The formula is 80% achievement and 20% growth.

Ridiculous.

A school’s grade on its report card is mostly based on standardized test scores. Name another state that does that.

Still waiting.

Anyone who has followed the use of these school performance grades knows that the only real metric that gets measured accurately is how much those grades reflect poverty rates in schools.

From earlier this month in the Charlotte Observer:

Those trends have been in place since the school performance grading system began.

And now we get this bit of publicity:

Look at that again:

“We need to redefine school accountability and rethink what student testing looks like.”

School performance grades are largely measured by EVAAS and EVAAS is a product of SAS and SAS controls a lot of what happens in DPI. Just look.

But it’s what the public sees that is concerning because not everyone knows what happens behind the scenes.

The state pays more than four million dollars annually to SAS which was co-founded and is still run by Jim Goodnight who according to Forbes Magazine is one of the top donating executives to political campaigns. In 2016 he donated much to a PAC for Jeb Bush who while in Florida instituted the school performance grade system that North Carolina uses now – the same one that utilizes EVAAS reports to measure schools.

It also is worth looking at the fact that his wife, Ann Goodnight, is a co-founder and board member of BEST NC. When BEST NC had its 2018 legislative meeting, it brought in the toxic Michelle Rhee and her campaign for value-added measurements to discuss policy. That “closed-door” meeting was held at SAS headquarters.

That new recent principal pay schedule that has garnered well-deserved criticism was spearheaded by BEST NC with legislators behind the scenes over the summer of 2018 utilizes EVAAS data.

BEST NC also has had more than a big hand in the recent teacher licensure and pay proposal that is being ever more revealed as a political ploy by advocates such as Justin Parmenter. His recent work is must-read material.

Oh, and that new licensure/ teacher pay plan? It uses EVAAS scores to measure teachers.

And the Goodnights helped to finance Truitt’s last campaign to become the state super.

AND IN ALL OF THIS TALK ABOUT REDEFINING SCHOOL PERFORMANCE GRADES, TRUITT STILL HAS NOT ANNOUNCED ANY COMMITMENT TO THE LEANDRO COURT DECISION.

If Truitt is really going to redefine accountability and those school performance grades, she will have to acknowledge that how she has been criticizing schools and teachers over the last few years has been through an erroneous lens.

She will have to reassess how much EVAAS has wrongly measured our schools and our teachers.

I highly doubt she will ever do that because her allegiance to SAS and other private entities seems to far outweigh her concern for public schools and educators.