Easy as A-B-C: School assessment labels to change
Labels designating how well schools do on the state's standardized exam, AZ Learns, have changed to the more familiar grading system teachers use for students.
Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, sponsored SB 1286, which proposed to eliminate the current labels. Right now schools meeting standards are labeled, starting with the best, as: excelling, highly performing, performing plus, performing, and underperforming. The new law requires schools to be labeled by letter grades: A, B, C, D, and F, the same as student report cards.
Tom Tyree, Yuma County school superintendent, said he is in agreement.
"First of all, it is an issue Gov. (Jan) Brewer addressed during her state of the state message when she visited Yuma earlier this year. I think anything we can do to make education more transparent is a good idea."
Similar to many other professions, education uses a coded language that leaves the lay person out of the loop, said Tyree. But there is still not a lot of agreement as to what constitutes an A school, he noted.
"We must have some accepted standard. A school can be considered performing on one criteria and underperforming on another set of criteria. Whether it's 'excelling' or 'A' we have to have a consensus on what establishes that level of achievement."
The problem was further complicated with the passage of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act that introduced the federal standard Adequate Yearly Progress, Tyree said.
AYP measures 253 different categories and if a school falls short on one of those categories, the school fails AYP. Not all of the AYP assessments actually measure student performance. For example, the system assesses whether a school met the minimum number of students tested on AYP, Tyree said.
"I very strongly believe in holding schools accountable but the measuring standards need to be fair and consistent."
Under the current labeling system it is impossible for parents to understand how well their children's school is doing, according to Huppenthal.
He added, changing labels to the more readily familiar letter grades is important to improving the state's kindergarten through 12th grade performance. When letter grades for schools were introduced in Florida, those scoring Ds and Fs made significant improvement, he said.
"It's as simple as A-B-C-D and F — students know what those grades mean and parents do, as well," Huppenthal said.
SB 1286 was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday and has several parts to it, added Huppenthal. It not only changes how AZ Learns is labeled but also uses the letter grades to evaluate school districts. A final part of he bill gives credit for schools whose students move from a low percentile, from 35th to 55th and not be penalized just for having populations with great challenges, he said.
"I think it's a ground breaking policy change. We set up an accountability system that gives credit for excellence and I think it'll have a very positive effect on students and teachers."
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William Roller can be reached at wroller@yumasun.com or 539-6858.
