SANFORD — The N.C. Department of Public Instruction’s announcement of School Performance Grades Thursday ruffled feathers in school districts across the state, and Lee County educators and administrators were quick to decry a grading system that reduced everything they do to a single letter.
“We certainly try not to put a value on our students just with one grade,” said Lisa Duffey, principal of J.R. Ingram Elementary School, one of six Lee County Schools that received a C. “It’s impossible to determine the value of school with just one grade, certainly with a tool such as this one that is so faulty.”
The DPI calculated schools’ letter grades based on a formula combining the percentage of students’ test scores at or above grade-level performance and academic growth. Performance was weighted 80 percent, and growth was weighted 20 percent.
“I believe we as educators are here to grow students,” said Rob Dietrich, Lee County Schools director of accountability, testing and records. “Our students are here to become better educated. We want to achieve growth. That’s the goal. But you have schools who exceeded growth. That means they were exceptional with what they did in the classroom, and 11 percent of those schools received Ds and Fs.”
Lee County Schools Superintendent Andy Bryan guessed that schools with a higher percentage of students living in poverty would receive lower grades as a result of the criteria used, and the breakdown of grades seemed to support that prediction.
According to the DPI’s executive summary, “schools with greater poverty earned fewer As and Bs and earned more Cs, Ds and Fs than schools with less poverty.”
A total of 2,415 schools were graded, and all 144 schools that received an F had at least half of their students living in poverty.
“What frustrates me is that good teachers base students off the brain in their head and the heart in their chest, not the neighborhood they live in,” said Chris Dossenbach, principal of Southern Lee High School, which received a C. “But that’s what this system has done.”
Benjamin T. Bullock Elementary, Greenwood Elementary, Lee County High School and J. Glenn Edwards Elementary all received Cs as well.
Lee Early College and Tramway Elementary both received Bs. Broadway Elementary, Deep River Elementary and all three middle schools in the county — East Lee Middle, SanLee Middle and West Lee Middle — received Ds. None of the 13 Lee County Schools graded received an A or an F.
“I became very concerned when I realized Lee Early College, one of the top 50 high schools in North Carolina, was only going to get a grade of B,” Bryan said.
Just 5.4 percent of schools statewide received an A and 70.5 percent of schools received a C or lower.
Dietrich maintained that, in order to make the grading system more effective, the DPI needed to include more criteria than standardized test results and academic growth. He noted that the percentage of high schools that received A and B grades, 13.1 percent, was much higher than the percentage of elementary and middle schools, 3.1 percent, that received top grades.
“I believe that is because high schools had seven indicators [of performance] while other schools mainly had three,” Dietrich said.
Elementary and middle school grades were based on math, English and science end-of-grade tests. High school grades included similar measures, along with ACT scores, cohort graduation rates and other indicators that Dietrich said could increase a school’s performance score.
Dietrich also said that the grading system failed to account for individual differences among students and the necessity of catering a child’s education to his or her personal strengths and weaknesses.
“We’re not an assembly line,” Dietrich said. “The car at the plant goes through, and if there’s a bolt missing, someone puts in the bolt, and the car looks like every other car before it and every other car after it. We’re in the business of children. We’re here to educate children. Each child is different, every single one. It’s our job to find the best way to educate each individual.”
Former Republican House District 51 Rep. Mike Stone, who voted for the bill requiring school letter grades during the N.C. Legislature’s 2013-14 session, agreed that the grading system was not perfect, but the grades were important nonetheless.
“I think it’s a great baseline,” he said. “It’s a great way to have an independent review for the parents. We need to know how our schools are performing and look for opportunities to get involved and help increase those scores. This is a great step in the right direction.”
Dossenbach said the entire Lee County Schools system was committed to improving in any way possible, but that the DPI’s system was fundamentally flawed.
“Just because we don’t like the system doesn’t mean we don’t want to get better,” Dossenbach said. “We want to get better. We can get better. We know the areas we need to work on, and there are areas we need to work on. I don’t want people to think we’re making excuses. We just want them to have a realistic view of what’s going on in Lee County Schools.”
Bryan echoed Dossenbach’s sentiment and emphasized the importance of programs like The Leader in Me, Advancement Via Individual Determination and the National Academy Foundation, all of which he said help Lee County students develop academically and socially in ways that don’t necessarily show up on a standardized test.
“We’re going to keep working hard to enhance our schools and to give our children the best possible future that we can,” Bryan said. “I have great faith in our educators across this district.”
For more information on School Performance Grades and the grading process, visitwww.ncpublicschools.org/accountability/reporting/.