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A Decade Of School Grades Show Accountability Movement Delivers

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

It has been a decade since Florida started the controversial practice of grading schools and Tuesday's release of school grades from the Florida Department of Education added a celebratory note to the milestone. The results indicate that school accountability is doing just what it was intended to do: revealing what progress is - and is not occurring - in our schools.

For the last school year, 1,583 Florida schools earned an A from the state - that's 55 percent of the schools and an increase of 100 schools since last year. The number of failing schools was down, with just 45 statewide getting that dreaded mark; 38 fewer schools flunked this year than last. The grades are based on the number of students who score well or show improvement on the FCAT test.

This is all encouraging news and even those who rightly stress FCAT is not the perfect instrument to grade schools should acknowledge Florida's school system is improving on these measures.

But the past 10 years have shown us school grades are as much a reflection of the communities as they are of the school themselves.

All schools are not created equal - particularly when it comes to elementary schools. Hillsborough's consistently A-rated schools tend to be concentrated in upper-income communities where children have access to high-quality preschools, where parents encourage learning and where teachers and administrators have the resources to work one-on-one with those students who need extra attention.

The motivation is there to meet the community's high expectations.

That's why it's even more important to celebrate the A schools that are not cut from that mold - schools like Wimauma Elementary. Wimauma has earned straight A's for the last three years, though 95 percent of its students live at or near the poverty line and two-thirds of its students have limited English proficiency.

Clearly, that school's success is the result of a community pulling together for the benefit of its children.

Florida's grading system is an easy reference point for the public, but it's also important that parents and communities look behind the letters.

While Education Commissioner Eric Smith and other top officials were pleased Tuesday that Florida's middle and high schools seem to be garnering higher grades, achievement levels in some subjects remain distressing.

Even at A-rated high schools, it is common for fewer than half of the students to be reading proficiently, and the numbers are even more disappointing on the science FCAT. These skills are essential in a global, high-tech economy. Florida must demand more of its high schools.

More than a decade ago, parents and the public had no way of comparing their children's school to one across town or across the state. It was a dynamic that protected an education system that consumed billions of dollars a year and found every excuse in the book for why many children - particularly the poor and minorities - weren't learning.

FCAT and Florida's grading system are imperfect, but they do offer the public a useful window into what is going on behind school walls. Successes of schools like Wimauma and the measurable deficiencies of others fly in the face of those who scoff at the accountability movement as meaningless.

If it takes a grade to get communities to demand better of their public schools, then these grades and the accountability movement are serving their purpose.

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