Like many things in the education world, policy experts have long been divided on accountability and the best way to measure school success. Many think it’s important to give parents a fuller picture of how a school performs than what is in Virginia’s current system. But stakeholders are divided on what should be measured.
One dividing point is how much the state should measure “mastery” versus “growth” — essentially if schools should receive more credit for students reaching benchmarks, or for helping students improve from where they are. In Virginia, the current proposal includes both, with mastery being weighted greater in the evaluation.
Critics of the move, like the Virginia Education Association, worry that favoring mastery will lead to schools being categorized on demographics. Statistically, they said in a news release, schools in affluent neighborhoods typically perform better on standardized tests than schools in lower-income areas, and the rankings will reflect that.
“It will penalize schools that demonstrate significant student growth but serve students who start further behind due to various educational barriers,” the state education union wrote Thursday.
Other groups like the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, the Virginia School Board Association and Virginia PTA expressed concerns about various other aspects of the model at the recent state board meeting, including about using the categorical ratings like “Distinguished.” They worry that the new system will unfairly paint some schools in a bad light.
“The bucket ‘off track,’ with more than 50 percent of Virginia schools, is so large that it fails to provide critical information for parents about which student subgroups are struggling versus schools that are underperforming across all grade levels,” said Virginia PTA president Jenna Alexander.
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