Beech Tree News Network

The state’s education secretary wants to see Kentucky schools be given A to F grades under its rede­signed accountability system, say­ing that having the report card­style labels will be clear and easy for parents and the community to understand.

Hal Heiner, Kentucky’s Educa­tion and Workforce Development Secretary, lobbied for the A-F grad­ing system during Wednesday’s state Board of Education meeting. He said he’d like to see the letter grades in addition to a proposed dashboard that would show the community multiple measures of how a school and its students are performing.

The A-F grading system for schools and districts is already in place in several states, including In­diana and Florida, but the idea is not universally loved. Kentucky’s educa­tion commissioner, Stephen Pruitt, who runs the Ken­tucky Department of Education, has previously said he does not par­ticularly like such A-F systems, saying he’s more of a proponent of a dashboard presentation of school results.

Kentucky and states across the country are in the midst of revamping their school and district accountability systems in light of the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act. 

The federal law is meant to give states more control in how to handle some education issues, including how states measure schools’ and students’ success. 

Kentucky and other states have until September 2017 to submit their new accountability systems to the U.S. Department of Education. Kentucky is expected to make details about its new accountability system open for public review and comment early next year. 

Since the Kentucky Department of Education is still working on formulating its accountability model, it’s too early to say exactly how it will look. The state has held dozens of meetings across the state to get feedback and suggestions. 

It is unclear whether state working groups looking at the accountability system have taken up the idea for rating Kentucky schools on an A-F scale. 

Opponents of such scales for schools say they can be too reductive, putting labels on a school without telling more about what is going on within its walls. 

Proponents say they provide an easy-to-understand metric for parents to understand school performance. 

Heiner also said that earning an A grade could give the school a sense of pride while earning an F could be a catalyst to get the community to rally around the school. He dismissed what he said were criticisms that giving a school an F tells the children at the school that they are failures. 

“It is time for Kentucky to adopt an accountability system that is honest about schools’ performance,” Heiner wrote in a prepared statement to the state Board of Education. He called the A-F system one that has “maximum transparency.”

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Date: 12-08-2016

By Allison Ross

The Courier-Journal

Kentucky Press News Service