School letter grades expected in late November

Schools in Northwest Arkansas will receive A to F grades in about a month to tell parents and patrons about a school's performance last year.

The detailed report about the grades will be sent to school districts and posted online through the Arkansas Department of Education Data Center in late November or early December, said Kimberly Friedman, spokesman for the Education Department. The grade will be placed on each school's report card next spring, Friedman said.

The grading system is intended to help parents better understand how their child's school is performing. Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, introduced the bill, which became Act 696, to establish the system in the 2013 legislative session

The law is intended to help parents and patrons better understand the quality of the school system, said Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville. "Parents and the public don't understand terms like proficient or needs improvement. Everyone understands the A to F system," said Lindsey, who is a member of the Senate Education Committee.

The challenge will be communicating what the system is and what the different grades mean, said Denise Airola, director of the University of Arkansas Office of Innovation in Education.

Airola's office developed the formula for calculating the grades in partnership with superintendents and administrator, teacher and business groups and the Education Department.

"This is not a measure of an individual student or teacher," Airola said.

About 75 school officials, mostly principals and curriculum specialists, recently heard a presentation about how the grades will be calculated during a meeting at the Northwest Arkansas Education Services Cooperative in Farmington.

Much like a student's grade is calculated based on accumulated points, individual schools will be awarded points based on test scores; the school's progress meeting annual performance and growth targets; graduation rates; and the school's size of achievement gaps, Airola said. A maximum of 300 points is possible.

School size and poverty rates as measured by the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals are not included in the calculation, Airola said.

Lester Long, curriculum director at the West Fork School District, said the timing of the release of the grades may confuse patrons.

Testing changes next year, and for the next two years schools will be gathering growth data on student performance, Long said. Growth indicates how a student progresses in a year's time in math, literacy or science.

Long said teachers for the past two years have focused on Common Core State Standards that replace Arkansas frameworks. Students were tested on the previous standards last year. Those scores determine a school's letter grade this year.

"It's like we're being penalized," Long said. His preliminary calculation has West Fork schools in the C range, he said.

Chad Scott, principal at Bentonville High School, thinks the methodology is "pretty solid," noting the strong performance Bentonville students demonstrate on standardized tests.

"It bodes well for my school and district," Scott said, although he hasn't computed his school's score.

Virginia Abernathy, assistant superintendent for elementary education in Rogers, said she did some preliminary calculations.

"For the most part we are OK," she said. She predicted a new school, such as Janie Darr Elementary School that opened last year, may receive a lower grade because of less data available to make the calculation.

Sarah McKenzie, director of assessment, research and accountability in the Fayetteville School District, said the calculation uses 2014 Benchmark and end-of-course test scores and 2013 graduation rates.

"It's a good model because it represents the different strengths of the different schools," McKenzie said. "I like how the schools receives points for students who score in the basic range and receive a higher number of points for scoring in the proficient or advanced levels."

McKenzie said her own calculations show Fayetteville schools could receive five As; six Bs; three Cs and no Ds or Fs.

Megan Witonski, an assistant superintendent in the Springdale School District, said, "We see it as a accountability system on top of a federal accountability system. We're trying to determine how to message this. The biggest hurdle is using a prior year's assessment."

The letter grades for this school year will catch up next spring because the assessment in 2015 will be the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career that is aligned with Common Core standards.

Arkansas is joining some 14 other states in using letter grades to measure school performance, according to a report by the Education Commission of the States in Denver. States include Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma.