Some A-F changes may prompt practices not helpful to students

WE have written before about flaws in the overhaul of Oklahoma’s A-F grading system for public schools, particularly its use of lower academic expectations for middle-class minority students than what will be expected of comparable white students.

An eight-year plan submitted to the federal government last week by the Oklahoma Department of Education, required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, highlights how those racially disturbing A-F revisions will impact school evaluations.

Under the new school grading system, students of all races who are poor or have learning disabilities won’t be expected to score as high on state tests as other students. That’s understandable.

But the system also imposes lower expectations for students who are not poor and don’t have learning disabilities based solely on race. An agency simulation showed the goals for middle-class black, Hispanic and Native American students would be lower than the goals for middle-class white students. The simulation even indicated academic targets for middle-class black students would be almost identical to the target for students with disabilities.

Thus, there can be dramatically different academic expectations for two children from intact, middleclass families sitting in the same classroom based solely on their skin color.

Oklahoma’s ESSA plan explains that under one potential A-F school grading measurement, “Schools will receive additional credit for students exceeding their target by achieving the next highest proficiency level …” Or another system may be used in which, if students “on average, exceed” the targets for their racial or socioeconomic groups, the school “will receive the highest scores” on that component of its state report card.

Given that the targets for minority students will be set unnaturally low, schools could “exceed” those targets even if minority students still have far lower test scores than their white peers. Minority children could be left behind other students from comparable backgrounds, and schools would still be rewarded with a higher A-F grade.

The state’s plan says schools failing to test the vast majority of students will have their A-F grade slightly lowered, so a school that would otherwise get a C grade will instead get a C-minus. As an example, the ESSA plan says a school testing just 64 percent of American Indian students would have the “minus” added to its school grade.

But when schools fail to test large segments of the student population, officials are typically trying to inflate test scores by testing only the school’s best students. That in turn can bump a school’s grade from a D to a C. If D or F schools are able to achieve a C-minus grade through such tactics, that’s not much of a deterrent.

Those who doubt such things would occur should note another statement in the ESSA plan (which refers to school districts as “local educational agencies,” or LEAs): “The state’s decision not to give end-of-course math assessments has resulted in some LEAs discouraging students from taking advanced mathematics coursework in middle school in order to improve assessment scores in high school.”

Oklahoma’s A-F system should encourage school improvement that benefits students of all races and backgrounds, not allow poor-performing schools to mask their flaws.