a school’s final grade and is based primarily on results from the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) testing. The three sub-categories being judged are:
n achievement status – Three years worth of MEAP scores will be used to determine a building’s current status, or where the students are in skills and ability compared to where they should be.
n achievement change – The difference between one year’s achievement status and the next year’s will be the amount of change.
n achievement growth – This will be determined by comparing the MEAP scores of the fourth grade assessment with the same MEAP scores for the same group of students on the seventh grade assessment. This will only be done for those students who remain within the school district.
Again, a school will be given a grade in each of these areas. Those grades will then be averaged into a total measures of student achievement grade. At this point, the two broad area grades will then be averages together to a final school assessment letter grade.
However, the state is not done there.
In order to be in compliance with the federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation, which states that every child must make adequate yearly progress (AYP), the state now factors in whether or not a school building made the required AYP.
If a school building does reach the mandated federal levels, then that school’s letter grade basically remains the same (those on the lower end of the scale can progress up a grade at this point). However, if a school does not make the AYP, then the overall letter grade is dropped.
This means a school receiving a total letter grade A, but not making adequate yearly progress, would in reality be given a B.
In addition, several questions are left unanswered for local school officials. For example, how are subgroups, such as special education students, factored into the equation? What exactly happens when a school’s students are failing, and when would action be taken?
“There are just so many pieces that are uncertain to this, things will have to be modified as we go along,” said Eckert. “It’s the first one so there are going to be problems and questions.”
One thing offered by the Michigan State Board of Education is technical assistance for those school buildings with struggling students. The board will help to arrange consultants, possible partnering with colleges for advanced opportunities and after-school learning assistance. According to Eckert, the state would only step in to take control of a district as a last resort.
She added that the toughest part of the new system will actually not be using it, but making sure that it is a true presentation of the school systems.
“The hard part is making sure this system is reasonable, and truly represents what’s happening in schools,” said Eckert. “Then we have to face the difficulty of communicating that to the public, and I think different parents are going to respond to this differently based on their past experience.”
Despite all of the questions and concerns, Eckert said she’s ready to see the system in action.
“I need to see it in motion before I can believe that it truly represents schools,” she stated. “I am concerned about rolling everything we do into one grade and then getting the community to understand everything that’s behind that one letter.”
“Until then though we’re going to continue to do what we’ve always done ? helping the students we have to learn, advance and succeed.”