HOLDING SCHOOLS ACCOUNTABLE
Scorecard system to measure progress
New method features 5 colors to track goals met
By Lori Higgins Detroit Free Press Education Writer
Parents, get ready for a brand new look at how well your child’s school is doing.
The Michigan Department of Education on Tuesday is to debut a new system for holding schools accountable under the federal No Child Left Behind law, issuing scorecards for every school and district. State officials hope this will provide parents and the community a more clear picture of school progress.
“It’s more fine-grained and more detailed information,” said Venessa Keesler, deputy superintendent for education services at the MDE.
State officials hope the new Michigan School Accountability Scorecards is a more intuitive, color-coded system that will assign one of five colors — green, lime green, yellow, orange or red — to each school or district. The color green is best, and it means most of the goals were met. Red, meaning a school met few of the goals and needs intervention, is worst.
A school earns a color based on the number of points it amasses — two points for each goal met, , one point for each goal met by demonstrating improvement, and zero points if the goal isn’t met at all. Schools that earn 85% or more of the points possible are assigned a green color. To get lime green, they have to earn 70% to 84% of their points; yellow, 60% to 69%; orange, 50% to 59%; and red, below 50%.
One of the biggest changes in the accountability system is the way the goals are set. Instead of the old No Child Left Behind (NCLB) practice of expecting all schools to meet the gan has set individual goals for each school and district — with the expectation that they’ll show incremental growth over the next 10 school years. The eventual goal is that 85% of students be proficient by the 2021-22 school year.
The individual goals provide “tailored, customized targets that relate to where students are starting and where they need to get,” Keesler said.
But parents used to one system for the last decade may have a difficult time this first year understanding the new scorecards, said Judy Pritchett, chief academic officer for the Macomb Intermediate School District.
“I’m concerned that parents won’t get it,” Pritchett said.
Keesler acknowledged the potential confusion, saying the MDE is committed to spending time in the next year working with parents, teachers and school administrators “so they know what’s in there and they know how to use it.”
The system replaces a key provision of the NCLB law that required states to identify whether a school met adequate yearly progress — based on test scores, test score improvement, graduation rates and attendance rates.
But that system had flaws. Among them: It was similar to a pass/fail system that provided parents little context to understand why their school did or didn’t meet the standards. It had what many consider to be an unrealistic goal that by the2013-14 school year, all students be proficient in reading and math. And it could take years for tough sanctions to kick in for schools that truly need intervention.
Under the new system, schools that earn a red will be designated a “priority” school — a label that actually kicked in last year. Those schools immediately come under the supervision of the state’s reform officer and must produce a detailed improvement plan. If they don’t show improvement in turning things around, they potentially could be placed in the Education Achievement Authority, the statewide reform system for the lowest-performing schools in the state.
Michigan is one of dozens of states that were granted waivers from some of the NCLB rules from the U.S. Department of Education, in exchange for taking steps — such as adopting college and career-ready standards — to demonstrate the state is serious about increasing academic achievement. Among the waivers Michigan asked for was the ability to veer away from the 100% proficiency goal and to count as proficient students who failed state exams but showed significant improvement.
Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651or lhiggins@freepress.com
NEW SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM
The Michigan School Accountability Scorecards system includes a host of changes in how schools are being held accountable. Among them:
› New subgroup. It requires that schools now be accountable for the performance of their lowest 30% academically. The bottom 30% becomes a subgroup along with existing subgroups of students — based on racial, economic, English speaking ability, special-education status — that schools must show academic gains for in addition to all students in a school. The bottom 30% were added to force schools to address achievement gaps between their highest-performing students and lowest-performing students.
› Proficiency. Schools can now count students as proficient even if they’ve failed the Michigan Educational Assessment Program exam or the Michigan Merit Exam. But in order to count them, the student would have to show significant improvement on the exams.
› Individualized goals. Schools now have individual academic goals.The previous system required every school to meet the same goal at the same time. The state uses a formula, taking the eventual goal that 85% of students be proficient by the 2021-22 school year, to determine how much improvement a school would have to show in each of the next 10 years to get to that goal. Here’s what the formula would look like for a school that had 65% proficiency during the 2011-12 school year: (85-65)/10=2. That school would need to improve by 2percentage points in each of the next 10 years, starting with a goal of 67% proficiency for the 2012-13 school year.
› Educator evaluations now count. Schools and districts now can earn points for complying with state requirements that student growth on exams be used in educator evaluations.
Under the new system, the state has set individual goals for each school and district. KATHLEEN GALLIGAN/DETROIT FREE PRESS
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