Our apologies for all the emails this morning…We have been adding content to the website and it automatically lets you know. We are figuring it out.
Four Day School Week Virtual Town Hall Tomorrow!
If you are considering changing to a 4DSW, or just want to know more about what that looks like, come to our virtual town hall tomorrow from 4:30 to 6:30! Sign up here.
We will share what we know about how 4DSWs impact student achievement and growth, and districts that have implemented this calendar option will share their insights.
Grades for Growth
Did you see our Opinion piece on school letter grades? You won’t be surprised that here at OEP, we want student growth to be a more powerful aspect of schools’ letter grade. Even better, give two letter grades: one for Achievement and one for Growth. We are grateful that the Editorial Board agreed with the idea, and appreciate their point that schools are already being recognized for growth separately from achievement through the state’s Rewards and Recognition program.
We did, however, cringe at the suggestion that students at “The top-achieving schools might have nowhere to grow.” The data show us that in many of the highest achieving schools, students are growing a lot!
Among the schools in the top 10% statewide for achievement in 2023, one third were also in the top 10% for increasing student learning over the course of the year. Think about that… the students at the schools are very high achieving and STILL demonstrating extremely high growth!
Proving that high achieving schools can also demonstrate high growth, seven schools in the state were in the top 1% for both Achievement and Growth: Root Elementary in Fayetteville, Emerson Elementary School, Lincoln and Washington Junior Highs in Bentonville, Haas Hall at the Lane, Haas Hall Bentonville, and Rural Special High School.
Don’t you think these schools should get an “A” for achievement and an “A” for growth?
Of course, not all the top-achieving schools were growing student learning so well. There were even some schools in the top 10% for achievement where student growth was in the bottom 10% of schools. In these schools, students are scoring well on the tests, but aren’t learning anything new.
To the question posed in Sunday’s editorial: “Would you give such a school an A for achievement and an F for growth?”
Yes, yes, we would.
We think it is important for parents and community members to know that while students in their school are doing well on state assessments, the kiddos are falling behind their peers across the state in what they are learning. If we allow schools like this to get just an “A” for the high achievement, it isn’t fair to the students who are missing the opportunity to learn.
If you have been following OEP, you know ALL KIDS CAN GROW. Even kids that are super smart and performing well above expectations. Arkansas’s growth model compares high achieving students with similar high achieving students from across the state. Some of these students grow more than average over the course of a year, and some grow less. Same thing for low-achieving students, and for average-achieving students.
Growth isn’t related to a kids’ prior achievement; it is related to the quality of instruction a student is receiving in school. And schools should be graded on how much students are learning.
After all, school is where students go to learn, right?