On Fridays, we Sign at Four
Gov. Ducey signed seven bills seemingly on his way out the door for the weekend, as the bills appeared as signed shortly before 5p. The signed bills are the ones we told you were sent to the governor on Monday:
HB2034 CTEDs; associate degrees (Udall)
HB2161 parental rights; schools; educational records (Kaiser)
HB2177 charter schools; fingerprinting; renewal; revocation (Udall)
HB2322 hazing; hazing paraphernalia; offense (Kavanagh)
HB2439 school library books; parental review (Pingerelli)
SB1327 alternative assessment advisory committee (Barto)
SB1654 schools; seizure management; treatment plans (Kerr)
State Board of Education Approves District/Charter Holder Letter Grade Methodology
“Methodology” isn’t really a good word for a headline, but letter grade formulas don’t lend themselves to pithy description. In addition to school letter grades, the accountability statute also calls for LEA (district/charter holder) letter grades. However, with all the flux in the assessment system, those grades have not been calculated in several years. The state board of education has a five year accountability plan which calls for these grades to be assigned next school year (2022-2023). Below is SBE’s own description of the formula:
“The formula for calculating A-F letter grades for LEAs (school districts and charter schools rather than just individual schools) was approved by the Board using “Straight GPA”. Under this model, individual schools within the LEA are awarded between 1 and 4 points depending on the individual school’s letter grade: A schools = 4 points; B schools = 3 points; C schools = 2 points; D schools = 1 point; and F schools receive no points. The points are then averaged across the LEA to generate a “GPA” that determines the LEA’s overall letter grade.”
The documents for the agenda item can be found here under item 5B, and you can watch the brief presentation by the Arizona Department of Education to the board here.
That’s pretty much all the news that’s fit to print on a Friday, so we will pick up on Monday when the Legislature returns to Phoenix. The Suns advanced to the second round of the NBA playoffs with a win last night, and will begin a series with the Dallas Mavericks on Monday evening. So let us be the first K-12 policy wonks to tell you “Go Suns.”