A to F: Failing Our Schools

The best that can be said of awarding A to F grades to schools is that this so-called system consistently fails to say anything meaningful about the quality of public education. It is simplistic and vastly mischaracterizes school quality. A lot worse can be said, too.

The claim, still on view on the Indiana Department of Education website, that this spurious system is a “model [that] holds schools and corporations to higher standards and provides a more accurate picture of their performance by incorporating student academic growth and graduation rates, as well as college and career readiness, as measures of success” is sheer nonsense.

For the most part, the A-F scheme merely reifies what we already know—and ignore—about the effects of poverty on education. Researcher David Berliner*, for example, identifies common poverty-related factors that significantly affect children’s health and learning, and thus limit what schools can accomplish: 1) low birth weight and nongenetic prenatal influences; 2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often because of little or no medical insurance; 3) food insecurity; 4) environmental pollutants related to substandard living environments; 5) family relations and family stress; and 6) neighborhood characteristics. These factors correlate to many poverty-induced physical, sociological, and psychological problems that children bring to school and manifest in issues such as attention disorders, absenteeism, linguistic delays, and bad behavior.

Given what we know and ignore about the influence of poverty on “student academic growth and graduation rates,” the A-F scheme is draconian, having the effect not of improving schools but, to the contrary, holding down those whom it aims to lift up. So-called failing schools are almost invariably those with large numbers of students from impoverished backgrounds. Ask any realtor whether an F school is likely to encourage higher home prices. Go ahead. Ask. The effect of labeling—not actually assessing the quality of—schools as “failing” simply stamps “Poor” on the neighborhood. And that’s the way the corporatist bureaucrats want to keep it.

This is important stuff: the manipulation of public education to serve the ends of corporatist greed and societal stratification under the guise of “improving” education. Indeed it was important enough for Indiana’ previous schools superintendent to falsify the grade given to a supporter’s charter school, changing it from a mediocre (and thus unacceptable) C to an A. What are friends for if they won’t lie for you, even if it results in a subsequent scandal and job loss?

Let’s admit that grading schools is really about labeling communities and ensuring that privileged enclaves remain exclusive and about keeping the poor in their place.

*David C. Berliner. “Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success.” National Education Policy Center, March 9, 2009.