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Opening Arguments

Making the grade

Before the state went to its A-F grading system for schools, there were a lot of complaints from teachers and school administrators that the system would set schools up for failure and hand out a lot of D's and F's. Turns out that isn't the case. "New A-F grades aren't as scary as feared" is the way the Indy Star's headline put it:

Indiana's much anticipated new A to F rules for grading schools, which looked to make getting an A considerably tougher when they were approved in February, turned out not to be quite so painful.

Top grades were tougher to come by — A's were down this year to 41 percent from 47.5 percent of schools statewide while F's jumped to 7 percent from 5 percent.

But revisions to the new rules spared more schools from lower grades. Projections in February predicted A's would drop to 24 percent and F's would rise to 10 percent statewide.

If anything, the results might indicate our standards are too lax. We don't have to demand a perfect bell curve, but if 60 percent of those being graded get an A or a B, it's certainly apporpriate to check your metrics. In one troubling development, Fort Wayne Community Schools went from an A in the first-ever use of the system last year to a C this year. We can argue that the standards aren't right so schools aren't fairly graded, but, again, since they're all judged by the same standards, the grades are a good indicator of how school systems stack up against each other. Right?

Comments

littlejohn
Wed, 10/31/2012 - 1:36pm

The grades, ultimately, are a measure of the students' home lives. Schools in better neighborhoods will get better grades. Teachers at schools in better neighborhoods will get raises and job security. Teachers with tougher jobs in tougher neighborhoods will simply get screwed.

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