Legislation has been flying through the Michigan Capitol as the Democrats take advantage of their majority to pass their platform policies. One item passed by the House Tuesday was one to repeal the state’s A-F letter grade system for schools.
This is not the letter grade system used for students but for schools. It was put into place in 2019 to help parents better understand how the schools are performing.
But school systems said the letter grade plan was confusing and not as comprehensive as the school index grade already used by the state.
The 1-100 index system is used by the Michigan Department of Education to measure school success and this bill will make it the only metric.
“Schools are still very much held accountable on the index system. If they are in the bottom performing school districts in the state, they still have to work on a plan with MDE to get you back up to par and that doesn’t change,” said Rep. Matt Koleszar, the Chair of the House Education committee. “That actually is exactly the same and if you look at the overlap between A-F and the index system, schools that were in the lower performing schools were essentially the same. It’s just now that MDE is the one working with them.”
The bill did receive seven Republican votes, all members of the House Freedom Caucus. It now heads to the Senate for approval.
