Opinion: What school grades really say
What do school grades really say?
On Dec. 13, the Indiana State Board of Education approved A-F school grades for the 2015-16 school year. The grades were based for the first time on a new formula which took effect on March 1, 2016, but the A-F labels have been in place since 2011, and they have not been without controversy.
Proponents of the system argue that accountability is an important part of public education which is necessary to encourage growth and give taxpayers an easy representation of well schools perform.
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Those opposed say the system is inadequate at capturing complexity and nuance of education. The negative labels only serve to depress economic growth in surrounding communities and lower morale among staff and students at those schools, thereby impeding educational progress.
To the general public, A-F labels may very well give a false impression of the relative effectiveness of schools and teachers. Most reports of school grades simply list the grades schools received and how many of each grade are received by each school corporation. Without context or deeper analysis, it would be easy to conclude that an A school has better teachers than a C school or that a school corporation’s which earns all As or Bs has a higher quality educational program than one in which several schools earn Cs, Ds or Fs.
If we are to believe the rhetoric from the so-called “education reform” movement, annual performance evaluations of all teachers with compensation tied to those evaluations should address any teacher quality issues. Further, Indiana adopted more rigorous academic standards in 2014 which drive the educational programs in schools across the state. To those of us who work in education, we know that such a generalization as an A-F label is neither a true representation of what goes on in a school nor an acceptable reflection of the quality of the professionals who work there. So, that begs the question: what do school grades really say?
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In my work, I do two comparisons of any of this sort of data that comes out from the state. First, I compare the 20 school corporations in Southwest Indiana. Second, I compare data of the 21 largest school corporations in the state, serving 8,500 or more students.
With both groups, I use statewide data as a benchmark for comparison purposes. The comparisons demonstrate something I already knew—the single greatest indicator of academic outcomes is the poverty rate.
Consider the following:
- The statewide free and reduced lunch percentage was 46.6 percent for the 2015-16 school year.
- 62.4 percent of schools statewide received an A or B on the 2015-16 school grades.
- 87.0 percent of schools in large corporations with a free and reduced lunch percentage lower than the state average received an A or B on the 2015-16 school grades, compared with just 35.1 percent of schools in large school corporations with a free and reduced lunch percentage higher than the state average.
- 23 out of the 26 school corporations I reviewed with a free and reduced lunch percentage lower than the state average had a higher percentage of A or B schools than the state percentage, compared with just 5 out of the 13 school corporations with a free and reduced lunch percentage higher than the state average.
- Passing rates on the ISTEP+ exam show the exact same trends.
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This is not to say that poverty itself is the cause of poor academic performance, but it is to say that factors outside of the school have a dramatic impact on academic performance, making so-called accountability measures such as school grades useless as a determinant of school and teacher quality. If we were serious in Indiana about improving educational opportunities and outcomes for all Hoosier students, we would stop focusing on standardized tests and school grades and listen to the professionals who work most closely with our children on a daily basis—their teachers. If we would allow teachers to do their work without interference and arbitrary judgements, what we would see would not be the same in every classroom or for every child, and that is as it should be. Education is a people business, not a product business, and it is time we start trusting our people.
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Mark R. Lichtenberg was a classroom teacher for 15 years in the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and is currently a UniServ Director with the Indiana State Teachers Association.
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