Sunday: Oklahoma A-to-F method differs from other states'
BY ANDREA EGER & KIM ARCHER World Staff Writers
Saturday, October 13, 2012
10/13/12 at 3:01 PM
Local school leaders who are advocating for change say neither Florida nor any other states who followed Florida’s lead in adopting an A-to-F school grading system calculates student growth the same way Oklahoma does.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education’s calculation of average student growth has become the primary dispute of a coalition of more than 300 Oklahoma school superintendents. That average is the bar against which all public schools are measured for nearly 20 percent of their grade.
School officials dispute the state’s method, which throws out the scores of all students whose scores remained the same or decreased from the previous year. The state Board of Education agreed that this was a valid question and has delayed the release of grades until at least Oct. 25.
Larry Smith, assistant superintendent for district accountability at Tulsa Public Schools, has spent the last week studying the A-F grading systems in 10 other states, as well as the one used in New York City. He couldn’t find another state that is using a state average to hold schools accountable for student growth.
Read more in Sunday's World.
