West Bloomfield Superintendent: Scorecard 'Somewhat Misleading'

Although there's "a whole lot of green" on new state scorecards for West Bloomfield Public Schools, the district's overall ranking is "somewhat misleading", Superintendent Gerald Hill said. 

The new scorecards take the place of report cards required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The state gives each school and district a color–green, lime, yellow, orange or red–based on the number of points received in various categories. Green represents the highest rank; red, the lowest. 

As an example, Abbott Middle School received an overall rating of orange, even though the school received green ratings in math, reading, social studies, science and writing, as well as its attendance rate, among all students. The school did receive red ratings across all those subjects for the bottom 30 percent of students, as well as in some subjects for African-American and economically disadvantaged students, as well as those with disabilities. 

According to a guide to the new scorecards, red cells lower the district's overall ranking in the overall audit of the scorecard, as well as in the loss of points that are attached to some of the categories. 

Hill pointed out that more than 70 percent of Michigan schools are rated yellow.

"If I'm the state Department of Education, I'd take a look at the process," he said. "That's a whole lot of students to categorize as mediocre." 

The district will have "public conversations" about how students are performing "across a wide range of indicators" to make sure the public has a more complete picture. He said the district has a number of success stories, including a 90-93 percent high school graduation rate among African-American students, compared with a statewide ranking of 60 percent in that group. 

That's the kind of information the public should know, Hill said, "so people recognize there's a lot of success happening. We have challenges we need to work on, but that does not negate the successes."