Two recent analyses show how convoluted and confusing Indiana’s school report cards are.
Matthew DiCarlo has been reviewing state grading systems and concludes that the one concocted in Indiana is the “probably the most rudimentary scoring system” he has seen. Like other school report cards, the Indiana marking system gives low grades to high-poverty schools and high-grades to low-poverty schools.
DiCarlo doesn’t say this but I will. Report cards weighted heavily by test scores, like this one, set up schools to fail if they enroll poor kids and make them prime candidates for closure and privatization.
If you want to see the full measure State Superintendent Tony Bennett’s wacky and punitive scheme, read this letter by Chris Himsel, superintendent of the Northwest Allen County Schools in Indiana. Himsel tries his best to explain why the A-F grades are confusing and incoherent. He ends up admitting that no one can really understand them. They make no sense.
The A-F report cards only make sense if you recognize that they are intended to demoralize educators and set the table for the privatizers that Tony Bennett represents.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m just hoping that my taxes (Federal) didn’t pay for this horse mess. If so, I want my share rebated.
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I wouldn’t call it “horse mess” just excrement of an equine origin.
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Every teacher, whether she or he is at an “A” rated school or an “F” rated school, knows these letter grades are a sham. Superintendents, principals and teachers need to say it out loud. When “A” rated schools begin to stand up for “F” rated schools maybe things will change.
Here’s a song about education in Indiana and why the grades for schools exist in the first place…
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In modern America it’s not uncommon to hear people sound the alarm of injustice – when it happens to them. What amazes me about Himsel’s letter is his district actually fared relatively well. He’s not crying foul because his schools were punished. He’s a true advocate for public education; pointing out injustice that *ANY* child, school, or community should face.
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“the universe, he (Emerson) tells us, is a system of justice; for every action there is a corresponding reaction; for every crime there is a punishment. At first glance it seems like a position that affirms that the universe is a harmonious and coherent unity. However, if for every action there is a corresponding reaction, then everything cancels out everything else. His point can be seen if we realize that when we talk abou the importance of justice, we mean the importance of justice for other people, not for ourselves. For ourselves we do not want justice, but favors, special consideration. We want the judges of our actions to render their judgments on our sins and errors with a full knowledge of the extenuating circumstances. But no–Emerson tells us–there are no extenuating circumstances; there are only our acts.” Morse Peckham, “An Introduction to Emerson’s Essays”
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as for my comments, HM, both upon your comment and below–apply to the offering by Betty below. Justice for our school…
If grades can be eliminated then we will eliminate an injustice as all criteria (all grading data) serves an existing “metaphysic” or explanation and so all of it will be “unjust.” Part of the real issue here is that “justice” is a errant concept in itself, or rather it is an “application” of a criteria just like the letter grade. Have we been instructed in classification or does it come “naturally”? I am sure the brain automatically performs this operation, but the linguistic application thereof takes a willfulness doesn’t it? If so, then we have chosen and been instructed. Justice for them, maybe, special privileges for me.
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It sounds like their system is similiar to Louisiana’s. The Louisiana Department of Education likes to trot a new one out every year or so to confuse the masses. It costs nothing, makes longitudinal comparisons impossible, but it makes it seem like they are doing something. I got a sneak preview of the next system in development.
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Indiana, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio…same difference. Crazy formulas that reveal nothing.
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But they can be used to claim anything. The best of both worlds.
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This is not much of a statement from DiCarlo: Policy decisions will be made as usual, to benefit the constituency in power and this data will be used in the way it best serves that constituency. Always the case with data. ALWAYS. There is no scientific method in place here, folks. Or rather, the method is a movable feast.
I would reiterate here what I’ve said elsewhere about the Shanker Institute–this is a facet of our competing pot and kettle syndrome. Just as we have a two-party political system that has been shown to be institutionally meaningless–all parties want the same “progress” in the end–so too the reform parties. Be advised that no one involved in this “fight” is not a reformer of some kind, including Ravitch. Reform simply means a kind of re-allocation of power and money–sometimes a reorientation of “ideology”–but these too always serve “progress.”
[“Progress” is something like that Israeli bulldozer that simply rolled over the American protester Rachel Corrie, or something more staid and somewhat sacrosanct to so many, the National Parks system, which ultimately offers a bulwark for proponents of land use and resource depletion–destroy the planet, but let’s save the pretty parks. Progressives are always approving (if “lamenting”) the crooked path to “betterment.”]
