Schools brace for release of grades today

Stress levels and the stakes are high: cash for A's, shame for F's. And there will be some F's.

By STEPHEN HEGARTY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 12, 2002

Principal Fran Bain has crunched the numbers. She has studied test scores from last year and this year, and she has peeked at individual student scores.

Still she has no idea how her school in Palm Beach County will fare today when the state releases the new round of A-through-F letter grades.

Across the state, educators are fretting that the new grades could mean a cash windfall or embarrassment for their school. The stress level is higher than usual this year:

State officials have acknowledged there will be F-rated schools this year. But they are not saying how many or where.

Principals cannot guess their grades ahead of time. Under the old rules for calculating grades, educators could analyze FCAT test scores and guess, accurately, at their school grade. At the least, they could rule out an F grade. This year, guesswork is risky.

For 82 schools across the state, an F grade could be costly -- it could mean vouchers. Over the past three years, 82 schools have gotten F grades. Under state law, if a school gets two F's in four years, its students become eligible for a voucher to attend a private school.

"That's the reality we have to face; we could be a voucher school," said Bain, principal at Lincoln Elementary in Riviera Beach in Palm Beach County. "They could 'zero-base' the school. They could close the school down."

Lincoln Elementary got an F grade in 1999, the first year the state assigned letter grades to schools. Despite sizable gains in test scores, the school got D grades the next two years. Again this year, Lincoln students have made progress.

Bain doesn't know if it's enough.

"That's what's got all of us on pins and needles; we don't know anything" about the grade, said Bain, in her fourth year as principal. At Lincoln Elementary, 89 percent of the children are eligible for the federal lunch program -- an indicator of poverty. Ninety-six percent are African-American, and 2 percent are Hispanic.

In 1999, 52 children at two F-rated schools in Pensacola were given vouchers to attend private school. Those schools were chosen due to an F grade in 1999 and a designation as a low-performing school the previous year, before A-through-F grades.

Since then, no Florida schools have become eligible for vouchers.

Only one of the two original voucher schools still exists. One was closed down due to budget cuts and dwindling enrollment -- due at least in part to its voucher notoriety.

The release of the grades will reverberate through schools across the state.

Some will celebrate. They will get A grades or show enough improvement to qualify for school recognition money, worth $100 multiplied by the number of children in the school.

Many schools are worried that the new grading system will not be kind to them.

Hillsborough County has had concerns about stagnant academic performance at two schools: Robles Elementary and Oak Park Elementary. The district recently "reconstituted" those schools, changing their staff and the schools' missions and laying the groundwork for changes in their student populations. Superintendent Earl Lennard still is on record as offering to forfeit 5 percent of his $178,850 salary if one of his schools gets an F.

In Pinellas County, there is less concern about F's. But with "school choice" fast approaching, school officials hope no schools get dismal grades that will make them less attractive to parents shopping for the school of their choice.

The political reverberations will be considerable as well.

As Gov. Jeb Bush runs for re-election this year, he'll tout his four-year education record. But the most recent performance of Florida's public schools will be freshest in voters' minds. The contrast between last year (no F schools) and this year (some F's) might be problematic.

"I don't think a political consultant would have planned it that way," said Mark Musick, president of the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, which studies education issues in the Southern states. But, Musick said, there is some logic in having at least a few schools labeled as failing.

"I don't think the public believes there are no failing schools in Florida," Musick said. "For the sake of credibility, you have to acknowledge that some schools are failing. How many? More than zero. More than 1 percent."

The state changed the rules for calculating grades this year. In addition to this year's test scores, the calculations include a measure of learning gains from one year to the next and a specific measure of progress for the lowest-performing students.

State officials already have prepared for questions about what failing schools say about school accountability in Florida. Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan recently held a session for reporters in which he recalled the history of accountability in the state. The trend was obvious.

In 1995, the state labeled 158 schools as critically low-performing, a sort of a precursor to the failing label. The next year, the list was cut to 71 schools, to 30 schools the following year, and then to four schools in 1998.

The A-through-F grading system was introduced in 1999, when 78 schools got an F grade. That list dwindled to four in 2000. There were no F schools last year.

"Every time we've raised the bar as a state, once the screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth begins to subside . . . the system responds," Brogan said.

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