Our School Ranked with F Grade by State

 Did the title of the blog catch your attention?  How about this?

1. Our School Ranked with F Grade by State
2. Our School Ranked with D Grade by State
3. Our School Ranked with C Grade by State
4. Our School Ranked with B Grade by State
5. Our School Ranked with A Grade by State
6. All of the above
7. None of the above
8. Does it really matter?

Pick one from the list above.  Soon, the Indiana Department of Education will rank all schools with a letter grade.  I do not know what letter our school will receive.  I do know that many politicians believe the purpose of schools is to rank and sort students, to identify the winners and the losers.  In this case, the politicians will rank and sort schools, they will make the list of school winners and school losers.

I do know the information the state will use to label our school with a letter grade.  Our label will come from the ISTEP+ scores of our students.  Even though the school was in session for 180 days and we taught and students learned a multitude of lessons, our letter grade will be based on only three to five hours of testing for each student.  Again, a school's letter grade is based entirely and completely on three to five hours of testing by students in grade 3-8.

Most politicians want the public to believe that testing, especially state testing is the truth.  State test scores are almost portrayed as the word of God.  Testing is not the truth because there is always error in testing.  Every scientist and educator knows some error always occurs in testing.  So, due to error within the student, the test, the scoring, and the test administration, tests are an imperfect measure of performance, not the truth.  I searched and the last report that I could find by the Department of Education on expected error in a student's ISTEP testing was +/- 13 points.

Are test results helpful in evaluating the growth of students and of schools?  Absolutely yes, if the test results are one part of a comprehensive and in depth assessment program.  The complete assessment program would involve teachers, parents, principals, student work, student classroom tests, student rubrics.  Unfortunately, our letter grade will not come from a complete program.

I do not know what our letter grade will be. Would I like our school to have a rank of A, of course I would.   I do know regardless of our letter rank, our school is an excellent school.  In tomorrow's blog, I will explain why I know our school is excellent - no matter what state letter grade becomes our rank.  Stay tuned.