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BOE Votes To Prevent Major Drops In School Grades

After a debate that raised questions about the validity of Florida’s school grades, a divided state Board of Education on Tuesday approved a plan that will shield schools from steep drops this year in their closely watched grades.

The board, in a 4-3 vote, approved a recommendation by Education Commissioner Tony Bennett that will prevent drops of more than one letter grade. As an example, a school that received a B grade last year could only drop to a C when new grades are released later this month.

Bennett made the recommendation after school superintendents said they were concerned that grades could plummet this year for many schools. Superintendents pointed, at least in part, to repeated changes in the state’s school-accountability system — 13 this year alone — which they say have made it harder to meet standards and have created uncertainty.

Bennett, speaking to reporters before the board meeting, said his recommendation was part of an effort to prepare for a transition to what are known as the “Common Core Standards,” a major undertaking that will fully take effect during the 2014-15 school year. He said the recommendation to prevent steep drops in letter grades was only temporary and did not reflect a lessening of standards.

“I will hold fast that this should not be permanent and cannot be part of the permanent accountability landscape,” Bennett said.

But board member Sally Bradshaw, one of the dissenters, said limiting the drops in grades will disguise what is happening in schools and compromises the “rigor of our system.”

“Why are we going to mislead parents and the public on how their schools are doing?” asked Bradshaw, who served as a chief of staff for former Gov. Jeb Bush.

Other board members, including Chairman Gary Chartrand, who voted for Bennett’s recommendation, questioned whether the grading system remains statistically valid. Bennett said the system has become overly “nuanced” because of changes in calculations through the years.

“I don’t know that it’s a real measurement any more, I’m sorry to say,” said board member Kathleen Shanahan, who also is a former Bush chief of staff.

The A-through-F grading system was a high-profile part of Bush’s efforts to remake the public-school system after he took office in 1999. While critics have often questioned whether the grades give an accurate picture of what happens within schools, the grades have become an annual ritual and are watched by everyone from parents to real-estate salespeople.

Bush remains highly influential in state education policy, and the executive director of an organization Bush leads, the Foundation for Florida’s Future, urged the Board of Education to vote against Bennett’s school-grades recommendation.

In a letter to the board Monday, foundation Executive Director Patricia Levesque wrote that reading and math scores this year on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test “basically were stagnant” compared to last year.

“And when scores are stagnant, students are not making gains, schools will not earn credit for gains and school grades will drop,” Levesque wrote. “When this occurs it is not the fault of the grading scale, it is a result of low performance, not an encouraging sign as we prepare for Common Core. We have to do much better.”

But House Minority Leader Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, issued a statement after the meeting that described the board’s vote as a “welcomed move away from the education policy dictates of conservative ideologues.”

“I am pleased that four out of the seven state board members followed the advice of superintendents and public school experts who sought much-needed changes to Florida’s school grading formula,” Thurston said.

Bennett said he expects school grades to be issued by the end of July. Voting in favor of Bennett’s recommendation were Chartrand and board members Ada Armas, John Colon and Barbara Feingold. Joining Bradshaw and Shanahan in dissent was John Padget.

by Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida