Make sure schools can meet standards
State education groups are in a heated debate over whether public schools should receive letter grades on report cards evaluating their performance in a variety of categories. We hope this issue doesn’t distract from what should be the highest priority: improving failing schools.
The state’s Education Oversight Committee is involved in creating a new, uniform school accountability system that will be easily understood and more informative. It will replace the dual state and federal rating systems that can be confusing and often are contradictory in their conclusions.
But various education organizations have vociferously objected to any system that passes out letter grades to schools. District superintendents, state Department of Education officials and teachers’ representatives say grading schools A through f stigmatizes entire schools and discourages needed development in communities with schools that get low grades.
We agree that the stigma of being labeled a failing school can be counterproductive. As teacher organizations point out, good teachers in schools graded F will leave, and those schools will have a harder time recruiting and retaining talented teachers.
This formula also tends to give low grades to schools with high percentages of low-income students who traditionally perform worse on standardized tests. Even though scores might be rising rapidly at those schools, they still can earn failing grades.
Developers also will be less likely to invest in communities with failing schools. And that can create a vicious cycle in which school districts fail to receive the economic investment they desperately need to improve their schools.
Nonetheless, the performance of all of South Carolina schools needs to be evaluated, and the results need to be made available to the public in some form. Some teachers have suggested that, instead of using letter grades, schools should be rated with phrases ranging from “exceeds expectations” to “fails to meet expectations.”
But is a rating of “fails to meet expectations” really less stigmatizing than a grade of F?
Seventeen states, including neighboring North Carolina and Georgia, have an A through F grading system. In North Carolina, all schools receive a letter grade based on the percentage of students proficient in reading and math, and the percentage of students making substantial academic progress.
Beginning last year, N.C. schools received grades based on a 15-point scale, with scores between 85 and 100 receiving an A, scores between 70 and 84 receiving, and so on. The scale will change to a 10-point scale in future years.
The system remains controversial in North Carolina. Opponents say it unfairly affects high-poverty schools.
We think this touches on the major problem with any grading system: evaluating schools without taking significant steps to improve the performance of low-scoring schools. That defeats the purpose of grading schools in the first place.
South Carolina already knows where its poorly performing schools are. Most are in the so-called “corridor of shame” that consists of largely poor, rural school districts along Interstate 95.
The state is under court order to raise performance levels in these schools and ensure that every student in South Carolina has access to an adequate public education. State lawmakers have yet to come up with a workable plan to do that.
Yes, the state needs to fairly measure the performance of its schools and make the information readily available to parents and other interested parties. But the important work comes after the schools are evaluated.
Once schools have been identified as failing by whatever system is devised, they need to get the help necessary to lift them up to an acceptable level of performance.
This story was originally published December 13, 2016 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Make sure schools can meet standards."