Florida School Grades - Is the News Good or Bad?

Tampa Bay Schools

Each year about this time, the Florida Department of Education releases school report cards for the year that has just ended. Mind you, we’re not talking about student report cards here, but on school grades – a single letter grade for each school in the state. The grades are based partly on student scores in the FCAT, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, and partly on a complex series of comparisons between last year’s scores and this year’s scores, except in cases where someone fouled up the tests, in which case they’ll compare this year’s tests with tests from two years ago or they might use next year’s tests if they can’t figure out any other way to figure it all out.

Does that all sound confusing? It’s not surprising. Even the reporters covering the news about the latest school grades released a couple of weeks ago seem confused by exactly what it is that they heard and whether the news is good or bad.

The Orlando Sentinel headline read “Grades Take a Nose Dive”. The story focused on the fact that the number of schools that received D and F grades nearly doubled from last year, and that none of Orange County’s traditional high schools received A grades.

The Tampa Tribune admitted that the school grades for this year “show some perplexing twists and turns”, report that the state and local officials are accentuating the positives, yet goes on to point out that “four times as many schools were rated F than last year, and only five more schools were given A’s”. The story barely touches on the fact that this year’s changes to the rating scale raised the standards that schools must meet so that comparisons between last year and this year are essentially skewed, if not completely meaningless.

The Palm Beach Post trumpets “School Grades show dramatic improvement, crushing drops in PBC”. The story points out that Palm Beach County has three schools with an F rating this year – an increase of three schools from last year. At the same time, three schools that have chronically struggled have improved beyond their habitual D rating, and one of them jumped from a D to an A.

It’s like the six blind men describing an elephant – everyone you talk to about the school grades only reports the part that they see. Without seeing the whole picture, it’s difficult to say exactly what any of them are looking at. Here are the facts without the editorial commentary that confuses the issue.

School grades in Florida are based on three main criteria:

Overall student scores on the FCAT in reading and math in grades 3 through 10, in science in grades 5, 8 and 11 and in writing in grades 4, 8 and 10.
Improvement in students' reading and math scores during the past year.
Improvement in reading and math among the bottom 25 percent of students in the school.

Because the school grade is linked to how many students improved their score over the previous year, a school whose students score well may still receive a lower grade than a school whose overall scores were not as good, but whose students showed significant improvement over last year. In order to qualify for an A grade, a school must test 95% of its students. Schools must test at least 90% of their students to qualify for a B, C or D grade.

In addition, the science component of the school grade was only added this year. It’s the third time since 1999 that requirements for school grading have been tightened. Each of the last two times, there were significantly more schools that dropped in grade points and corrected themselves in the following year.

This year, 52% of Florida’s schools received an A grade. Another 17% received a B grade. C grades were given to 21% of the schools and there were 8% and 3% in the D and F categories, respectively. Here in New Tampa, all of the elementary and middle schools received an A rating. Freedom High School maintained its B despite the tougher standards, and Wharton slipped from a B to a C.

The question is – do the school grades really tell the story? Most teachers and many parents will tell you that they don’t. Interestingly, many parents of children in the lower graded schools are confused. In comments left on the news stories announcing the school grades, some parents questioned the rating system that marked their children’s schools with an F when they see their children receiving a good education from teachers and administrators who care.

Others, including many teachers, question the validity of a system that changes its benchmarks and goals from year to year so that teachers never know what it is that they’re being graded on. They point out that the importance of the FCAT scores in determining the school grades places them in the position of having to “teach the test instead of the children”. In some smaller schools, the system which relies on the percentage of students achieving certain grades on the FCAT means that the score of one student can knock a school back a letter grade.

The system is admittedly imperfect. It does, however, offer a comprehensive overview of each school in the system and gives parents a benchmark by which to decide how well their child’s school measures up against other schools in the state. To get a more detailed view of each school’s achievements, parents can access a full school report card at the DOE web site.

The school’s grade and report card is just a starting point, though. The best way to choose the right school for your child is to research it thoroughly. Visit the school web site, talk to the principal and, if possible, interview the teachers and guidance counselors who will be working with your child. Being personally involved in your child’s education is the best way to be sure that he or she is getting the best education possible.

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