Rhode Island’s public schools were all recently graded on their performance in the 2023-24 school year, and Lisa Schultz, Warwick Public Schools director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, presented the district’s reaction to the state’s accountability scores for each school in the district last Tuesday.
Schools are graded on a scale of one to five stars in up to five categories – School Quality and Student Success, Achievement and Growth, Graduation Rate, Diploma Plus...
This item is available in full to subscribers.
If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
|
Rhode Island’s public schools were all recently graded on their performance in the 2023-24 school year, and Lisa Schultz, Warwick Public Schools director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, presented the district’s reaction to the state’s accountability scores for each school in the district last Tuesday.
Schools are graded on a scale of one to five stars in up to five categories – School Quality and Student Success, Achievement and Growth, Graduation Rate, Diploma Plus Measures and English Language Proficiency – and rated based on their lowest score in the categories where they received grades.
The state Department of Education released the annual scores last month.
Most of Warwick’s schools sit at a three-star ranking. Sitting below them at two stars are Oakland Beach and Wyman elementary schools, Warwick Vets Middle School and both Pilgrim and Toll Gate high schools.
Winman Middle School, though, was one of two schools in the district to move up a star from the previous year.
The school’s rise from two to three stars was particularly notable, Schultz said, considering that middle and high schools often score lower and, due to their high enrollments, are harder to move upwards.
Scott Elementary School is still leading the way for Warwick as the only four-star school, with Schultz saying it was on the cusp of becoming the city’s first five-star school.
However, Schultz said a few of Warwick’s other elementary schools are nearing four stars as well.
“Robertson Elementary, for the first time, Greenwood Elementary and Holliman have had so much growth that they’re right at the cusp of meeting four,” Schultz said. “We’re talking within a point or two away from it. These are things that we can definitely see in the next couple of years, if not next year.”
The other school to move up is Lippitt Elementary School, which rose from a two-star to a three-star school.
Schultz said she was particularly proud of Lippitt.
“They were on the cusp of a one just last year,” she said. “So the fact that they were able to move that much in one year, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Wyman Elementary School, on the other hand, dropped from a three-star to a two-star school after a stumble in the school’s “Achievement and Growth” scores.
Schultz said she is confident that Wyman can rebound and earn three stars again next year, noting that the school was still right on the border between two and three stars.
Among Warwick’s two-star schools, Toll Gate High School and Oakland Beach Elementary moved up from one star to two in RIDE’s 2022-23 report.
Toll Gate, Schultz said, was particularly notable, as the only category where the school fell short of 3 stars was English Language Proficiency.
RIDE’s rating system has raised questions about fairness for grading schools with a large number of multilanguage learners – students learning English as a second language – only in their English Language Proficiency category. Critics say that restriction, combined with schools being graded based on their lowest star ranking, punishes schools for having larger number of students who speak English as a second language.
Of Warwick’s schools, each of its secondary schools and Holliman, Robertson, Oakland Beach and Scott elementary schools are judged by that category, while the other nine elementary schools are not, though RIDE noted that Greenwood, Norwood and Cedar Hill are nearing the number of multilanguage learning students to be graded differently.
School Committee member David Testa criticized the state’s scoring system, which he said unfairly punishes schools by judging them by their worst aspects, rather than averaging out each school’s scores across the categories.
“The star system is extremely misleading, and the part that frustrates me the most is that’s what people look at, right?” Testa said. “If anybody had a performance review at their job where you’re only as good as your lowest score, you wouldn’t like that too much.”
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here