Nashville parents and education leaders want the new School Letter Grades to consider student circumstances

Nashville parents and education leaders provided a wide variety of concerns for the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) to consider as it creates a new system to provide an A through F letter grade to public schools.TDOE plans to roll out the School Letter Grades to the public in November and the department has spent the last few weeks hosting town hall events across the state to gather input.Wednesday night’s meeting in Nashville brought concerns from Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) about the timing of implementation.“Now that we have the testing debacles behind us and that we have data coming on a regular basis, there seems to be a rush to put a model in place without any of us really understanding what it’s gonna be and getting that first report card in a public manner,” said MNPS Chief of Academics and Schools Mason Bellamy.District staff also expressed concern that the school grading system might put demoralize teachers if their school is given an “F.”TDOE Chief of Staff Chelsea Crawford responded that this new school accountability will come with responsibilities for both school districts and the state.“That’s the ‘then what’ piece,” said Crawford. “What are we going to do as a department to show up for schools and districts? And I know that you and the district community are thinking about the same thing for your schools and for your teachers and your families as well and so in some ways, we’re all in this together in terms of implementing this law as we move forward through the fall.”Other members of MNPS staff expressed a need to ensure the accountability system will evaluate schools meaningfully and fairly and consider student circumstances.MNPS Executive Director Dr. Paul Changas said it’s important that the school grading system takes into consideration the correlation between achievement and socioeconomic status. Schools with students from a higher economic status generally have higher achievement.“First, let me say, I appreciate the challenge that you have in putting together a fair and equitable accountability system. It’s not a level playing field, our students come to us at very different places in terms of past experiences, prior achievement, the resources available, the funding available to schools vary,” said Changas.The importance of incorporating growth, in addition to achievement, into the School Letter grades has been a frequently referenced topic during prior TDOE’s town hall meetings and MNPS wasn’t alone in expressing the concern Thursday.Education Trust Tennessee member Breanna Sommers added that it’s important to prioritize growth to offset the disparity with achievement.“Proficiency is highly correlated with socioeconomic status, and it can create negative incentives to focus on certain groups of students versus all of our students,” said Sommers. “On the other hand, growth accounts for differences in student demographics as well as school effects and can create positive incentives for all of our teachers and schools to work hard towards the accountability system.”Summers provided one specific recommendation to improve the fairness of the rating system itself. She believes all schools should be eligible to receive an “F” rating, instead of just those that are low performing priority schools.Others discussed the need for the new system to provide more than one rating for schools.Ashley Gish told the department she believes this will add transparency because it gives parents like her a more complete understanding of how the school is doing.“I think parents want nuance. We want to understand the whole picture of a school and how they’re performing and so I think really showing that in a detailed way would be much more helpful for parents. Really, I as a parent want to see how a school is going to serve my child as a whole person and not just the achievement scores,” said Gish.Other parents expressed concerns that the School Letter Grades will be fair, meaningful, and easy to understand for immigrant families and those who speak English as a second language.Community member Francisco Moreno compared the score to a Yelp rating, saying that the letter grades should be just as simple without all the different jargon clouding the meaning.“I wouldn’t want the scored letters to be diluted down or watered down by the ability to speak because then as an immigrant, I would look at the scores and I would be like, ‘oh, that is a B school,’ but in reality, it’s not that the students have growth and achievement, it’s just that the score is being pushed up because there’s too much of a population that arrive without knowing English,” said Francisco Moreno. “We need to convey, especially to immigrant populations, which are less informed and often less sophisticated about TCAP scores and other complex things, and just give them a letter, ABCD or F, that they can easily understand and that they know is not watered down.”The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation creating the School Letter Grades in 2016 but the state has repeatedly delayed the roll-out for a variety of reasons including the pandemic.TDOE will continue to accept public comment submissions on School Letter Grades until September 15.