Bloomfield Hills Schools Among Districts to Question New State Scorecards

The Michigan Department of Education on Tuesday released ratings for school districts and schools across the state using a new system called School Accountability Scorecards. The standards are used to help keep more than 3,000 schools across the state accountable under the controversial No Child Left Behind legislation.

Search the new database for your school and other schools around the state.

The system replaces the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards, which the Bloomfield Hills Schools met as a whole last year. 

Despite the overall scores and performance in other leading achievement indicators,  the MDE's school report cards in 2012, showed three schools fit the 'Focus' category due to wide achievement gaps.

The district overall finished with 81 of a possible 120 points, good for a yellow designation in the new system. The yellow was very common for district's statewide, including typical high-achieving neighbors like the Birmingham Public Schools and Troy Public Schools. 

Yet Lahser High School received a red designation, earning 36 of 68 possible points. The school finished in the 84 percentile of schools in the state and is now a 'focus' school, according to the MDE.

Defining results

Aside from that, the data shows some glaring discrepancies. 

For example, each of the district's 'reward' schools, those in the top 5 percent in achievement in Michigan, has a yellow designation. Way Elementary and Conant Elementary finished in the 98th percentile and 96th percentile respectively in the state, and still didn't crack the top two color categories. 

Glass explained that it only takes one subgroup to be off track to reach 85 percent proficiency or to not test over 95 percent to prevent a school or district from receiving higher than yellow.

He said he feared that that alone could skew perceptions about a school and district without consideration for the type of instruction occurring in the buildings. 

"That is not only somewhat confusing and conflicting, but might make someone just looking at the color believe that a school or district is not of high quality, when in fact it is," he said in an email to Bloomfield-Bloomfield Hills Patch.

The new scoring system is very complex and does provide feedback about areas that districts need to improve in, Glass said. But parents and local residents should understand some drawbacks.

"I’m concerned that the effect of the ‘audit checks’ that dramatically affect a school or district’s color will cause the average citizen to look at the color designation and falsely attribute poor quality to a school or district," he said. 

Meeting Goals

Whether or not they agree with how the system evaluates progress, districts will have to pay attention. State officials made it clear the government intends to use the new color codes to chart improvements and see how the districts uses the tool to identify strengths and weaknesses.

“It provides greater transparency and detail on multiple levels of school performance,” State Superintendent Mike Flanagan said in a written statement.

“This is expected to have schools focusing on every student’s academic growth,” he continued. “We believe that every school can reach these goals.”

Birmingham Public Schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad said he wasn't so sure the data represents information the district didn't already know and began to address.

"As a district, prior to these scorecards, we knew what our strengths were and where our challenges were relative to student achievement," he said in an email to Birmingham Patch. "There are numerous challenges in attempting to discern what the scorecard data means."