Educators: Grading system fails schools

Staff and students at Whiting Village School, one of Washington County's smaller elementary schools, were delighted when they were notified last week of their "A" grade on Governor Paul LePage's grading system. The elementary school was one of two in Washington County that were on the list to receive the highest possible grade and the only one in eastern Washington County. The D.W. Merritt in Addison was the other school.
Principal Scott Johnson says he received a call on Monday, April 29, from AOS 96 Superintendent Scott Porter telling him of the school's test results, which were made public on Wednesday. Johnson said, "Whiting Village School is very pleased with our state report card grade of 'A.' While we recognize that this grade is based on only the New England Common Assessment Program scores in reading and math, it is rewarding to be recognized for the individual attention and hard work by students and teachers.
He adds, "Whiting Village School enjoys great community support in keeping our small school, which provides individualized attention and instruction to each child in a traditional setting and historic building. We face many challenges being a small school in these whirlwind times of educational change and political mandates. Many factors should be used to describe a great school, not just a letter assigned by a distant entity that seems more concerned with proving the need for private, for profit or religiously affiliated educational facilities.
Johnson continues, "Many of our area schools are excellent but did not perform as well on this singular measure this time. I expect large swings in performance data, as has often been the case in the past with all area schools, including Whiting Village. Again, while happy that we earned an 'A' this time, we think that the value of this very limited report card, in the long run, is not helping our schools.
Governor LePage told the public and put schools on notice regarding the newly instituted grading system in his State of the State address earlier this year. His plan at that time was to funnel $3 million to schools for improvement initiatives and that amount would supplement Title I federal money to low-performing schools that have a certain percentage of students from low-income households. The Department of Education was to be assigned the task of helping the school districts needing assistance.
The grading system was based on the performance of students who were tested during the 2011–2012 school year and compared to their scores during the current school year. The system considered proficiency in math and reading, and also measured the collective growth of individual students and how well they improved from the previous year. Growth was also a factor among those students who, in the previous testing year, scored in the bottom 25%. This aspect was focused on the growth among students who were particularly struggling in the previous year to the most recent year.
The idea that students from low-income households, as determined by free and reduced lunch figures, tend not to do well academically is refuted by the Whiting Village School test results. Approximately 45% of the 27 students at the school receive free and reduced lunch. The school has three classroom teachers, a special education teacher and three classroom aides. Four itinerant teachers provide guidance, art, music and physical education.