Definition of a crisis II
When will leaders make the tough calls?
THE STATE’S website announces the individual Web pages for every school thusly: “Acountability At-a-Glance.” But something strange happened on the way to real accountability for Arkansas’ schools. It sorta disappeared.
Over the weekend, the news folks published a story regarding school grades in this state. A lot of schools did just swell. Others, not so much.
Forty-four schools in Arkansas, including nine high schools, received F grades, according to the news story written by our Cynthia Howell. This was based on something called the ESSA School Index scores. For the record, Little Rock’s district had eight schools with Fs—this in a district that was taken over by the state in 2015 because of poor performance.
But down deep in the story, and the weeds, was this telling paragraph:
“Johnny Key, Arkansas’ education commissioner, said Friday that the newly released scores and letter grades carry no threat of penalties for low-scoring campuses.”
Unlike the previous No Child Left Behind law, which penalized poor-performing schools by allowing kids to transfer out of them, or even in extreme examples shutting down schools, the current accountability plan is mostly plan, little accountability.
Or as Johnny Key put it: “There are expectations for meaningful plans and meaningful results. But [the current system] is different. No Child Left Behind created a fear of being punished. We are really trying to use our ESSA plan to change it from a fear of the punishment that might come to a recognition that, ‘We do need help and the department and the education service cooperatives are there to help us overcome the challenges we have so we can drive better student results.’”
So . . . The state has expectations. Of meaningful results. But if those results aren’t forthcoming, then what? We’ll expect meaningful results really hard next time?
The assistant commissioner for public school accountability told our reporter: “Our ESSA plan allows us to individualize, to work with the district and the school to see what a school needs.”
What if what it needs, is to be closed? And its teachers sent packing, along with its principal? If a school can’t improve an F grade after three years of state control, then maybe, just maybe, the personnel therein aren’t up to the task. Is there any other occupation in which a group of people can fail to do their jobs, year after year, and put up the worst numbers in the field, and still not only hold onto their jobs, but expect to?
For goodness sake, the paper reports that schools among the bottom 5 percent can expect “extra support” from the state—read: money—and might also be eligible for federal school improvement grants. Why reward that behavior? Can we reward the A-rated schools with federal grants next?
IT’S NOT all bad news out there. After the grades for the schools came in, several were noted for above average improvement. Our story noted schools like Harmony Grove High in Saline County, Ballman Elementary in Fort Smith, and others that improved tremendously, in some cases moving up a couple of letter grades.
Why not go to those schools, grab the elbow of the principal, and ask her what’s going on? Maybe recruit teachers at those schools to replace teachers at the failing ones. Perhaps pay them more. Or would that be unspeakably levelheaded and justified? Not to mention a favor to our kids and their futures?
If the holdup is a fear to take on teachers’ unions and upset the educational apple cart, then students in these failing schools will continue to suffer. Sometimes apple carts need to be turned over.