Test scores are the single most important factor in how Missouri judges its public schools. But that wasn鈥檛 always the case.
Two decades ago, Missouri rewarded school districts with good marks if they got parents involved, offered a variety of extracurricular activities and had safe schools. Districts were applauded if they had deep financial reserves, a competent staff and a school board that got along well with administrators.
Today, none of those matter when it comes to grading Missouri schools. But many educators say they should.
With this intention, about 180 educators, state officials, legislators and business leaders are now working on changing Missouri鈥檚 public school rating and accreditation system 鈥 called the Missouri School Improvement Program 鈥 for the first time since 2011.
The rating system, which is in its fifth version, has generated quiet controversy for years, largely for one reason: Many say it disproportionately punishes high-poverty school districts while ignoring progress those districts make, whether it be in providing social-emotional services for students or improving a student鈥檚 performance over time.
People are also reading…
鈥淭here is a lot to a school district that is not captured in a set of tests,鈥 said Chris Neale, assistant commissioner for quality schools at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Officials are now working to move Missouri from a system that focuses only on outcomes, like raw test scores, back to one that gives districts credit for their investments and efforts. This could be a game-changer for high-poverty districts such as St. Louis Public Schools, Normandy and Riverview Gardens 鈥 all of which have lost state accreditation at one point 鈥 and charter school networks such as Confluence that feel their hard work is overshadowed by narratives of test score failure.
How dramatic this makeover will be remains to be seen. Test scores will likely remain the most important factor in grading schools, and it鈥檚 likely that none of the five criteria Missouri currently uses to grade schools will be removed: those are overall test scores, test scores for disadvantaged students, post-graduation placement and preparation, graduation rates and attendance.
But it鈥檚 possible Missouri will change the way it calculates scores from those criteria, what else is included in those criteria and what other factors it considers when compiling report cards on schools.
Supporters of testing say it is the ultimate tool for school accountability because it is quantitative and can be objectively measured, while relying on more qualitative measures like school leadership could run the risk of grading schools subjectively and to a lower standard.
The reason Missouri moved toward a performance-based rating system in the first place was to measure and ensure that students leave school actually prepared to enter the workforce and higher education.
"We should never lose sight of the fact that children who can't read and children who don鈥檛 have good numeracy skills are not going to be competitive," Neale said. "We do them no favors if we don鈥檛 equip them for that world after high school."
Local educators say that鈥檚 not the intent of reworking Missouri鈥檚 rating system.
鈥淚t really is not at all about skirting accountability or diminishing the role of test scores in determining school quality,鈥 said Mike Fulton, superintendent of Pattonville School District, who co-chaired that pushed for this revision of the rating system. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about determining the conditions in which each school district works.鈥
Focusing on tests
, its primary goal was to ensure schools were providing the services and resources needed for a good education. Schools were graded not by calculating scores with complex formulas, but by in-person school visits by state education officials and educators from peer districts.
Then in 1993, the Missouri Legislature passed the Outstanding Schools Act, which instructed state education officials to create a standardized test to measure student performance. Student performance began to count for the majority of a Missouri school rating by 2001, the same year the federal No Child Left Behind law was passed by Congress.
By 2012, Missouri school accountability was entirely based on student results, though not all of it on test scores. The inclusion of non-test criteria, such as attendance and graduation rates, is what enabled two high-poverty, previously unaccredited districts 鈥 and 鈥 to earn accreditation upgrades, despite having a majority of students who are not proficient on state standardized tests.
鈥淎t the request of the field, MSIP is wholly based on student performance,鈥 said Neale, who is leading the efforts to revise Missouri鈥檚 rating system. 鈥淲e also know now that in going to a strictly performance-based approach, we probably lost something.鈥
While most anyone will agree schools should have high test scores and attendance rates, relying on such outcomes when judging schools runs the risk of schools fixating on earning points and little else. It runs the risk of who are a few points below proficient, rather than all students.
Robbyn Wahby, executive director of the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, said she doesn鈥檛 want charter schools focusing on earning points.
鈥淚 want them to care about the kids in the school, and, did you get those kids as far as they could, as fast as they could?鈥
A 鈥榤ore accurate鈥 approach
. That鈥檚 because schools with students from impoverished backgrounds tend to have challenges that wealthier schools don鈥檛, such as higher rates of student mobility, homelessness and hunger.
Research has shown that . Schools with low scores often receive students who start school years behind in reading or math.
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 ask the question of, maybe I walked in at kindergarten and I didn鈥檛 know my ABC鈥檚, but I鈥檓 making a lot of progress in my learning,鈥 Fulton said. 鈥淏ecause we have no way to capture growth over time.鈥
Missouri school leaders want to see more credit given for student growth in the school rating system, which measures how much a student鈥檚 test scores improve over time.
Researchers say this is a better and more equitable measure of a school鈥檚 effectiveness, given that it acknowledges that students may be lagging in academics before entering the schoolhouse door.
, 68 percent of education researchers said growth is the best way to measure school quality. Only 9 percent said measuring proficiency is.
鈥淚t has been highly recognized as a more accurate representation of trying to isolate what schools are actually doing for kids,鈥 said Michael Hansen, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Districts can already earn points for student growth in Missouri鈥檚 accreditation system, but they can鈥檛 earn as many points for growth as they can for straight test scores.
Prioritizing growth could give higher ratings to districts such as Riverview Gardens, Jennings and Special School District, all of which received zero points for reaching proficiency targets in 2016 but earned all the points they could for growth.
But Neale cautions that, in emphasizing student growth, the state shouldn鈥檛 lower expectations for students of color or students from low-income backgrounds.
鈥淲hat you have to be careful of is that you don鈥檛 even provide by accident an excuse to say children of poverty can鈥檛 achieve, people of a particular racial or ethnic background can鈥檛 achieve,鈥 Neale said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want the unintended consequence of stigmatizing a community.鈥