State Legislature 2013 session

[eridani]

25. Senate Republicans want to assign letter grades to Washington’s public schools

http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2013/01/senate-republicans-want-to-assign-letter-grades-to-washingtons-public-schools.html

Washington State Senator Steve Litzow (R-41st District; Mercer Island) has introduced a bill that would assign a letter grade to public schools and school districts in the name of “accountability.” High-performing middle, junior high, and high schools would receive financial rewards from the state.

Litzow’s proposal turns on its head the policy of providing additional funding to low-performing schools with high-needs students. Schools failing to make adequate progress would be assigned an “F,” reminiscent of the much-reviled “No Child Left Behind Act” from the early years of the Bush error.

The stated goal is to infuse performance-based private-sector methods into the public sector as a reward for productivity. The result would be to increase the funding gap between the have and the have-not schools.

K-3 schools would be graded as feeder schools, based on the grades of their middle schools. Charter schools, very small schools, and alternative schools would be exempt from the proposed grading structure.

Letter grades would be based on their “accountability index” — a measure of the increase in student achievement on statewide standardized tests — as well as the school’s reduction in student achievement gaps and, possibly, other outcome measurements. For high schools, at least 50% of the school’s grade would be based on the “accountability index” and the remainder on graduation rates, advanced coursework such as AP and baccalaureate courses, post-secondary readiness such as ACT or SAT scores and the high-school graduation rates of at-risk students