Educators: Grading system fails schools

In a busy high school of 160 students, two junior class students out of a class of 10 decide not to take the four‑year college admissions test, the SAT. They aren't planning to go to a four‑year college. Instead they're planning to pursue technical careers that do not need the SAT scoring for placement. As they sleep in on that early Saturday morning as their fellow classmates labor over the SATs, they do not realize that their decision has just flunked their school in the new Maine School Performance Grading System.
At first glance it might make sense to measure a student's academic learning through his or her school's aggregated standardized test scores and graduation rates, but given the SAT scenario a school's F grade does not necessarily represent the quality of how a student is being taught to learn in their school.
Maine Governor Paul LePage has said that education reform is the focus of his administration. The state has just issued the results of its first school grading, joining 13 other states and New York City in issuing report cards of A to F for public elementary and high schools. Maine schools averaged a grade of C after a bell curve was applied to the results; a total of 62 schools scored A; 74, B; 281, C; 68, D; and 67, F.
While the A to F system is easy to understand when taken at face value, David Silvernail, director of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Southern Maine, says that the "jury is out" on whether the grading system adds value to education. "Creating accountability is very strong right now," he says of the political system. However, he notes that in other states that have used the grading system, "They haven't established yet that the grading system has created better achievement."
Danny Waggoner of Eastport, a 40-year veteran of the public school system with 38 years spent teaching in Florida, points out, "LePage's school grading scale was done on the bell-shaped curve. That means that only a certain percentage of schools could be awarded each grade, regardless of the students' test results. It would have been better if the scale would have just let the chips fall wherever they were."
"Maine's economic future depends on how well our schools prepare our students for success in college, careers and civic life," said Governor LePage in a prepared release. "These report cards show the majority of Maine's schools are average, but I believe Maine's students deserve an above‑average education. With this accessible accountability system, students, parents and educators can work together to raise their grades and create better outcomes for Maine kids."

An over‑simplified definition of growth
The state report card system utilizes standardized testing to evaluate six categories. For elementary schools those categories are: math and reading proficiency, math and reading growth and math and reading 25% bottom of class growth. For high school they are: math and reading proficiency, math and reading three‑year average growth and four- and five-year graduation rates.
Silvernail says, "The model recognizes growth, but it recognizes a pretty simple definition of growth." He adds, "They really over-simplified the picture you can have of a school."
Shead High School Principal Paul Theriault explains the weakness of the school grading system from his high school vantage point. "I've had concerns about this [standardized testing] for a number of years. The tests are the SATs. They are set up as an aptitude test to see if students are four‑year‑college ready. They are held one day a year [for juniors] on Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to about 1 p.m." Theriault continues by pointing out that the growth in an individual student is not the calculation. Instead it is each junior class that becomes the measurement.
Silvernail adds, "They established a definition of growth from year to year. The rate of change will vary," according to the individual class, the subject matter learned and other factors.
Waggoner points out another weakness of the score card system. "It is not possible for a student to continue to make gains at a constant rate -- just as a car's acceleration is not the same from a dead stop to top speed. As a student improves, it becomes harder to make a yearly gain. What do you do with a student in the 95th percentile? The grading system is based on steady gains, but when a student is doing the best they can, the gains needed for a school to get a good grade just aren't there."
Silvernail agrees but explains that measuring the bottom 25% growth progress is a good concept. "The bottom 25% is relative even if they're all B students. We should be helping them to be challenged." However, this does not address Waggoner's concern that an A or B student cannot be measured for the 25% growth needed by the school grading system.
"I do not believe in one‑size‑fits‑all," says Theriault. He questions the validity of using the SAT as a measurement of choice when not all students will pursue the four‑year college path but instead might pursue a technical or resource‑based trade that requires a different kind of post‑high school education. He gives the example of a student who just passed his welding boards and will be going on to welding school and into a career "where he'll end up making more than me."
While Theriault doesn't want to discourage students from taking the SAT, he explains that the test has questionable value to a student pursuing a different path. Theriault notes that parents can refuse to have their child take the test, and if 10% or more of the junior class fails to take the SAT, the school automatically receives an F on its state report card. If between 5% and 10% of the class fails to take the test, the school automatically receives a D. Waggoner illustrates the point. "In many instances, the grade of a school may come down to one student who doesn't feel like taking a single test on one day of their school year. That is not an indication of how a school is doing."
In addition, the report card system tracks four- and five-year graduation rates, starting with the freshman cohort and scoring the school on how many of that cohort graduate. The school is penalized by the grading system if students leave school and receive an alternative diploma or GED. Theriault notes that a few years ago the high school had a handful of students who were not interested in school and they left. Since then almost all have gone on to receive their GEDs, and four are in college. For most, those students would be considered successful, he notes.
Theriault says, "No school should be stagnant." The big question for Shead's principal is the same one that the governor posed. "How can we do a better job for our kids?" He adds, "We know there are some places we need to work." Theriault believes that the answer lies in making sure that when students graduate high school they are prepared for the pursuit of their career choice, whether it's to study to be a welder, a nurse, an engineer, a doctor or a fisherman.
Waggoner is not confident that the school grading system is something that will help students to accomplish real learning. He says, "Florida after all these years is beginning to realize that school grades and test preparation don't necessarily make higher achieving students, just better test takers. I personally taught classes where I helped students eliminate two of four multiple choice answers. The students had a 50/50 chance of guessing instead of a one in four. We prepped students on how to take the test, not about knowing the material. That is what will happen in Maine after the system is in place for a while.

