PAGE 6A THE DEARBORN COUNTY REGISTER THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2012

6

19621

531 Green BlvdAurora, IN 47001

INDIANA

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2012

2012 A-F Statewide Totals – Percentages and Total Schools

2012 2011 2010

As 40.9% 47.2% 43.2% Bs 20.1% 9.5% 9.3% Cs 20.3% 25.9% 23.8% Ds 11.5% 12.2% 11.6% Fs 7.1% 5.3% 12.1%

2012 2011 2010

As 855 997 899 Bs 421 201 194 Cs 425 547 496 Ds 241 257 242 Fs 148 112 251

More info at www.doe.in.gov/improvement/accountability/f-accountability.

Immediately after the Indiana State Board of Education voted to release the A-F grades for individual schools, Glenda Ritz, Democratic Candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruc-tion, held a press conference and called for an independent audit of DOE data and offered her own vision for meeting fed-eral requirement relative to reporting school performance.

Tony Bennett’s A – F grading system is the clearest way for voters to see the differences in our educational philosophy. His ideas are based on using complicated formulae of flawed data to punish schools with the ultimate goal of taking them out of local control and putting them into a government system that ultimately privatizes them.

My vision for education will focus on instruction and will not treat students as data sets. In my administration, student proficiency will be evaluated by true growth measurement tests that inform educators, parents, and students of true performance levels in the areas of reading, writing, and math. Schools will not be evaluated to punish them and take away their funding, but evaluated to provide support to address any challenges.

My vision does not paint communities as failures when stu-dents attending their schools are struggling. Under A-F, Tony Bennett is saying to new businesses and homebuyers, Stay away from this community – it is failing.” Strong public schools are the strongest partners a community has in creating the values that companies seek when looking for a new location. A well-educated workforce and schools that provide a high quality education for each student is a promise I can make to every community in Indiana.

My vision assures taxpayers that their local school boards, administrators and educators will work with parents and others to get the best education their tax dollars can buy. The constant funneling of decisions about curriculum, calendars and teacher competency up to the state level must stop. Local control best serve communities, schools and students.

I am calling for an independent audit of all DOE data analysis. I know of memos from IDOE to school corporations instructing the manipulation of alternative assessments for special needs students. I know school districts can’t verify student growth in-formation to validate their accountability grades. The education community has lost faith in DOE’s ability to calculate the scores. At a time when data is used to make every decision, it is vital that the math is correct. Tony’s A-F system is so complicated, even his own staff doesn’t understand it, so how do taxpayers know the truth about education in Indiana?

This flawed A-F system must be replaced. I will work with the members of the legislature, local school boards, parents and educators to replace this system with a system that will be easy for all parties to understand. Taxpayers will see how the assessments are constructed and the role each factor plays in evaluating student progress and school per-formance. Resources will be directed to solve problems on every level.

Flawed A-F system must be replaced

Student academic performances were weighed heavy in school letter grades Most Ind. schools receive As and Bs, Dearborn Co.also has some Cs and Ds

School report cards

Sunman-Dearborn Community School Corporation

North Dearborn Elem. 3.25 B B B

S-D Middle School

Bright Elem.

S-D Intermed. School

East Central HS

Sunman Elem.

South Dearborn Community School Corporation

Moores Hill Elem.

Manchester Elem.

Dillsboro Elem.

SDHS

SD Middle School

Aurora Elem.

Lawrenceburg Community School Corporation

Central Elem.

L’burg Primary School

G’dale Middle School

L’burg HS

More than 61 percent of In-diana’s schools received A or B letter grades for the 2011-2012 school year, Superinten-dent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett announced at the Wednesday, Oct. 31, State Board of Education Meeting.

In total, 40.9 percent of schools earned As, 20.1 percent of schools earned Bs, and 20.3 percent of schools earned Cs. Only 18.6 percent of schools earned D or F grades, similar to last year’s percentage and lower than in the 2009-10 school year. This year, 207 schools received As for the first time.