Ravitch then offers up an “open letter” from an Indiana school superintendent tearing the grading system apart in many ways. While I fully applaud this takedown of the nakedly political manipulation of Indiana’s public school evaluation system, I think it does as much to lay bare our continuing cultural AGREEMENT–validation, acceptance–as regards the work of “measurement.” I’ve written about this over and over again–as have many others–but most of the endless blather seems to settle on the idea of “right” measurement, or who’s in charge of the measurement.* This is only a difference in degree from deciding who gets to use the drone program to murder people…would you want president X to have that power? and one half of the electorate shudders…of course, NO ONE should have that power.
I would note one telling and “common” result coming out of the Indiana DOE’s testing regime–something extremely measurable, by the by–the man (adolescent?) in charge of implementing the grading program, Jon Gubera, recently quit “serving” the public in order to go to work for “Common Core” Coleman’s The College Board. Find Gubera’s name here at the CB website as a listed “expert” in administering the CB products for the state. Here Gubera is promoted at the Jeb Bush Corporatizing Joint in a “reformer’s profile.”
This is akin to the revolving door that we talk about nationally regarding government officials leaving their “service” to go to work for lobby groups or other “interested” parties.
In other words, you don’t know anyone who is making your systemic life decisions and you don’t have any influence over them. They get into the work out of self-interest and they do their work according to the “tide” of economic approval. This is why, always why, proponents of “change” must focus on shrinking the “influence” of “interested parties” when those parties are only “interested” in benefits accruing outside of the system being influenced. In other words–go “small town” and stay “small town.” There is nothing you can do “globally.”
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/11/shove-your-yardstick-and-your-calipers.html
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How can a school receive the highest honor of a Blue Ribbon School by the White House and be graded a “B” by the state in the same year?
Here is proof of the sham that this grading system is. How does this school earn a “B” (the only “B” in a district of 9 other schools who all received an “A”)? This School had over 90% of its students passing the state examines, even though they are a title school who has a large number of children living in poverty. This school was also just named a Blue Ribbon School by the US Department of Education using the same data that labeled it a “B” school by the state DOE.
Blue Ribbon Announcement:
http://posttrib.suntimes.com/crownpointstar/15001695-551/macarthur-elementary-is-named-a-blue-ribbon-school.html
School Letter Grades (Scroll down to the Bottom for a chart. Macarthur Elementary is the third School on the list.)
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/state-grades-schools-majority-in-region-gets-a-or-b/article_e43a8e24-63bc-51c9-b991-5d0d2014050b.html
These grades are bogus! We all know that this school deserves an A+.
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Wisconsin rolled out its own distractor a week ago.
http://oneteachersperspective.blogspot.com/2012/10/another-distractor-school-report-cards.html
Dog’s breakfast, as Gene Glass calls it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/10/26/wisconsins-new-school-grading-index-a-dogs-breakfast-of-numbers/
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No school deserves a letter grade.
The letter grading system is designed to discredit schools and teachers to enable privateers easy access to new markets.
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Why I Will Vote Glenda Ritz for State Superintendent of Public Instruction
For everyone interested in the election for State Superintendent, I want to answer one question before November 6:
Why have I worked feverishly to support Glenda Ritz for State Superintendent of Public Instruction?
Current superintendent Tony Bennett’s agenda is a thinly-veiled attempt to allow private corporation take-over of public education. This is the reason Bennett has pushed for right-to-work laws, relaxed teacher licensing, merit-based pay, bogus teacher contracts, school vouchers, standardized testing extremes, Common Core standards, A-F school grades, take-over of entire school districts….
I have no doubt behind Bennett’s agenda for school “reform” is a corporate-sponsored push to make schools a profitable market place. As public education is a pillar for democracy, it is philosophically unallowable for Bennett’s agenda to manifest itself in my community.
Glenda Ritz will work to undo all of Tony Bennett’s ‘faux reform.’
Still, I have come to the realization that this is not the reason I have worked tirelessly to support Ritz for Public Education.
Yesterday, a young co-worker slumped into the classroom at the end of the day and simply asked, “Do you believe you still can make an impact in your student’s lives?”
The answer is, “No.”
Under Tony Bennett, school has become a competitive factory, my everyday decision-making is replaced by a “map” of what I must teach and when, emphasis is put on test scores: I am no longer free to impact students.
Every day under Tony Bennett’s reform, each student’s personality, dreams, gifts, pains, spirit, and diverse array of human-ness is lost to me, replaced by sets of data and test scores. I am no longer able to nurture student’s creative expressions of freedom.
Why have I worked feverishly to support Glenda Ritz for State Superintendent of Public Instruction?
So I can teach.
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