Understanding School Grades 1/6/2016

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2 Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening Today we are going to discuss school accountability. In the state of Florida, our main system of school accountability occurs through the school grading system. This grading system is mainly guided by student performance on statewide standardized assessments. We will describe which statewide assessments are used for accountability, what we mean when we talk about accountability, and specifically how school grades are measured. Though school grades are not the only measure of accountability, they have changed recently and are one way to measure school needs and successes. 2

3 When we talk about school accountability, many things come to mind. Some people may think about school grades, though other people think about financial accountability or accountability to parents and the community. There are many different ways to measure accountability and these different ways are important. School grades are only one form of accountability. They do not directly answer questions about how parents and students feel about their school, they do not provide information about a school s finances, they are unable to describe the building, grounds and technology, and so on. They are a single gauge of how a school is doing. This single gauge is important, however, just like a speedometer on a car. We would not think that a car could only have a speedometer though. How would we be able to tell when the car needed more gas or if the car was overheating with just a speedometer? School grades are the same way. They provide some information on how a school is performing on selected measures of accountability. 3

4 Superintendent Barbara Jenkins provided the above statement upon the release of the simulated school grades in December. Official grades, now released, do not adequately reflect the work of students, teachers and administrators because they do not contain learning gains and due to large problems in the initial administration of the assessment. They do not accurately reflect school performance. And as discussed earlier, school grades are only a single gauge. Many other forms of accountability are important and critical in creating and maintaining a positive and successful school. 4

5 There are three main pieces of school grades in Florida. The core of grades is student achievement and growth in English Language Arts and Mathematics. This makes up the majority of the grading system. The grading system also measures achievement in Science and Social Studies. Elementary schools do not have a Social Studies measure. Finally, there are also elements that measure whether or not students graduate high school on time and accelerate into more challenging coursework and succeed with this work. 5

6 There are many statewide required assessments, and six groups of statewide required assessments are found in school grades. The first group consists of the Florida Standards Assessments (or FSAs) in Mathematics and English Language Arts. These assessments are given in Mathematics in Grades 3 through 8 and in English Language Arts in Grades 3 through 10. There are also three End of Course (EOC) Florida Standards Assessments in Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II. This two groups of assessments are all aligned to the new Florida Standards that Florida has adopted over the last few years. The next groups consist of assessments in Science and Social Studies aligned with the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards. Science assessments are provided in Grade 5, Grade 8 and upon completion of Biology. Social Studies assessments are provided upon completion of Civics and US History courses. All of these assessments are provided to nearly all students attending a Florida public school. The final two assessments, the Florida Standards Alternative Assessment (FSAA) and the ACCESS for ELL Assessment are provided to smaller groups of students. The FSAA is provided to students with exceptionalities for whom the Florida Standards Assessment would not be able to be administered properly. The ACCESS for ELL Assessment is provided 6

7 to some English Language Learner students early in their time in ELL programs. 6

8 In order to fully understand the grading system, there are four words or phrases that are important to know. The first is achievement. In Florida s grading system, achievement refers to the percent of students who are scoring at a satisfactory level on statewide assessments. Our statewide assessments have five levels, and students scoring at Levels 3, 4, or 5 are scoring at a satisfactory level. The second is learning gains. A student counts as making a learning gain if they meet the statewide goal for how much they should improve in assessment scores over a year. In Florida, this is more than one year s growth for nearly all students and often much more than one year s growth. Acceleration success refers to the percent of students taking accelerated coursework (course work above their standard grade level) and succeeding at this work. This could be middle school students succeeding at high school level work or high school students succeeding at post secondary work. Finally, our graduation rate measures the percent of students meeting all requirements to graduate high school in four years. 7

9 This slide shows the elementary school grades model. There are seven components, and six of these are related to achievement and learning gains in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Four of the English Language Arts and Mathematics components are related to learning gains. There is also a component for school performance in Science, an assessment that is taken by Grade 5 students. English / Language Arts includes both Reading and Writing. This year, the Florida Department of Education will not calculate learning gains. This means that elementary school grades will only be based on three components. This is less than half of the grading model for these schools. In future years, all elementary, middle and high schools will receive grades based on the components that they have. If there are not enough students to meet the minimums in one or more components, schools will receive the average score of the components that they do qualify for. 8

10 The middle school grades model is very similar to the elementary model, adding only two additional components. There is a component for Social Studies, student performance on the Civics EOC. There is also a component for acceleration success, measured as the percentage of students who pass high school EOCs and industry certifications. Again, learning gains will not be calculated for the school grades. This eliminates four of the nine possible components. 9

11 The high school model builds on the middle school model and adds one additional component, the 4 year graduation rate. Just like the elementary and middle school grading model, learning gains are not included. This removes 4 of the 10 pieces of school accountability for high schools. The district grading scale is simply a combination of all of the elementary, middle and high school measures. 10

12 There are some major changes in the school grading system that are important to report. Some of them are very clear and easy to understand. For example, there are no more bonus points in the grading system. Other changes are more difficult are require more examination. Let s look at these major changes. 11

13 In the prior school grading system, the Florida Department of Education reported final school grades and their number of total points received. The total points determined what grade a school would received. For example, for an elementary school to have earned a grade of A, they needed to receive 525 points. Now, the Florida Department of Education will report school grades and the percentage of points earned. These will look very different than reporting the total points. In the old accountability system, an elementary school needed to earn 66% of total points in order to receive a grade of A. Now a school needs to receive 62% of points in order to receive a grade of A. This is not a reduction of standards because the state has made it harder to score satisfactory on the statewide assessment and created a much more difficult learning gains measure. Because learning gains will not be calculated this year, we will not see this impact until the school grades. 12

14 Another important change that has occurred is a change in the size of the grade bands. A grade band is the distance in points between the grade levels. In the prior system, the grade bands were fairly close together. For example, a school scoring at the top of the F scale could jump all the way to a grade of A by improving by a little under 18 percentage points. A school scoring at the top of the C scale could jump all the way to a grade of A by improving by a little over five percentage points. In the new system, the grade bands are much further apart. A school at the top of the F scale now that improved by 18 percentage points would receive a grade of C the following year. An 18 percentage point gain would not even ensure that a school scoring a grade of C would even score a grade higher than a B. The gap between the grade levels makes it more difficult to improve grades year over year. This also makes it less likely for grades to fall as well overall. 13

15 Learning gains will not be calculated by the FLDOE, and therefore will not be a part of the school grades. When the learning gains are included in the school grades, it will be a harder measure for students to meet. Students who scored in Level 1 or Level 2 in the prior year will have to make higher gains than before, and in some cases, much higher gains. For students who scored in Levels 3 and 4 in the prior year, students will have to show improvement in their relative standing from the year prior. This is a major change from the prior accountability system where students needed to only stay in the same grade level or improve to make a gain. Students scoring in Level 5 in the prior year have the same learning gains expectation that they had in prior years. They must keep their score in Level 5. 14

16 To help support students and parents in the transition to new standards and assessments, OCPS has updated its Parent website with materials to support student success. There are videos that help to show what parents can do to support their students in each quarter, links to additional online supports and information about assessments and accountability like this presentation. For information on historical school grades and more details on the statewide accountability system, the FLDOE school grades website is also provided. 15

17 Have more questions? No worries! OCPS is here to help. For questions about school grades, please contact Tavy Chen and Jason Black. For questions about what assessments students may take and why, please contact Frank Gilbert and Cyndy Landers. 16