Bill to repeal A-F public school ranking system headed to Whitmer

Michigan could see the A-F grading system to rank public schools eliminated under a bill approved by Senate Democrats and headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

House Bill 4166 would repeal the current grading system while preserving the current index system that measures school performance. While it passed with a party-line vote in the state Senate, it received bipartisan support in the state House.

Bill sponsor and former teacher state Rep. Matt Koleszar described the A-F system as placing a "punitive label" on schools that is redundant with the statewide index in a floor speech before the bill passed the state House.

Representatives from the Michigan Department of Education testified in support of the bill during a recent Senate Education Committee hearing. Teachers and school officials also indicated support for the bill with the Michigan Association of School Boards, Michigan Education Association and the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators expressing approval to the committee, according to meeting minutes.

In 2018, former Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, approved the A-F system passed by Republican lawmakers during a lame-duck legislative session.

"The rammed through at lame duck in the wee hours of the night A-F law created a duplicative, confusing system that received bipartisan opposition and passed the House by the narrowest of margins," Koleszar said in a floor speech.

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Republican opponents said that the bill headed to Whitmer will take away from parents an easy-to-understand tool to evaluate school performance.

"Our state's students get graded A-F on their report cards so that their parents know how they're doing in every subject," said state Sen. Ruth Johnson, R-Holly, in a floor speech. "Yet we stand here today poised in this body to pass a bill that says our schools that teach our state's children that are paid for by state tax dollars cannot be subjected to the same type of scrutiny. The only thing this bill accomplishes is to obscure information from the public by making it harder to understand."

Michigan's school index system — which would remain intact if the A-F system is repealed — is designed to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requiring every state to have an accountability system for public schools. It includes data about each school and assigns points based on factors such as chronic absenteeism, graduation rate and English learner progress.

The school index system provides sufficient information about schools' performance, said state Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, in a floor speech Wednesday.

Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan bill would repeal A-F public school ranking system