In a recent column, published in this newspaper and in other news outlets around the state, Wil Ervin raised a legitimate question about the rigor Mississippi uses in grading its school districts and schools every year.
Ervin, senior vice president at Empower Mississippi, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, pointed out the incongruity that exists between the relatively high accountability grades the state Department of Education awards and the low rates of academic proficiency in many of these same districts and schools.
The Mississippi Department of Education most recently gave nearly 94% of the state’s districts and 86% of the schools a grade of “C” or better on the A-to-F grading school. That’s the best results the state’s public education system has received since the current accountability model was adopted a dozen years ago.
Yet, as Ervin discovered, a high grade does not necessarily indicate an objectively measured high performance. For example, according to the state’s standardized tests, less than half the students were reading at a proficient level in 16% of the A-rated districts and 13% of the A-rated schools. In only one out of the 50 B-rated districts were more than half of the students reading at a proficient level.
These and other similar disparities led Ervin to conclude that Mississippi’s accountability model “appears to be more focused on positive publicity than student learning.”
Yes and no.
It’s certainly the case that the Mississippi Department of Education, in collaboration with the state’s political leadership, has at times attempted to make the state’s academic performance appear better than it is. The most grievous example has been the steady boasting — by state education officials and Gov. Tate Reeves — about the state’s high graduation rate, while failing to note that the rate got its largest and main boost after the state watered down its graduation requirements.
Nevertheless, from the beginning when Mississippi implemented an accountability system, it intentionally and transparently graded on a curve by giving extra credit for improvement. A school district and later individual schools could raise their grade if they could show improvement on state tests by their students, even if those students were still performing below grade level.
The reason for giving credit for “growth” was not devious. It simply took into account that there is a big difference in teaching students who come from impoverished family backgrounds and those who come from affluent ones. So as to not hopelessly discourage teachers, principals and the students themselves in these most-challenging school environments, the accountability model measures not just students’ raw test scores but also how those scores compare to the previous year. As a result, a school or district that shows good growth could potentially get a higher grade than one with a better raw score but little improvement from the previous year.
Although this growth component should not be totally abandoned, it’s probably time to start giving it less weight so as to not fall prey to the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” a term first coined at the turn of the century by a speechwriter for George W. Bush during the former president’s push for nationwide education reform.
There’s no denying that poor kids — and those who teach them — have disadvantages, but they are going to live in a world that doesn’t care about that when they compete in college or in the workplace. It’s not doing these students any favors to make them and their parents think they have learned more than they have. Better to aim to get all students to where they don’t need to be graded on a curve.
