Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog had a range of reactions to the release of new school grades by the state Department of Education. Under its new College and Career Readiness Performance Index, DOE is grading schools on a 1 to 100 scale based on academic performance and student progress. Here is a sampling of comments:
Miltonman: Good-performing schools equal GOP-controlled areas. Poor-performing schools equal lib-controlled areas. Thanks, Fulton, for pulling down our stellar schools in the north of the county.
Math: Of course, none of this means a thing. If you have a child who is gifted, has autism, loves baseball, loathes math, devours science books, has exceptional artistic talent, etc., nothing about these rankings will tell you which school districts offer the programs that will be the best fit for your child.
Bama: Genetics, family dynamics and culture drive educational outcomes. You can control two out of three.
PhysicsTeacher: Check socio-economic status and you'll see a correlation between grades and parental income. Even better, check for parental involvement, and you'll see a pretty much cause-and-effect relationship. It has nothing to do with teachers or schools. Great teachers make a lasting "impression" on gifted students. Good teachers can elevate gifted students significantly, God-awful teachers can improve gifted students. Great teachers have a very small positive effect on ill-prepared students, bad teachers have little to no effect on ill-prepared students. Most teachers are like most professionals: They show up, do their jobs, go home and start all over again the next day. The only difference is the pay, working conditions and benefits — or lack thereof. It is what it is.
Mattie: All one has to do is drive through these areas to know what the scores are. The bad neighborhoods have low scores, and the nice neighborhoods have high scores.
LivingItDaily: It's hard to teach students who are more interested in their cell phones and social lives than their future career and college pathways. So many bright students are unmotivated and see no reason to learn what they can Google on a moment's notice. What's left are students unprepared for anything other than living at home with their parents.
Randall: Let's make sure the horse is before the cart. Poverty does not produce poor education. Poor education produces poverty. There are no Ph.D.s on welfare. The more you learn, the more you earn.
Redfin: In this high-tech age that demands higher education, we whistle and drink the Kool-Aid while politicians dumb the system down. The same group that structures the system acts dismayed when our politically correct beacon of democracy can't keep pace with the rest of the world. Common sense says that ability grouping is the only way to stabilize and start improving "our" educational system in relation to other nations around the world.
Sara: My kid's elementary school in Forsyth County got 95.9. I'm grateful we decided to take the loss on our house in Gwinnett and move to a better school district. I am always suspicious of these ranking systems because not-so-great schools can end up ranking higher than truly top schools due to all of these extra bonus points. I think it is deceiving.
