Academic letters

Reasons, or excuses, this year?

SOME OF US are old enough to remember the days before schools and school districts in Arkansas were given letter grades, just as the kids in those schools are given every semester. The education establishment hated the thought of grades for schools and districts. For that got much too close to explaining, simply, how the schools were preparing students. Or, in some cases, weren’t preparing students.

The reasons why so many in the education bureaucracy wouldn’t want letter grades assigned to schools are myriad. Which is why it took so long to get such a simple law passed through the Ledge.

Last spring the pandemic was raging, kids were sent home, and nobody knew when on-site instruction would be safe again. So the state suspended letter grades for schools and districts. That might have been the right thing to do in April 2020. (Maybe.) We note that several kids in our orbit came away from classes with pass-fail grades, too.

But the General Assembly seems intent on suspending letter grades for schools for another whole school year. So intent that the state House passed such a bill 91-4 the other day. Let’s not.

Parents should get the opportunity to know how the schools are doing in this environment. Kids that are in close contact with covid-19 exposures are sent home. So are teachers. Whole schools have moved to virtual learning for days, even weeks, at a time.

Some of us suspicion that virtual learning isn’t nearly as effective as inschool instruction. Having letter grades given to schools—and comparing those grades to years past—is a way to confirm or reject that idea. Parents should know.

Many of us have been told that kids in poorer ZIP codes don’t learn as well from home, either, because of Internet shortages or the absence of adults. Letter grades are a way to confirm or reject that idea, too. Parents should know. One might think that certain courses—math, English—are easier to teach online than others such as art, music, and science lab. Letter grades would help determine if that’s so. And letter grades for schools, just as they are for students, are easily understandable at a glance. Parents should know.

No need to worry, says the lead sponsor of the bill suspending letter grades: He was quoted in the papers saying the state will continue to collect all the data it usually collects, and that data will still be available to parents.

Except actual grades will be hidden? We don’t understand how that helps anybody except those in the schools who have long fought against transparency.

If Arkansas is going to collect data on how well the schools are performing, even during a global pandemic, then somebody explain why withholding letter grades benefits taxpayers, parents, students or the schools themselves. Anybody?

We note that most teachers are issuing letter grades again. It’s because such a system is efficient, understandable, fair and better reflects achievement. The same can be said when applied to schools and districts.

Let’s mark up this bill with red pens. And send it back for corrections.