“These fair and compre-hensive measures of school performance demonstrate that school leaders and teachers are focusing on the skills our stu-dents need to succeed in their academic and professional ca-reers,” said Bennett. “The re-sults of our new approach to grading schools are already making a measurable difference in student performance, and Indiana’s educators should be celebrated for their hard work and success.”

In addition, 28 schools re-ceiving Fs for the 2010-11 school year earned Cs or higher this year; eight of those schools each moved from F to A. Over-all, 43 schools moved up at least three letter grades. Since 2009, the IDOE has increased support for struggling schools, dedicating almost $128 million to low performing schools to help them implement dramatic and comprehensive improve-ment plans.

Sunman-Dearborn Middle School, whiched moved from a D to an A, was one of seven Southeast Indiana schools rec-ognized by Bennett for signifi-cant gains.

This year, new metrics mak-ing use of the latest advances in measuring student academic performance were used to cal-culate school grades.

At the elementary and mid-dle school level, the Indiana Growth Model factored heavily in to the scores of many schools demonstrating progress toward closing the achievement gap or strong overall academic growth. At the high school level, col-lege and career readiness indi-cators, such as Advanced Place-ment success, factored in to the grades.

The U.S. Department of Edu-cation granted Indiana a waiver for increased flexibility from certain provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act based on the quality of IDOE’s ap-plication, which included these new accountability metrics. This waiver allowed Indiana to remove the Adequate Yearly Progress cap that kept many successful schools at the C level year after year.

The new category place-ments provide several relevant examples of local success that should guide school leaders looking to focus on the skills and instructional priorities that drive academic results. Of particular interest is the large

number of high poverty schools making significant gains this year over 2011.

Overall, 84 percent of schools improving at least three letter grades met federal free and reduced lunch Title 1 require-ments. Many of these schools earned bonus points for driving student growth—a measure not considered in Indiana’s previous school accountability metrics.

About the A through F Accountability Model

Beginning with the 2010-2011 school year, the SBOE changed labels for school cat-egories based on student perfor-mance from the terms Exem-plary Progress, Commendable Progress, Academic Progress, Academic Watch and Academic Probation to easy-to-understand letter grades (A, B, C, D and F).

The A through F labels have improved transparency by al-lowing parents and community members to better recognize how Indiana schools are per-forming.

Following the move to A through F letter grades, the SBOE also adopted a new methodology for determining grades for schools and school corporations. This new method-ology holds schools and school corporations to higher standards and provides a more accurate picture of their performance by incorporating student academic growth and graduation rates as well as college and career readi-ness indicators.

Letter grades for high schools are calculated based on perfor-mance (Algebra 1 and English 10 End of Course Assessments), student improvement, gradua-tion rate, and college and ca-reer readiness indicators (such as Advanced Placement, In-ternational Baccalaureate and industry certification exams or earning college credits). Letter grades for elementary and mid-dle schools are based upon Eng-lish/Language Arts and Math ISTEP+ performance, participa-tion and improvement as well as student growth.

The Indiana Growth Model tracks the progress of students from year to year and recogniz-es dramatic gains in proficiency regardless of whether students “pass” or “fail” a test.

Know the scoreFor 2011-12, English, math,

and graduation rate each consti-tute 30 percent of the final score while college and career readi-ness comprise the remaining 10 percent.

Each score is multiplied by its weight and then all four scores are added together to generate the school’s overall score which is then translated into a grade.

Beginning with the 2012-13 grades, the CCR weighting will increase by five percentage points each year while the Eng-lish and math weighting shall each decrease by 2.5 percent-age points annually.

Private Schools

2012SchoolPoints

2012SchoolGrade

2010SchoolGrade

2011SchoolGrade

School

4 A D D

4 A A C

2.75 C B A

3.50 B B A

3.55 A C F

St. Paul School

St. Mary School

St. Lawrence School 4 A A A

4 A A A

2 C D A

4 A C C

3.75 A A A

2.50 C A A

1.25 D D D

3.15 B C F

2.50 C A C

3.25 B C F

2.50 C A D

1 D D A

1 D D C