Some schools zero in on new grading system to make big gains

Understanding the score

The state’s new report card grades on a scale of 0 to 110. The overall score is made up of four components:

Achievement points are based on results of CRCT tests in grades 3-8 and end-of-course tests in grades 9-12, readiness for the next academic level, and graduation rates. Schools can earn up to 60 points.

Progress points are based on students’ academic growth on state tests. Worth up to 25 points.

Achievement-gap points are awarded to schools for closing achievement gaps. Worth up to 15 points.

“Challenge points” are awarded to schools with significant number of economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities meeting expectations, or if they exceed the state targets in college-ready programs. Worth up to 10 extra points.

Understanding the score

The state’s new report card grades on a scale of 0 to 110. The overall score is made up of four components:

Achievement points are based on results of CRCT tests in grades 3-8 and end-of-course tests in grades 9-12, readiness for the next academic level, and graduation rates. Schools can earn up to 60 points.

Progress points are based on students’ academic growth on state tests. Worth up to 25 points.

Achievement-gap points are awarded to schools for closing achievement gaps. Worth up to 15 points.

“Challenge points” are awarded to schools with significant number of economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities meeting expectations, or if they exceed the state targets in college-ready programs. Worth up to 10 extra points.

No one at Dorsett Shoals Elementary in Douglas County broke out the champagne last year when the school got a 70.2 on the state’s new performance grading system.

The grade meant Dorsett Shoals was average, ho hum; a ‘C’ school that stands out as much as single blade of grass amidst a lawn of green. Only no one at Dorsett Shoals saw the school as average. Not its teachers. And not its principal, Kacia Thompson.

Their vision of the school was affirmed Monday, when a newly released batch of scores showed Dorsett Shoals boosted its score to an 88.1 — the equivalent of a high ‘B.’

Dorsett Shoals officials, like some other schools across the state that initially got poor grades, used the index to make targeted changes. That’s what the state Department of Education was hoping would happen when it came up with the new grading system, called the College and Career-Ready Performance Index. It’s a gauge intended to let educators, parents and others know how good a job schools and districts do compared to others in the state.

Looking to give schools and districts more credit for helping students make progress, Georgia changed the formula for the grading system and then re-calculated the first batch of scores, which were based on the 2011-2012 school year.

Dorsett Shoal’s initial grade of 70.2 dropped to a 60.2. Now, with a 2012-2013 grade of 88.1, Dorsett Shoals’ improvement is one of the most dramatic in the state.

Only 53 schools in Georgia, roughly 2.2 percent of all schools, saw their grades rise by at least 20 points, an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows. Seventeen of those schools are in metro Atlanta, and 10 are in Atlanta Public Schools.

Big improvements, of course, can only be made if there is room to improve in the first place. A few APS schools have some of the lowest grades in the state. And that’s true even for some of those where grades rose sharply.

APS did not respond to multiple requests for comment on why so many of its schools made big gains. Atlanta’s test-cheating scandal involved the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, and CRCT scores are a major part of the state’s new index for grading schools. The APS cheating occurred long before the new statewide school report card was formulated, however. It is tougher to cheat today than it was in the past, given the new security measures put in place after the cheating scandal broke.

At Dorsett Shoals and other schools, officials described going through a sort of stages-of-grief process after getting poor 2011-2012 grades. Eventually, that process led to big improvements in their 2012-2013 grades. They focused on specific problem areas, just as state education officials had hoped they would when they came up with the grading system.

First, though, school leaders said they had to accept the pain of those old grades.

“We had to have some honest conversations,” Thompson said. “It’s easy to say, ‘It’s the students. It’s this. It’s that.’ We had to take a long, hard look at the data. We were upset by it.”

Robin Robbins, principal at Burgess-Peterson in Atlanta Public Schools, said she didn’t fully understand what went into her school’s 2011-2012 grade of 57.4, which was later recalculated to a 52.8. Third-, fourth- and fifth-graders were underperforming. After hiring two new teachers and reassigning four others in those grades, Burgess-Peterson’s score shore shot up to 85.2, the biggest jump in the state.

“As a principal, I had to understand the index itself,” Robbins said.

In the state’s index, which was introduced last year, test score data accounts for 60 percent of the grade a school or district gets. Student improvement accounts for 25 percent, and closing the gap in performance among groups of students accounts for 15 percent. Schools and districts can earn up to 10 extra points by enrolling students in high-level courses or through strong academic performances from low-income students, special education students and those still learning English.

The grades are supposed to be as easy to understand as those on a student’s quiz, where a grade in the 70s is average, one in the 80s is good and one in the 90s is exceptional.

Matt Cardoza, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the new system was designed to encourage educators to find ways to boost school and district grades.

“In this particular case, yes, game the system,” Cardoza said. “Game the system in a good way. By gaming the system, you’re making improvements by helping kids. That’s the way this thing was designed.”

Each school and district is given a breakdown of how it fared in the various areas that make up the overall grade. That allows them to zero in on an area of weakness.

For Dorsett Shoals, weaknesses were 5th-grade math and the gap in performance among different groups of students. Thompson said she looked into the school’s 2011-2012 score and noted that low CRCT math scores were a big factor in pulling down the school’s overall score. “We knew we had not done as well as we had expected,” she said.

But Dorsett Shoals had several arrows in its quiver. The school had won a federal grant that allowed it to offer additional after-school instruction to struggling students. And teachers rallied, determined to show that the low score was not an accurate reflection of the school.

They instituted a “math store,” where students could buy trinkets and gadgets with points they earn by getting good grades on tests and quizzes. The store has been a big hit with students.

Teachers collaborated more, helping each other with lesson plans and sharing ideas for how to teach tough subject material. When possible, teachers worked in smaller groups to help different groups of students.

Dorsett Shoals saw a jump in its 2012-2013 CRCT math scores, and school officials figured a boost in the school’s grade would follow.

They were right. Dorsett Shoals got more points in achievement, the area that includes test scores, and it got all of the available points for closing the gap in performance between different groups of students.

Candice Eckelberry, president of the Dorsett Shoals PTA and the mother of three children who have or are attending the school, said the new grade is a more accurate reflection of what she has seen there.

“We’re always striving to improve,” she said. “No matter what. I’m really excited that the scores have improved. I know the teachers and the students have been working really hard.”