Michigan Needs an A-F School Accountability Measurement System

Becky Carlton
May 1, 2017 5:00:00 AM

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Michigan has a long history of providing information on school performance to the public, but as a state we have yet to provide meaningful information to those that have the most to gain from it – parents looking to gather all of the available information about a school in order to make the right decision for their child’s education.


As the state looks to determine how it will fulfill the responsibility to provide the public with this critical information, we must all insist that the infamous color-coding and top-to-bottom lists be a mistake of the past. In Michigan we need a simple, clear A-F school grading system that makes it easy for parents to see the performance of a school at a glance (i.e. if your school is an “A,” you are a higher performing school, in contrast, an “F,” you would be considered to be low performing).

 Wouldn’t it be easy and quick to understand how your school is performing based on the same way your school grades your child’s performance?

 In polls across the state, parents have already asked for this clear, simple school grading system. But, with the exception of the city of Detroit, lawmakers still aren’t sure that schools should have clear measures, which is like saying a quiz will be graded for only 10% of the kids in class and we’ll assume the other 90% did great.

School choice is built on the foundation that parents, like you, make the best choices for their kids. And here at MAPSA, we support that. Nonetheless, as a great consumer in perhaps one of the most important decisions determining a child’s future, parents need information. The A–F school measure makes sense.

Every child, despite where they live, deserves to attend a school that works hard every day to improve their grade. We must always remember to put kids first!


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