Concerns about testing and privatization
Waggoner has an additional concern about the school grade scoring system. "The school grade idea comes from former governor of Florida Jeb Bush," he says. "Bush's foundation, called the Foundation for Excellence in Education, is a moving force nationwide in improving public schools." While Florida's grade scores initially experienced a bump up, the scores began to decline again. In 2012, a Harvard education research team studied state‑by‑state academic gains and concluded that "the connection between reforms and gains ... thus far is only anecdotal, not definitive."
The Bush foundation's efforts to increase academic achievement are a worthy cause, says Waggoner. However, he points to an article by Reuters that reports on the relationship between for‑profit educational organizations that provide services to public schools, the Bush foundation's emphasis on public schools adopting many of these services and some of those organizations' financial contributions to the foundation. "Some of the policies Bush now pushes, such as vouchers and mandatory online classes, have no clear links to the test‑score bump in Florida. Bush has been particularly vigorous about promoting online education, urging states to adopt policies written with input from companies that stand to profit from expanded cyber‑schooling. Many of those companies also donate to Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which has raised $19 million in recent years to promote his agenda nationwide.
Waggoner sees a type of catch‑22 developing. "The problem is that many businesses and corporations who tout school reform and support Bush's foundation have a financial interest to promote his reforms. Again and again, there is never enough money for education, but there is always enough money to develop new tests, and to evaluate the results."
Increased reliance on testing and score cards is not a path that Waggoner looks at with confidence. "Many educators, including myself, see this as a self‑serving motive to turn public schools eventually into corporately run for‑profit schools." He adds, "There is money to be made by these corporations. In Florida the success rate is at best marginal."
Silvernail says that as of yet he has not heard of any research collected on the correlation between the school grading system and the argument for the privatization of a state's public school system.

Grades for area schools
Report card grades for area schools are as follows: schools receiving A C Whiting Village School; receiving B -- Bay Ridge Elementary School, Cutler; receiving C -- Woodland Elementary School, Calais High School, Perry Elementary, Eastport Elementary, Lubec Elementary, Rose M. Gaffney School in Machias, Washington Academy; receiving D -- Shead High School, Pembroke Elementary School, Charlotte Elementary School, Machias Memorial High School; receiving F -- Woodland High School, Calais Elementary School, Robbinston Grade School, Elm Street School in East Machias.
To view individual school results and read about the report card methodology visit <www.maine.gov.edu>.