20 Facts about the School Grading Program in Utah
Based on SB271 S3 as
Passed in the 2013 Session
Compiled by Dr. Patti
Harrington for USBA/USSA/UASBO
1. SB271 (3rd
Substitute) was originally written by Parents for Choice (PCE), the same group
that advocated for vouchers in 2007, seeking to use public taxpayer dollars to
support for-profit schools. The bill was sponsored by Senator Stuart Adams
but President Wayne Niederhauser developed the bill with PCE and asked Senator
Adams to carry the bill. SB271 S3 was co-sponsored in the House by
Representative Greg Hughes. No public education representatives were
included in its development.
2. SB271 S3 passed on
the final day of the 2013 Legislative Session by a narrow margin
(38-36
in the House and 16-10 in the Senate).
3. This legislation adds
yet another school accountability system on top of the Utah Comprehensive
Accountability System (UCAS) that was created in response to 2011 legislation
and for use in federal accountability and is also in addition to the required
annual school improvement plans developed at the local level by school
community councils.
4. The primary political
purposes of the bill are touted by Jeb Bush,
former Governor of Florida. At the time of Florida’s school grading
implementation, Utah outperformed Florida in almost every indicator. Utah
still outperforms Florida in many indicators. There is no research that
connects school grading with school improvement; it remains much more of a
political ideology than a research-based practice.
5. UCAS requires
measuring both student proficiency and individual growth scores by all
students; SB271 S3 only counts proficiency for all students, thus failing to
measure improvement made by students who have
the greatest struggles in learning.
6. The factors in SB271
S3 make it highly unlikely that any high school can change the initial grade
they receive and fail to offer any meaningful measures of student or school
improvement.
7. The forced
stratification of grades around a mid-point in SB271S3 limits the ability of a
school to demonstrate improvement and may actually lower some grades as
proficiency rates increase.
8. Many public education
stakeholders actively opposed SB271 S3 and encouraged Governor Herbert to veto
it. The bill was not vetoed in exchange for making some amendments to the
bill in a Special Session of the Legislature; President Niederhauser refused to
support the call for a Special Session.
9. The first SB271 S3
grades are set to be released on September 3, 2013.
10. The School Grading Program will assign
failing grades based on participation in end of year tests regardless of unique
circumstances at the school level.
11. The School Grading Program does not
allow counting the growth of students who still may be sub-proficient but have
made tremendous learning gains.
12. The School Grading Program treats all
schools the same; schools that serve students with disabilities, students in
mental health settings, and students in alternative schools will all be graded
with the same one-size-fits-all metric. Most unique schools will receive
failing grades.
13. The School Grading Program is roughly
aligned with economic factors in a community, giving higher grades to schools
located in wealthy areas and lower grades to schools located in areas of high
poverty.
14. The School Grading Program will label
schools in inaccurate and simplistic ways; not accounting for the myriad of
school factors that should be included in a sensible accountability system that
reflects complexity and growth aspects of schools and students.
15. There is no current plan from the
Legislature to help schools who receive poor
grades; in fact, the Utah Legislature significantly decreased funding for
at-risk and accelerated students the past few years.
16. The per-pupil legislative allocation
in Utah for FY14 is $2,899, up $57 from FY13. Utah continues to be ranked
51st in the nation in public education per pupil spending.
17. Ninety-two percent (92%) of parents
choose to send their students to Utah’s public traditional schools, including
their online and special purpose options; the remaining students attend charter
schools and private schools.
18. A recent poll conducted by Phi Delta
Kappa and Gallup Poll measured the public’s attitudes toward the public
schools. Seventy-seven (77%) of America’s parents gave the school their
oldest child attended a grade of A or B. These are the highest grades
parents have assigned to their oldest child’s school since the poll began 44
years ago. Twenty years ago the number was 64 percent (64%).
Locally-elected school board members listen carefully to their parents and work
to continue to improve their local schools and the achievement of every child.
19. Local boards of education support
school accountability that:
·
Honors
growth by concentrating attention on helping every child grow in their academic
achievement and a system which values and recognizes that growth.
·
Makes
clear to schools what is needed in order for them to improve in way that even
small increments of improvement can be recognized, reinforced and rewarded.
·
Is
devoid of limitations which arise from reliance upon a bell-shaped curve.
·
Uses a
system which accurately reflects the performance and growth of the school and
has a common perception as to the meaning; and
·
Provides
assistance to schools which have created an improvement plan, and the resources
to implement that plan.
20. Student Growth Percentiles (SGP)
School Grading is based on student proficiency and
growth (and graduation rate for high schools). Growth is based on the
Student Growth Percentile (SGP). In the past, growth was determined by comparing
students regardless of their achievement level. Everyone was expected
to grow the same. The great value of SGPs is that growth is a
measurement based on comparing students from past performance
to present performance at the same achievement level.
The SGP is calculated by comparing each student
with all other students who received the same scale score on the same
test ( his/her academic peer), in the previous year and then comparing
the scale score of these students the next year
to determine their SGP. So all students with a scale score of 150 (not
proficient) the previous year, will receive an SGP of 1 – 99. Thus,
every student, regardless of achievement level, has the possibility of a
low or high SGP based on their growth from
previous years to the current year. Students with low achievement can
demonstrate high or low growth. Students with high achievement can
demonstrate low and high growth.
Then how does SB271 S3 fail to acknowledge
significant improvement made by students who have the greatest struggles
in learning? By requiring a pass/fail bar (this year set at the 40th
percentile), SB271 S3 prevents the SGP
from reaching its full potential of awarding points for all students as
it generates fewer points for low growth and higher points for high
growth. This is an attempt to try to force SGPs to be more similar to
the value added growth model that the stakeholders
rejected in 2012. That stakeholder group included President
Niederhauser, who now is fully rejecting the work of the original
stakeholder group on which, he, himself, served.
