Feasel 1 Caitlyn Feasel Professor Gonsior WRT 1010, Section 30 5 December 2013 Color-Coding System Fails Inspection Most

people relate to green as being good and red as being bad, but exactly how good and how bad are those colors? School officials are posing this same question after the release of the color-coded accountability system now being used for rating the performance of schools throughout Michigan. This system, which uses the colors green, lime, yellow, orange, and red to rate schools, supposedly allows for parents to have a better understanding of how well a school district is ranked. Although this system was originally designed to allow the public to better understand the abilities and disabilities of Michigan schools, it fails to clearly communicate the strengths and weaknesses of different schools to Michigan parents and should be replaced with a more recognizable A-F system. Those who support the color-coded system believe that it is a way for parents to simply look at a chart and determine if their child should attend or continue to attend a certain school (Rainbow). However, this chart can be confusing. A green ranking means that the school or district accumulated at least eight-five percent of the potential points, lime: seventy to eighty-five percent, yellow: sixty to seventy percent, orange: fifty to sixty percent, and red: less than fifty percent (State Releases). The color orange is not a color that is commonly associated with a ranking or grade. Knowing that a school is ranked at the orange level means nothing to parents who do not do research what that type of ranking indicates. The system is also more complicated than it seems because it involves several mathematical equations that are used to decide the color

Feasel 2 grouping in which a school or district belongs (Rainbow). Parents will not know the formulas or the meanings behind the ratings just by glancing at a color, which is why several groups such as the Detroit Parent Network, Michigan Democrats for Education Reform, and Excellent Schools Detroit are signing a letter in the hopes that government officials will develop an A-toF grading system that is ambitious but rooted in reality (Murray). A system that assigns letter grades to schools and school districts would be an easier way for parents to understand how well a certain school performs in various areas. Not only is the color-coding system too complex and too confusing to be immediately understood by the public, it can also be misleading to those who do not conduct further research. The opposing side suggests that the color-coded accountability system provides greater transparency and detail on multiple levels of school performance (State Releases). This view claims that the color-coded system accurately and easily displays the performance of schools throughout Michigan. In reality, this system unfairly punishes whole districts with a bad ranking if one or two of its schools receives a yellow, orange, or red ranking. For example, in Garden City, Michigan, only two schools in the district are assigned red rankings, causing the entire district to be ranked red, regardless of how highly ranked the rest of the schools in that district are (Buck). A parent looking at the color of that district may decide to send his or her child to an entirely different district, not knowing that only two of the schools in that area ranked poorly. An A-F system must be employed for individual schools, not districts as a whole, in order for the public to receive a true understanding of the schools in that area. Assigning a negative ranking for an entire district causes parents to feel negatively about every school in that area, regardless of the schools individual success. Just as a small number of schools can downgrade a whole district, a small portion of students can negatively affect the ranking of an entire school.

Feasel 3 Supporters of the color-coded system agree with the fact that the ranking should be partly based on how well the lowest thirty percent of students improve their skills throughout the year (State Releases). They believe that schools should be judged on how well they can motivate students who are currently receiving below-average grades. While schools should always be encouraging and motivating their students to strive for better grades, they should not be held accountable for how well or how poorly individual students perform in school. Some students may have outside factors affecting their grades, such as family problems, work, or illness. Schools cannot force students to do well or even want to do well. However, schools are still being evaluated on this topic according to the color-coded accountability system. Also, schools are being punished for allowing a large difference between the students with high grades and the students with lower grades (State Releases). This is another variable for which schools should not be held responsible. Some students are naturally more advanced than others and some have a more difficult time trying to excel in a school system. While students should always be encouraged to work more efficiently, schools should not be penalized for the students who are unmotivated and do not care about graduation or for the students who try their best but simply cannot achieve grades high enough to fill the gap between the lowest and highest ranking students. The color-coded accountability system may have inspiring aspirations, but in practice it is unable to simply, accurately, and fairly rank schools and school districts throughout the state of Michigan. Therefore, it is imperative that an A-F grading system is devised to rank school systems so that parents will have a simple and accurate way to understand how well different schools function. Educational groups have already begun to express their opinions about the flaws of this system, translating their unhappiness into action by signing a letter that will

Feasel 4 hopefully convince the government to change the school ranking system (Murray). Parents of school children should follow their example and begin writing letters of their own, demanding a less complicated and more accurate way to judge school systems. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of local schools allows parents to make the correct decisions as to where to send their children to school. Without a simple way to rank schools throughout Michigan, making this decision would be a difficult task for many parents. Therefore, parents whose children attend Michigan schools should demand an accurate A-F ranking system.

Feasel 5 Works Cited Buck, Sue. Garden City School Officials call Color Coding a Flawed System. Garden City Observer [Garden City, MI] 16 Oct. 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.

<http://www.hometownlife. com>. Murray, Dave. Parents Understand an A, but what about a Yellow on a School Report Card? The Flint Journal 11 May, 2012. NewsBank. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. Rainbow Rankings. The Herald-Palladium 23 Aug. 2013. NewsBank. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. State Releases 2012-13 Accountability Reports Including New Color-Coded Accountablity Scorecard to Support Educators and Parents. Michigan Department of Education. Michigan Department of Education, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.