Attempt to grade schools moves closer to being made law

Governor McDonnell continues to try to get his ell-conceived “educational reform” thought the General Assembly.

According to Loudountimes.com:

A measure obligating Virginia public schools to receive A through F grades passed the Virginia House of Delegates Feb. 4 in a 54-40 vote, despite objection from state education groups.

The bill is part of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s education reform plan. Under the proposed legislation, local school boards, in addition to establishing accreditation standards, must develop a grading system for their districts’ schools by Aug. 1. The grades schools received would be public.

McDonnell argues that assigning schools letter grades would be easier for parents to comprehend. Tag Greason (R-District 31) sponsored the bill, H.B. 1999, in the House of Delegates.

An identical bill, S.B. 1207, cleared a major hurdle of its own last week, narrowly escaping the Education and Health Committee Jan. 31 in an 8-7 vote. Bill Stanley (R-Franklin County) sponsored the bill.

“Today’s vote in the Senate Education and Health Committee is a significant step toward final passage of this important educational accountability measure,” McDonnell released in a statement after the bill cleared the senate committee. “This simple and clear system allows parents to better understand how well their child’s school is performing. Great accountability and transparency are key to helping parents be a part of the solution of underperforming schools.”

It is a simple and clear system to the feeble-minded and that’s about it.  Now what will the local school’s grade do to real estate markets?  Will it jack up the prices of the houses in the A school district and knock the bottom out of the older neighborhood schools?

This idea is so horrible that I am sputtering thinking about it.  Let’s tell the truth for starters.  Professional people with college backgrounds generally produce children who test better than those people without professional credentials or without college.  Those same professional people make more money as a rule, than people without.  That buys much nicer houses.  Those houses are in developments that are surrounded by other nice houses full of professional people.

There folks, are your A schools.  Those folks who don’t live in the nice shiny new developments with their new schools will make up the rest of the schools.  That’s just the way it works.

I have failed to read who will be assigning the grades to these schools.  I hope people who have the value knocked out of the homes by this simplistic stupid program sue the state of Virginia.  It is class warfare at best.  At worst, it is economic homicide.

There are many other reasons this is a bad plan, starting with the competitiveness among kids, parents, etc. What are you, the parent or student, going to do about it if your school gets a D?  Are you going to sell your house and move to the A district?  How about the B district?  Anyone who thinks that this plan isn’t going to follow economic strata is looking at the world through rose colored glasses.

It clearly states that the school is to perform.  Stop!  Since when do schools perform?  The students are supposed to perform.  This entire idea is bass-akwards.  Its time to start holding students responsible for learning and mastery.  A principal can go in and determine if the teachers are teaching the objectives, but they can’t learn for the students (As Miss Baker told me many years ago, “I can’t learn you something.”   The students need to do their own learning and that is what should be evaluated.

Shame on our incredibly stupid legislators for going along with this  plan.  Shame on them for not holding students accountable.