The idea of giving A-F grades to schools was a Jeb Bush invention. It is an almost perfect mirror of the poverty or affluence of the students in the school. Schools with high poverty levels will get low grades. This sets them up to be stigmatized as failures and to become juicy targets for tskeover and privatization. The privatizers keep the students they want and toss away those they don’t want. Meanwhile, the public money flows to private hands.
Laura Chapman here examines Ohio’s school report cards, which contain “multiple measures” to end up with the same result as a report card based only on test scores, which themselves measure family income and education.
She wrote this comment:
“The key components of the 2018 Ohio School Report Cards.
The six components are:
Achievement,
Gap Closing,
Improving At-Risk K-3 Readers,
Progress,
Graduation Rate,
Prepared for Success.
Districts and schools receive A-F grades on each of the six components and most of the individual measures for each component (e.g.a letter grade is assigned to Ohio’s EVASS metrics based on test scores. EVASS is a version of totally discredited VALUE-ADDED Metrics).
For the first time, districts and schools will be assigned overall letter grades. (e.g., Your school is D. Your school is an F.)
Here is the pitch for this ridicule-worthy scheme.
“Report cards are designed to give parents, communities, educators and policymakers information about the performance of districts and schools – to celebrate success and identify areas for improvement. This information identifies schools to receive intensive supports, drives local conversations on continuous improvement and provides transparent reporting on student performance. The goal is to ensure equitable outcomes and high expectations for all of Ohio’s students.”
One of these days I may count how many data points Ohio has shoved into the convoluted report card. Some are hardwired by the fools elected to the state house. Others are there in part from federal regulations. The rest are the product of a belief system that says, in effect measurement is an objective and infallible substitute for good judgment. Of course, the Report card grades track the relative affluence of the districts in Ohio and they are meaningless for Charter Schools. A recent conversation with a state school board member, running for re-election revealed total ignorance of problems with the value-added metric or the cost of the SAS contract for that misleading exercise.
reportcard.education.ohio.gov
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing…
One one hand, metrics of achievement, based upon scores, have been proved
by many, as being no more than BULLSHIT.
On the other hand, metrics of achievement, based upon scores, are used to
“prove” charters are one thing or another, or communities, or districts, or…
Report cards quack the same way.
Report card grades track the relative influence of indoctrination compared
to enlightenment.
Meanwhile, the testing complex makes out.
essential and so dangerous truth: Report card grades track the relative influence of indoctrination compared to enlightenment
“…the relative influence of indoctrination compared to enlightenment”
You do have a way with words!
stolen from NoBrick
“Measurement is an objective and infallible substitute for good judgment.” All the metrics connected to “reform” are biased rather than absolutes. The rankings are based on test scores which we know correlate to the socio-economic levels of students. This rating system serves up schools with poor students as targets for privatization. It also assists realtors in continuing the illegal practice of red lining areas for minority buyers. It gives lots of perspective home buyers a false impression about schools. Many schools with D or F ratings are perfectly safe and offer quality instruction. Instead of closing D or F schools, they should offer the schools more resources as these schools serve the neediest population. Better yet, we should abandon this false system of “accountability.”
When a private enterprise fails to deliver to the public’s satisfaction, it goes out of business and closes. When a public-sector enterprise (like a public school) fails to deliver to the public’s satisfaction, the government throws more tax money at it.
Typical rightwing balderdash
When the greed of individuals is driving a process, the entire process is designed to be harmful to the common good.
The rural school district of Wilmington, Ohio lost $1,659,136 to ECOT (KidsNotCorruption.com)
Republican politicians can’t be trusted.
If it is better that we remove students who are not learning instead of trying to teach them, why do we not instruct public institutions to behave that way? Could it be that being honest and suggesting that “I really think you are poor because you are stupid” would play very poorly in the political arena? Instead, we shall create two systems. One will employ the practice of throwing children on the trash heap, which we will call “insisting on high standards”. The other will warehouse the failures for very little money. The contrast will show how great the trash heap schools are. How can this fail?
Any yet, even though the system is rigged, it does not appear to be working as study after study shows the bankruptcy of this system. Hoisted by their own petard, the reformers now gag trying to explain why their scores are not better than their disadvantaged competition.
Back when I was still teaching, California implemented a similar system but the schools were ranked on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 would be a total failure and 10 the best of the best.
One year, the media printed the rankings and the HS where I taught (with a child poverty rate of 70 percent located in a gang infested barrio was rated a 2 or 3.
The students that earned that rank for the school came in to class that day laughing at the school and teachers … until I stopped the laughter and told them the facts.
I said something like this: “Less than five miles from this high school there is another high school that is ranked a NINE. If we swapped teachers from our high school with that high school, that school would keep its ranking and so would our high school even with all those good teachers from a high school that is ranked a NINE because our teachers are good teachers too. That ranking does not come from the teachers or the school that is made up of buildings. That ranking came from the students and if we moved those students and bused them to that other high school they would take that ranking with them.”
I pointed out that for students to score high on those tests they have to corporate with the teachers, ask questions, do the work, read everyday and study. Then I asked them to think about all the assignments they never finished or didn’t do and all the reading assignments they never did and the fact that many of them hated to read, study, do homework and didn’t do it.
There was no more laughter. In fact, I saw a lot of guilty expressions instead.
In my children’s school district, the superintendent will readily agree with me that these letter grades are meaningless, but he and board love to tout how standardized test scores keep improving because they make sure teachers teach to the test.
Rating schools should be a combination of subjective and objective criteria. It amazes me sometimes: My wife is a real-estate professional. The “word gets around” very quickly, when a school is excellent. People (who can afford to do so), clamor to move to that school district. The housing prices and the demand adjust upward accordingly.
Conversely, when a school is substandard, the “word gets around” also.
Your parenthetical phrase is telling…
These rating systems reinforce the commodification of public schools. They are based on the premise that parents can shop for schools the way they shop for cars or groceries. Until affluent school districts with space in their classrooms open their doors to children raised in poverty in neighboring districts these ratings should be abandoned along with the notion that “choice” is a means to achieving equal opportunity…