Tomorrow morning, my wife and I return to work as teachers in a public school in Palm Beach County, Florida. Next Monday, the school year begins for students, and all across our county, parents will be sending their children to new schools, institutions they know nothing about. And for many (sadly not all,) parents, this is worrisome, because they want only the best for their children, including (for some especially,) an education.
And what is more natural than parents advocating for their children? Today we expect parents to strive to provide for their kids, from working hard to afford the things the family needs, to reading labels on food to make healthy choices, to elbowing another parent in the throat to get the last toy on the shelf at a Black Friday sale, we have no shortage of examples of parents working (sometimes excessively perhaps,) to give their children the best life they can, and in the only ways available to them.
For such caring and dedicated parents, making sure that their children go to the best school available to them is a priority. And for those who cannot afford private school or homeschooling, that means sending their kids to the local public school assigned to them. But what kind of school is it? Most of these parents have never walked the halls of this school, or spoken to administrators, nor met the teachers that will be instructing their children. How then can parents know the quality of these schools, and understand how well their children can succeed?
Well according to many, they need only check out the school grade. This system, pioneered here in Florida about fifteen years ago, has since spread to many other states. Using a wide array of measurements and criteria, and utilizing the simple and familiar 'A to F' scale, this system allows parents to tell at a glance if their local school is competent to teach their child and prepare them for success in life.
But it is my sad duty to inform you that the system is completely broken, and the conclusions drawn from it are entirely false.
"But you're a teacher!" you protest, "obviously you think school grades are a bad idea, that's just because your salary is tied to it!" And that is a fair point, when someone has a financial stake in a subject, you should always question their points, and consider their viewpoint.
Except... the thing is, my salary isn't affected by the school grades. Sure, there are people who want to make that happen, and indeed they have been talking about that for 15 years now in my state, and it hasn't happened. It may well never happen, given all the roadblocks and impracticalities to such a suggestion.
However, even when you leave teachers out of the equation and just look at the school grades as a deciding factor for parents looking out for their child's best interest, the system in place now is entirely flawed, and can work against the best wishes of parents for their children.
That's because the system is based on the central premise that all children, at all grades, and from all backgrounds, come to school each year with the same levels of ability and information. Each year, the students are essentially grade level appropriate blank slates. Any teacher should be able to bring every student in the class up to grade level equally.
That many absolutes has surely set off your malarky sensors, but I assure you, that is the absolute truth as to how the system works. Every aspect of the school grade system relies upon that basic premise. And since the premise is flawed, every assumption after that is already doomed to failure, no matter how well thought out it might be.
Let me begin by clarifying that the grade does not measure the school at all. It's measuring the students. Over the years, they have added a number of criteria to school grade (graduation rate, discipline referrals, etc.) but the heart of it still revolves around a single standardized test. If students fail, they may be scheduled into remedial classes next year, but they can try again and again until graduation to pass the test. But their failure affects the school's grade. If you are a kid already taking remedial courses, where is the incentive to try hard to pass the first time? I personally know of kids who blow off the test in ninth and tenth grade, because older students told them that the retakes are easier.
And these tests do not measure an individual student's progress to determine grades, they simply compare this year's kids with last year's groups like zoologists counting lemmings. It is solely the students' performance that is measured, not the teaching that is taking place in the classrooms. The grade purports to tell you how good the teachers are at a school, but how can they do that if teachers themselves aren't a factor?
Consider this: at no point in the grading do they actually look at teachers themselves. Not once. We never have to take a competence test (I would LOVE that,) nor are our credentials, years of service, degrees or testimonials factored into the grade. Now that means positive or negative.
If a school consists of a majority of experienced, highly educated teachers with dozens of awards and praise from countless parents, the grade will not reflect that. And if the majority of teachers are new and inexperienced, with lousy records and multiple warnings or other censures in their records? That will not be reflected in the grade either.
No doubt you may make the argument that those two hypothetical schools would show themselves in their grade. But that too is a fallacy. Since the system only looks at students, and only a selection of students, you may see a grade (high or low) that will not reflect how your child will be taught. If the system only looks at tenth grade test scores in reading and math (which is pretty common,) then how many teachers are they theoretically looking at? How will your child do in their Freshman, Junior and Senior years? Does the school specifically put the hardest working, most dedicated teachers with the specific group of kids that are tested for school grade? You better believe that schools do things like that to raise their grades. What about your kid? Are you sure they are going to get those teachers?
Which brings us to the real problem of this system.
If you are a parent, let me ask you this question: is your kid really the same as all the other kids? Does everything that affects other kids affect your kid the same way? When someone gives you parenting advice on how to raise your child, do you accept that as the truth, or do you first consider what you know about your own unique little snowflake and decide if that is likely to apply to him or her? Your kid is specific and individual, and when it comes to parenting, one size does not fit all.
Why would you assume that education is any different? Do you really believe that the same teacher, using the same method for each of a hundred plus kids is going to get the same results with each one? Imagine if your kid is not understanding the material a teacher is presenting in a particular way, and when you ask about alternate ways of conveying the information, the teacher simply says "the other kids get it when I do this, yours just needs to get with the program."
I know, I want to punch the hypothetical teacher too, and I am a hypothetical teacher. I hate being asked to alter my process just because little Johnny doesn't 'get it.' But you know what? I do it anyway. Then I start a blog so I can bitch about it.
