School Admins say 'glitches' spoil new ISD rating system

By Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

The Highlander

The Texas Education Agency has released to the Texas Legislature preliminary ratings of school districts and campuses based on a new accountability system that is set to go into effect in August 2018. The reviews by area educators could best be described as thumbs down.

Marble Falls Independent School District Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction Dr. Wes Cunningham said administrators were told there would be a provisional accountability rating released, but added that the A-F Accountability Ratings are “using a still-in-process methodology that doesn't use any new data.”

“These A-F ratings just released are using the current system data that is being used under our current accountability ratings, in which our campuses and our district got the highest rating possible of meeting the standards,” Cunningham said.

“It is interesting information, but we don't see it changing the work we do day to day and we really don't know enough about it right now. The A-F system is designed to make accountability more understandable to general public, and when most people when see A-F, As are typically thought of as 90 and above, etc., but these scores are not calculated like that. There is a lot of information we do not have from TEA about how these scores are calculated.”

Burnet CISD Superintendent Keith McBurnett said the district is not satisfied with its performance rating on the new system, but they also have concerns about the system itself.

“The simple fact is a grade is only as good as the criteria it represents and the assessment utilized to measure it,” McBurnett said. “For example, more than 250 Burnet High School students’ English Language Arts STAAR test results were impacted by the failure of the State’s testing company’s online system during the 2015-2016 school year. The State took into consideration these issues when assigning Burnet High School its current rating of Met Standard, but the recent A-F ratings based on the same flawed data at Burnet High School and the District do not take these glitches into consideration.”

The new A-F system uses five domains, or areas of performance, to measure how campuses and districts are doing and will use those five domains to determine a single overall rating for each campus. Those domains include student achievement (I), student progress (II), closing the gaps (III), postsecondary readiness (IV) and community and student engagement (V).

The new system, which was established under House Bill 2804, will not go into effect until August 2018, but TEA was charged with releasing a preliminary report to the Legislature by Jan. 1, 2017. The preliminary report includes information for the first four domains only.

TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said Friday it is “important to note that the Met Standard/Improvement Required ratings issued in August 2016 – and updated in November 2016 – are the official academic accountability ratings for the 2015–16 school year.”

“A similar process will be used for the 2016–17 school year,” Morath said. “The ratings in this report are for informational purposes to meet a legislative requirement and represent work-in-progress models that are likely to change before A–F ratings become effective in August 2018.

“No inferences about official district or campus performance in the 2015–16 school year should be drawn from these ratings, and these ratings should not be considered predictors of future district or campus performance ratings.”

Cunningham noted that three of the four domains used to determine the ratings (I, II and III) are all based on performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness or STAAR test, which is a “one-time assessment given during the year.”

“This is not representative of our districts or our campuses and this system can't really summarize the work that is done by each campus or by our district,” Cunningham said. “We are more concerned with student learning on a daily basis and using data that we have gathered that is much deeper to help us respond to our students' needs.”

For example, domain III, or closing the gaps, deals with the performance of economically disadvantaged students on the STAAR test.

“In Marble Falls ISD, our number of economically disadvantaged students is about 62 to 63 percent,” Cunningham said. “That is an unfair burden to place on a subpopulation of students to be responsible for how the district or a campus performs because then we are focused on only one thing and that is student performance on that one assessment. Our model in the district is about loving and inspiring our children in all areas of growth and potential and that is so much more than just a number or performance on a test.

“We want our students to not just pass an assessment in one day, but to meet their full potential. We think that, at Marble Falls ISD, we are responding to the needs of our students. We are getting ready to hold a series of community summits in which we meet with the community and listen to them about what they want from us. We want to make sure the community is getting information about all of the good things going on in our district and making sure we are listening to all of the needs of our students. This is our chance to tell the story about Marble Falls ISD.”

McBurnett echoed the sentiments expressed by Cunningham.

“The majority of grades assigned by the A-F rating system are based on students’ scores on the STAAR — a test students take on one given day that is used to evaluate how well schools educate our children over 173 days,” McBurnett said. “What parent would want one test to determine their child’s course grade in school for the year? An overwhelming majority of Texans recently surveyed by the State Board of Education have said they do not want standardized test scores to serve as the primary basis for the Texas school accountability system.

“I am not opposed to a fair and transparent accountability system, and our teachers, principals and staff are committed to improving our performance on the state standardized test, but the STAAR test cannot measure the value of students engaging in pre-engineering problem solving in grades 3-12, or learning to speak in front of a group of peers, or participating in a Socratic seminar to defend a point of view, or welding two pieces of metal together, or utilizing Google to efficiently research a topic, or participating in a team sport,” McBurnett said. “That is why more than 150 school boards across the state have adopted a resolution calling for the repeal of the A-F rating system.”