The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday approved an A-F letter rating system to be applied to most of the state's public schools in much the same way students are graded.
The letter grades are required by Act 696 of 2013 and are meant to be easier for parents and other community members to understand. The letter grades will replace the older, little-noticed state practice of rating schools on a scale of 1-5. The grades do not carry any penalties or rewards for the schools.
The school grades, which will be based in part on last spring's Benchmark and End-of-Course state test results, will be announced in late November or early December, Education Commissioner Tony Wood said after the board decision.
The timing for the release of the school grades is tied to the state Department of Education completing its annual school achievement report that lists which schools met or failed to meet their annual achievement goals on the state tests.
The Education Board voted 7-1 for an emergency set of letter-grade rules that will go into effect once they are sent to the Arkansas secretary of state's office and an identical set of what are considered to be more permanent rules that will go to the Legislative Council's Administrative Rules and Regulations Subcommittee for a final review.
Arkansas is joining at least 14 other states in using A-F letter grades, according to a December report by the Denver-based Education Commission of the States. Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina are some of the other states that apply letter grades to schools.
The Arkansas system can be used only once before it will have to be significantly revamped. That's because the Benchmark and End-of-Course exams are being replaced this school year with an all new testing system, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exams.
The Arkansas letter-grading system will take into account school results on state-required student tests, any year-to-year gains that are made by the school on the state tests, the size of achievement gaps among student groups at a school and, if applicable, a school's graduation rate. The formula also takes into account any differences in graduation rates among student subgroups at a school.
Each school can earn up to 300 points. A school earning 270 or more points would be assigned an A. One with 240-269 points would be given a B. A school with 201-239 points would qualify for a C, and one with 180-209 points would receive a D.
The formula for calculating the letter grades was developed by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville's Office of Innovation for Education in consultation with the Education Department staff, leaders of administrator and teacher organizations, and representatives of philanthropic groups.
Denise Airola, director of UA's Office of Innovation for Education, said the formula for the letter grades attempts to mitigate the impact of school characteristics such as the percentage of students from impoverished families or the size of the schools.
Airola estimated that 14 percent to 16 percent of the state's schools -- which would be 148 to 170 schools out of the state's 1,058 schools -- will make A's and another approximately 30 percent will make B's.
The Education Board approved the letter grade rules Thursday with the caveat that the letter grades will not be applied to alternative learning education centers, which serve students who are not successful in traditional schools. The exception for alternative learning centers was not included in the state law requiring the school letter grades.
Education Board Chairman Sam Ledbetter of Little Rock said going outside the scope of the law with the new rules is not intended to be disrespectful to lawmakers but to keep from further stigmatizing those alternative learning schools and their students.
"We would ask that it be transparent what we did," Ledbetter said about any presentation made to the legislative rules subcommittee. "We did it because we felt like it was something that didn't get full consideration when this statute was adopted. But we are not doing it in any way to disrespect the legislative ... authority."
The state law authorized the Education Department to establish a letter grading formula or, in the alternative, apply letter grades to the already existing state labels for school achievement. The already existing labels are those included in the U.S. Department of Education-approved school accountability plan that excuses Arkansas schools and districts from complying with key provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Under that Arkansas waiver plan, schools are labeled as exemplary, achieving, needs improvement, needs improvement-focus, or needs improvement-priority.
Airola told the Education Board that the application of letter grades to the waiver-plan labels would not always convey an accurate meaning to the public. As an example, she said that state-labeled focus schools are those with the largest achievement gaps between groups of students who are at greatest risk and those who are not at risk. Those focus schools would be given D's if letter grades were applied, even though the focus schools run the gamut of having very high-performing students and low-performing students.
If letter grades were applied to the waiver-plan labels alone, fewer than 1 percent of schools would make A's and 12 percent would make B's.
Board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock said the Office of Innovation for Education plan is preferable but is a work in progress.
"What we are trying to do is what is best for our students and our families," Saviers said. "This seems to be the most fair option. I hope we continue to address this and get it to the point ... that when parents make decisions about schools and see that letter grade, they can feel comfortable that it is fair and transparent. We have some work to do."
Board member Alice Mahony of El Dorado voted against approval of the rules. She noted that state test scores have dipped in each of 2013 and 2014 at least in part because the state had moved to new education standards while still requiring the use of state tests based on the old standards.
Mahony also pointed out that the New York education chancellor recently spoke in opposition to using letter grades for schools because the grades fail to give a complete picture of individual schools' operations.
Wood, the education commissioner, said there was no question that a letter-grading system had to be developed to comply with the state law.
"We have absolutely no gray area in regard to the legislative guidance that this was a process that was going to be enacted," he said. "What we did have was an opportunity to make it better from our perspective for schools."
Wood said the state board made the right decision in approving the letter-grade system but that he anticipates the grades will generate some opposition and that there will be further discussion about the topic in the 2015 legislative session.
Each component of the newly adopted grading formula requires its own set of calculations.
For example, to determine the number of points earned by a school for student performance, the number of students who earned a "basic" score on state-required Benchmark and End-of-Course math and literacy tests would be multiplied by 0.25. The number of students who earned proficient scores would be remain unchanged. And the number of students scoring at advanced levels would be multiplied by 1.25.
The results of those weighted calculations would be added, and the sum divided by the total number of test scores at a school, including the number of below-basic scores, for which 0 points are awarded. The result would be multiplied by 100 to determine a school's points for student performance.
There is a different multistep calculation to give a school points for improvement or meeting some or all of its annual achievement goals.
Each school has a number of previously set "annual measurable objectives," or goals, for the percentages of students scoring at proficient or better on each of the state tests. There are goals for each grade level at a school on each math and literacy test.
The proposed grading formula would give a school 55 points if that school meets none of its achievement targets in a school year and 95 points if it meets them all. The school would get some points between 55 and 95 if it meets some but not all of its achievement targets.
Schools have varying numbers of targets based on the different tests that are given. A high school may have only two achievement targets. An elementary school may have literacy and math test targets for each of grades three through five.
Points also are given for a school's graduation rate, if applicable, and for the achievement gap or graduation gap between all students and at-risk students at a school. At-risk students are those who are from low-income families, do not speak English as a first language and/or are special education students.
A school earns 3 to 6 points if the achievement gap and/or graduation gap between students is relatively small and no points if the gap is average. The school loses 3 to 6 points if the gap is large.
For example, a school can receive 3 points if the achievement gap between at-risk students and students not at-risk is between 12 percentage points and 15 percentage points. The school gains 6 points if the gap is less than 12 points.
The proposed formula for calculating points for a high school is: (Weighted performance + Gap adjustment) + (Improvement) + (Graduation rate + Gap adjustment.)
For schools without graduation rates, the formula is: (1.5) x (Weighted performance + Gap adjustment) + (1.5) x (Improvement). The 1.5 multiplier is used to put the scores on a scale of 300 possible points.
Metro on 10/10/2014