School board rating plan would use data not in state report card

The Atlanta school board will devote a full day to fleshing out a districtwide plan to improve schools — an ambitious goal that starts with rating all of its schools.

The board will meet from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at the school district’s headquarters, 130 Trinity Ave. The board will discuss a plan to create a scorecard that grades how well schools are performing, as well as a menu of options for how the district should respond when schools succeed or fail. The rating system would be unique to Atlanta and include data not reflected in the state’s report card.

A draft of the proposed rat- ing system calls for schools to be rated based on factors such as student attendance, suspension and graduation rates, and how much schools are closing the gap between how well white and black students perform. Schools at the bottom of the rating scale could be closed or merged with a higher performing school. Their teach- ers could be replaced or the district could turn to an outside organization to run the school. The highest-rated schools could be expanded or replicated.

The draft version shows schools would be assigned one to five stars, but school board Chairman Jason Esteves said the district won’t use stars to distinguish high and low performing schools. He said officials still are deciding what the rating system will look like.

The school board has been studying similar school-reform attempts that have happened at other districts, including Denver Public Schools. Such changes have been controversial elsewhere because they’ve led to school closures and, in some cases, the growth of charter schools.

About 50 parents and com- munity members attended a meeting Tuesday at Sutton Middle School to learn more about the plan. Esteves told the group that it will “bring a new level of accountability and transparency to APS.” He said the district has focused in recent years on turning around its lowest-performing schools, as measured by the state. He said it’s now time to look at every school.

“What I have heard consistently is that we have to look at more schools than just the schools that are lowest performing. We have to look across the district so that every child can go to an excellent school in their neighbor- hood,” Esteves said.

A few who attended Tuesday’s meeting said they don’t think the public has enough information about the proposed rating system to provide feedback. They pointed to a draft version with missing information — such as where the district would get data to measure family engagement or the number of students participating in extracurricular activities. Officials said the district is still determining how it will collect the data it needs to create the new rat- ing system.

District officials have said the board could vote on the improvement plan as early as March, though it would take two years to fully implement it.