The Republican controlled Senate Education Committee voted unanimously to abandon Tony Bennett’s prized A-F grading system for schools.
Researchers have found that such grading systems are unreliable and unfair.
Undoubtedly Republican legislators heard from principals and teachers in their own districts.
Superintendent Glenda Ritz will get a chance to remake the state’s way of evaluating school performance, hopefully with more intelligence and judgment than the Bush-Bennett system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Any win is a good win. More to go. Onward to eventual victory for real public education.
I hope people keep contacting their legislators in support of public education. Keep fighting the good fight.
If anyone is interested, WI Gov. Scott Walker is delivering his Budget address tonight….filled with more funding for testing, expanding vouchers and charters, and of course his plan to tie funding to your brand new report card scores. I couldn’t stomach to listen to or look at him….I will read the transcript tomorrow instead.
oops…i mean “our” brand new report cards…not “your”
All the grading shows is that schools in wealthy areas get good grades, what a revelation. And for their good grades, more state money, to widen the achievement gap, in the bizarro world of bad laws. Their scoring rubric is intellectually dishonest. It is a rigged game weighted towards wealthy schools.
If they really wanted to grade schools, they would have to divide the state up into five leagues of schools as measured by wealth. Let the rich schools compete against the rich, the middle against the middle, and the poor against the poor. But for all that beauracracy, would it achieve anything?
Right on!
Just to dispel this myth, we are in what is considered a so called “wealthy area” and our town receives close to the least amount of state funding in the state. Charter schools and non-brick and mortar schools receive more state funding than we do. So the money doesn’t go to “the wealthy.”
I was assuming that the state distributed the money equally to all students as they should. Then the grading kicks in, and the schools with high scores get bonus money. I consider that a flawed system.
I would imagine the state gives extra money for non English speakers or closing the achievement gap, so yes, that money does not go to the wealthy. Is that inequitable? Yes. Personally I’m in favor of an extra 10% to level the playing field, but if some illegal immigrant’s kid is getting twice what my kid gets, I’ll start voting Republican.
A symbol by any other name . . . Do you KNOW of a good “school rating” system?
How are professors at your university rated?
How is your university rated?
US News & World Report?
How shall we rate you?
Those of us in Florida are just THRILLED to hear this.
From Indiana to (hopefully) Missouri…..we’re begging the legislators to scrap the StudentsFirst(?) approved grading system currently being proposed.
Perhaps I should leave Florida and move to Indiana. It seems that at least your GOP-run legislature has a bit more common sense than ours.
My state of New Mexico uses this system too. Of course, we were told that the grades wouldnt be final until the data had been “smoothed” (literally the word they used ) because the numbers werent what they hoped for. So, whats the “scientific, research-based” way to handle uncomfortable numbers? Just “smooth” them…lol
I had the opportunity to speak at the hearings against the A-F school grading system and share the story of my school. Glad the Senate Education Committee voted unanimously. Keen to see how this moves forward. My blog post on the experience is at http://fromtheprincipalspen.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/on-letter-grades-for-schools/
New Mexico is also very fond of the school rating system. Namely it is because our secretary of education, Hannah Skandera, came to us courtesy of Jeb Bush and Florida! (thanks Jeb!)
http://newmexico.watchdog.org/5170/new-ed-secretary-the-florida-model-comes-to-new-mexico/
Now it seems that New Mexico is going to follow the merit-pay-for-teachers
http://newmexico.watchdog.org/5170/new-ed-secretary-the-florida-model-comes-to-new-mexico/
Here’s my take in a recent blog post:
http://education-alt.blogspot.com/2013/02/finally-merit-pay-for-teachers-in-new.html
Whoops! Sorry…HERE is the link for New Mexico merit pay:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/022213xgrStateBudget3rdLd-Writethru#.USg5OWQ-u0w