But school grade assumes you do buy into the one size fits all approach. I mean, if you look at an A school, and think your kid is automatically going to do well there (especially if they have had problems in the past,) you are sadly misinformed. Likewise, if you think that sending your A student to a C school means their grades will go down or their education will suffer, this is just as ill conceived.
And you know what? Both of those scenarios are still possible. But if you are making assumptions based on the school grade...well there's an old expression about what happens when you assume.
School grade tells you how the specific kids they tested this year (not all kids,) did when compared to the specific kids they tested last year. And how much do you know about these tests, anyway? Are you okay taking someone's word that these tests are accurate measurement's of a student's real ability? And beyond that, that those tests measure what your child will actually learn in class?
And then there's the cheating...
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the kids are cheating, or that the teachers are cooking the results (we'd love to, but we really can't do that, it's handled by the state.) I mean that schools (and the district) play a lot of games with those grades.
There is a school in my district that always gets A's. And they probably always will, but that is because they cheat. Okay, to be fair, it is an arts magnet school that has been around since before the tests and school grades. To get into this school, students must audition before a panel (art, music, theater, etc.) and be accepted. And if you do not abide by the school's policies (both academic or disciplinary,) you can be sent packing.
So this school gets to pick which kids can attend, and can get rid of kids who do not perform academically, and people are amazed that they get A's? I call shenanigans on that. And the most galling aspect of that is that it is compared to the rest of the public schools in the county. Apparently those teachers just work harder. (As an aside, one of my wife's favorite students last year was a girl who transferred to our school from this arts magnet, because her parents didn't feel she was getting a good enough science education.)
My district also has a lot of high-poverty schools, and my wife and I teach at one of them. Our Hispanic population is the single biggest demographic at my school, and the majority of them are recent immigrants who are or were in the ELL (English Language Learners, formerly ESOL) program. We have to fight every year because no matter how well our kids do on the test in general, we are constantly in danger of failing because of a little-known aspect of school grade.
One of those factors involves looking at how the school's lowest 25% of performers (you'll have to ask someone with a higher pay grade than me as to how they decide who goes on that list,) do on the test (again, compared to last year's group.) If a school does not show an adequate amount of improvement in the performance of the lowest 25%, their grade drops automatically.
Can you guess the demographic makeup of nearly ALL of my school"s lowest 25%?
So if you have a group of students still learning English (which is the ONLY language the test is offered in,) that do poorly, and you work hard to teach them and improve by next year, when does that improvement show? Next year, it's a whole new group of ELL students whose scores get compared.
Is this how you see your children? As completely interchangeable cogs in a system? Because I, and all the teachers that I know, certainly don't. We've been complaining about this system for years, even without worrying that our paycheck might be one day tied to it.
And what does the research show? If you were to assume that students will only do as well or as poorly as the teachers teach them, then what do the years of statistics gathered by the tests say?
That some years we just don't try very hard. That's it. For some unexplainable reason, some years the test scores (and graduation rates and discipline etc.) are better than others. A biologist studying slime molds would look to environmental factors to explain this disparity. A demographer might look at changes in the school boundaries from year to year. And an asshole would say that the teachers just didn't care enough.
But teachers (and I feel parents as well) know that kids are people, and any grouping of people will be a unique event. Comparing them blindly does a disservice to all.
And what if all this was true? Even if the grades were a 100% accurate measurement of the quality of education offered at a school, is your kid going to get that quality? Look at the best performing schools. Are there still kids failing and dropping out there, or graduating with a 'certificate of completion' instead of a real diploma? Yup.
And do you find amazing success stories at poorly rated schools? Kids that got an excellent education and were prepared to go on to college and succeed? Double yup.
But to use either example to judge the rest is just asinine. To not send your kid to the one or to preferentially send them to the other based on inaccurate data is a plan for failure.
So school grades are crap, pure and simple. You can't determine how good of an education your child will receive by looking at the grade. So what can parents do to check out the school?
Get involved. Go to the school and check it out on your own. Talk to the teachers. Talk to the administrators. Talk to the librarians (if they still have any,) and to the students themselves. If your kid has friends who already attend the new school, ask them about their teachers. Their responses may not be the most factual, but you can glean a lot of information by reading between the lines.
Reach out to your community. If you are active in church, somebody will have things to say. Other parents will tell you teachers that really reached their children, and those who wasted their time. This can give you a chance at working with your child's guidance counselor to put them in the classes you feel would be best for them. If that doesn't work, you will know when you might want to consider extra work for your child, either from tutors or using online resources.
The state will never give you as accurate a read on how things work at a school as you can obtain from people who actually know from experience.
There is a lot of talk about this system right now in Florida, since our state education commissioner just resigned because he altered the formula when he was in another state, apparently to fix the grades of schools that were 'supposed to be an A.' Even if those were not his motives, does it fill you with confidence?
Last year, officials drastically changed the formula after school grades were calculated, because they said the results skewed too low, citing statistical error. And now the same state officials that originally supported the adoption of this system are saying the formula itself is flawed and needs to be completely overhauled.
In the end, I'm going to go against the teacher's credo and tell you to ignore the grade. It does not reflect the most important thing you need to know: what kind of education your child will receive.
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