An upgrade for a flawed idea

We give state legislators a D for passing a law demanding that every school in Virginia be labeled with an overly simplistic letter grade. We give Gov. Bob McDonnell an F for slapping grades on schools in February even though lawmakers decided to wait until fall 2014 so that the Board of Education had time to come up with a fairer system.

Members of the education board are pursuing an A-F grading method that shows improvement over the one McDonnell concocted this past winter. They are looking at growth measures such as how many elementary school students move to higher performance levels from year to year, and how many make significant progress within a performance level.

Growth measures are trickier for high schools because there are no annual reading and math tests, and students take different academic tracks, each with different curricula. Education board members are looking at other factors that could be incorporated into a grading scale, such as the number of students obtaining advanced studies diplomas and career credentials, the number of dual enrollment credits awarded to students and Advanced Placement results.

Board members are doing their best to address legitimate concerns raised by school superintendents across the commonwealth who fear that grades imposed on a school will do little more than signify how many of its students come from low-income homes.

That’s an issue for Roanoke City Public Schools, in which nearly three-quarters of students qualified for free and reduced-price lunches in the most recent academic year.

McDonnell’s hastily crafted grading system is a model for what the state board should avoid in coming up with a permanent grading system. Westside Elementary School in Roanoke got a D even though its English and math pass rates had shown double-digit improvements in recent years and its achievement gap between black and white students shrank.

The educators who sit on the state board can do better. But they also realize how difficult it is to come up with a system that is truly fair and still can be boiled down to a single letter. The question Virginians should be asking themselves is should the board be allowed to devote its time to more pressing priorities?

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