Students receive a letter grade on their report cards and so, too, would their public school under a proposal Gov. Bob McDonnell unveiled Thursday as part of the next phase of his K-12 education legislative agenda.
Each school would be assigned a grade, A-F, which McDonnell’s office contends would help parents and others to fully understand how their child’s school is performing.
Oh dear God, when will the politicians stay out of education! Surely Gov. Ultra-sound didn’t think this one up all by himself. Let’s take a careful look at what would happen if the good governor gets his way.
First off, who decides the grade? Will there be a list of objects the school is to master? Will it be based on SOL scores? Hasn’t there been enough stress on SOL scores already? What will be done to ensure that schools with high populations of minority students, ESL students, economically disadvantaged students, and special ed students aren’t the schools making the D’s and F’s?
What plans does the good governor have to ensure that parents won’t pull their kids out of the C, D, and F schools and demand enrollment into the A schools? What if the A schools says no. Will courts get involved? What if the A schools get too crowded?
How about poorer, older neighborhoods? Is that were you find all the D and F schools? How do we ensure that all the newer or more affluent schools don’t hog all the A’s? Will there be a few token schools in minority neighborhoods with a gentleman’s C?
This must be the dumbest plan since the 150 minute per week PE plans had to be scrapped. It seems that the lawmakers hadn’t thought the plan through enough to realize that most of the schools in question had no place to house the PE classes.
Governor McDonnell needs to get over this plan. If he wants to help education he needs to dump resources into schools to lower those classrooms with extremely high pupil teacher ratios. He needs to ensure that all students have textbooks and that teachers have adequate planning time that isn’t compromised by duties and clerical work.
The General Assembly would have to approve this plan. Their track record is no better than the governor’s.
He needs to ensure that all students have textbooks
Moon, the schools have stopped using textbooks. Everything is online or handed out as sheets. I’ve had to ask the school to send a textbook home so I can help darling daughter with subjects.
It’s crazy.
We are backwards up here. Books are still used in many classes.
I thought 30 years ago we should go to work stations and students just run off their homework sheets.
It will be much cheaper when books aren’t used. Also it makes me sad to think of it.
Moon, Before we start thrashing the plan, let’s see what it entails first. While I agree that public schools should be the purview of local government, the problem I see is the US and State Departments of Education. If you take their money, you agree to their oversight, because they will argue that they are accountable to the taxpayers for how the money is spent. This is where the problem starts. If you take the position that the Fed and State Departments of education provide value to the process of educating children (I do not), then it’s tough to deny the government that oversight. That oversight comes in the form of “studies”, with “metrics” “goals”, “objectives” and “standards”.
@Steve,
Well those are the pitfalls he needs to avoid.
Part of me agees about keeping education local until I start thinking about what all is involved…and it isn’t possible in this day and age.
We get a lot of money in impact aid. We also have guarantees that all children are entitled to an education, despite handicapping condition…stuff like that.
So far McDonnell has told Obama no on the replacement plan for NCLB…and good for him about that. He just needs to put his red pen away on the schools. He hasnt thought this one through.
“We get a lot of money in impact aid. We also have guarantees that all children are entitled to an education, despite handicapping condition…stuff like that. ”
Ah yes….the old “We’ll take your money, but you can keep your strings” argument. Kinda gives creedence to the whole “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem” argument.
We often talk about reforming “failing school systems” “accreditation”, improvement, and my favorite: “Standards of Learning”. How is this any different? Now if parents had “school choice”, a school getting a C, D, or F score might have some effect. Since they don’t (for the most part), I am not sure why the plan proposed by the Governor is so outrageous, in your opinion, especially considering the article you linked to has almost no details.
I propose returning to a time when public education was indeed the purview and responsibility of the local community. Those localities that invested in their schools, and demanded performance from students, teachers, and parents tended to be the communities that thrived. People wanted to move there. Businesses wanted to locate there. Property values steadily increased, and tax revenues did too. Perhaps a bit too “free market” for some, but then again, we used to live in a meritocracy.
Assigning a grade to a school is counter productive. I actually don’t need details. It shouldn’t be done.
If we had school vouchers, we could even have segregated schools. I know all about that. First hand.
As for returning to the time when all education was local…you state that “Those localities that invested in their schools, and demanded performance from students, teachers, and parents tended to be the communities that thrived. People wanted to move there. Businesses wanted to locate there. Property values steadily increased, and tax revenues did too.”
Perhaps in the past you are correct. However we have no basis of comparison because times have changed so much.
If you were average I would have to agree with you. However, if you had a handicapped kid, a pregnant daughter, or were an immigrant, things probably looked a little different. You just can’t turn 2013 into 1955. Too much has changed around you.
I am not necessarily a big fan of those things that you seem to eschew. A great deal of it is the reality of an ever shrinking world.
I think the answer is private school if you want to avoid state and federal interference.
Moon,
As someone who attended public schools for K-12,albeit not in Virginia, it seems to me that more direction from Federal and State government hasn’t had the intended effect. We’ve gotten so “standardized” that teachers teach to the standard, and not to the individual child. In my elementary school, we had the advanced class, a couple of average classes, and a class for the slower kids at each grade level. With a few exceptions, I had the same kids year after year in my class. It was all based on student performance, with heavy input from the teachers, so there was some subjectivity and judgement on the part of the teacher.
What’s changed? The kids? The Teachers? The level of government involvement? Even with all the SOL’s, Regulation, grants, tax money, NCLB, our performance is declining. OHS is struggling to maintain accreditation. So, is the answer MORE studies, metrics, standardization? More money pulled out to NoVA and sent down-state?
I am not saying you are wrong. I went to public school except for 2 years. Let’s not discuss the private school situation. (clearing throat)
No one ever taught individual kids when I was in school. You did what you were supposed to do which was to fit into the group. Yes, there were general studies, college bound studies, vocational, etc. Of course, when I was in school I had no idea what the metrics were.
Let me think on this and get back to it.
@Cargosquid
Text books are a matter for the School District – not the State. I thought you wanted a smaller government and no DOE?
and what is going to happen if a school is rated a D, and the parents do not like it – will the School District (that the State has no control over) allow all the students to go to another school? I think not.
and why was the school rted D? Test scores? How many disadvantaged kids? How about those 4 subgroup kids? Scores are generally significantly lower at those schools.
Look at how much the houses used to cost that were in the Langly district in McLean. Just saying……
That seems to be the free market way of doing it rather than a designated lett4er grade. A grade just causes problems. It tells the school it’s crappy and the kids that go there they are crappy and the teachers that they are crappy.
@Pat.Herve
You are misreading. The first line was a quote from Moon.
I’m fine with it being a district thing. I just want to make sure that parents have access to the source materials so that we can help with homework.
@Cargosquid
cargo – sorry, I thought you were making the comment.