If Schools Were Graded Like Students, What Would the School’s Grade Be?
You Might Be Surprised To Learn Who Is Held To A Higher Standard
Clay News & Views proudly presents the first article from our new contributor, Tanya Kacsan. Tanya is a former History and Civics teacher with a Master’s Degree in Education. Tanya is currently the Chairwoman of the Clay County Chapter of Moms For Liberty.
When parents drop their children off and see a board outside the school displaying "Proud to be an 'A' school," they naturally assume that most students in that school excel academically.
However, the reality behind school and district grades can often be misleading, leaving parents unaware of what it truly means for a school to earn an "A" rating. If schools in Clay County were graded like students, no schools would earn an ‘A’ and only two schools would achieve a ‘B’.
In the context of school and district grades, the criteria for achieving an "A" rating differs significantly from the traditional 10-point grading scale familiar to parents and students. While students may typically need to score 90 percent or above to achieve an "A" grade individually, the threshold for schools and districts is often set lower. This distinction is crucial to understand, as it can alter perceptions about the level of academic excellence within a school or district.
Therefore, parents and community members must delve deeper into the criteria used to evaluate schools and districts rather than relying solely on surface-level indicators like letter grades. By gaining a more nuanced understanding of how school ratings are determined, stakeholders can make more informed decisions regarding education and advocate for policies that promote genuine academic achievement.
Traditionally, schools use a 10-point scale to assign grades to students. The scale is usually as follows:
But the state of Florida uses a different scale when grading schools:
And the state uses yet another scale when grading the school districts:
It is not uncommon for parents to assume that schools awarded an “A” rating by the Florida Department of Education are performing exceptionally well, given the association of excellence associated with the letter grade. However, the disparity between the grading scales for students and schools can lead to misconceptions.
With a significant point difference required for students to earn an “A” compared to what schools need to achieve an “A” rating, it's understandable for misinterpretations of school grades to arise. The differences may create a perception that schools attaining an “A” rating are operating at a higher level than they actually are, especially if the criteria for school ratings are not clearly communicated to parents and the community.
The grading of school districts follows a similar assessment scale as individual schools but with a crucial exception. While schools can potentially be assigned grades A-F based on their performance, districts are safeguarded from receiving anything lower than a C, regardless of how low their overall scores may be. Unfortunately, the practice of shielding districts’ grades from clearly communicating student performance creates a false sense of academic achievement when there may be little to celebrate.
This rating is misleading to many parents and students. Clay County earned 68 percent of possible points in the 2022-2023 school year. While many would consider 68 percent to equate to a grade of D, the Florida Department of Education awards district grades according to the above scores. Parents and community members need to understand how grades are assigned to fully understand how our students are actually performing on state assessments.
The school grades across the schools in Clay County follow the assessment scores above. Below is a list of all Clay County Schools, the percentage of points earned and the school grade assigned. An eye-opening experience is to find your school and ask- “If Schools Were Graded Like Students, What Would the School’s Grade Be?” The chart below compares the grades given to each school by the state to what they would have earned if held to the same standard as their students.
School and District Grade Data can be found at: FLORIDA SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY REPORTS
I'm disappointed that you would post such a misleading article. Any statistician would know that it makes no difference and it's not unusual that two totally different scales are used when assessing humans on the one hand, and institutions on the other. I agree that calling the assessment of the schools "grades" is misleading to parents, implying that they are similar, when, in fact, they are not. On the students' grading scale, unfortunately, all the grades from A to D are valued in a range of ten percentage points. The grade of F covers 60 percentage points. Thus when a student misses an assignment and receives a 0 this disproportionally impacts the student's grade. This is how schools have chosen to evaluate students' mastery of skills and to decide whether a student needs to repeat a class or grade level. However, the "grading" of the schools is an assessment of success in a variety of areas, so that the staff can craft a plan as to how to do things differently to improve in those areas where their scores are low. There is no mastery level, and the school isn't held back to repeat the year on the assumption that doing the same thing all over again will succeed the second time around. It would make no sense to "grade" schools on the same scale as students. Perhaps we should consider evaluating students differently instead.
Why are there no grades for the charter schools? I would be very interested in how they compare.