Commissioner issues recommendations for School Grades
7/12/2013
Florida Commissioner of Education Tony Bennett has issued his recommendations for adjustments to this year's school grades calculations in a letter to the State Board of Education today.
Due to concerns about the impact of a number of significant changes set to go into effect this year in how school grades are calculated, and feedback from several district superintendents that some changes were implemented too fast for districts to adjust to yet, the commissioner and state board convened a task force earlier this month to review the situation. Based on input from that task force and further feedback from districts around the state, the commissioner has issued the following recommendations:
- Transition safety net: The extension of a provision from last year's grading process that would prevent schools from dropping more than one letter grade regardless of total points earned.
- Revise inclusion of students in ESE centers: This would roll back for now a previous decision about the performance of students attending dedicated ESE centers. These scores now will not count toward any school grade.
If approved by the board, this means that the writing proficiency standard will go up to 3.5 but the safety net will likely prevent there from being as many F schools as this change was projected to create.
You can read the commissioner's full letter here. We will have more on this as it develops.
-- Jason Rose