Add this, subtract that, hold your tongue just right and rub your nose and pat your head — all while hopping on your left foot and humming the overture to Verdi's "Aida."
That's what some school officials say it's like in trying to apply the Indiana Department of Education's formula for assigning a letter grade to school buildings.
The DOE last week gave schools access to their performance scores from last year — and if they’re willing to jump through the hoops to figure out how to apply the formula they can arrive at what their letter grades are for the year.
South Knox superintendent Tim Grove said he’s never been notified by the state about how to compile his buildings' scores, but after some digging and calling other superintendents and principals, he was able to calculate an unofficial score for both of his buildings.
The elementary got an A while the junior high/high school a “high D.”
“I have to thank elementary principal Mr. Drew for sharing some information with me,” Grove said. “Together we found the workbook and he was able to tell me where to find the formula and figure this out.
“This really illustrates the need for more communication between the state and the schools,” he said.
At North Knox, the elementary got a C; school officials wouldn't say how the junior high/high school did, partly because they just don't hold much stock in how the grades are calculated.
“I’m going to dance the dance to the song that’s playing, I just don’t put a lot of merit into these scores,” said superintendent Darrel Bobe. “I don’t know if a new formula is going to give any more benefit or better our scores — I’m not sure I’m sold on how they do any of it now, we’re just playing the game.
“No matter what we do, and I mean any school in Indiana, there are too many other parameters that take place to influence the credentials in the school performance than the standardized tests,” he said. “But it’s their system, I’m just not sure I buy into it.”
Part of the problem is that while there is one formula to use in figuring the letter grades, there are different ways schools align their grade levels: the traditional high school model is grades 9-12.
Corporations like North and South Knox have different, “non-traditional” grade structures than “traditional” Vincennes: both North and South Knox have junior high/high school buildings with grades 7-12.
The non-traditional schools end up getting penalized by the way the formula factors in graduation rates.
It all gets quite complicated, even to those directly involved, like North Knox Intermediate School principal Don Osburn.
“We’re still trying to work hard and improve, and maybe we did,” he said. “But what if I didn’t do this right, what if the state is going to take into consideration factors that aren’t available to me yet, I don’t know.
“The state has said they’re going to try to develop their plans and figure out what to do with the non-traditional standard schools, and one of these days they’ll inform us, I’m sure,” Osburn said. “But for now all we can do is continue looking around and trying to figure it out on our own.”
Grove said the problem basically comes down to too much politics in education — with students and their futures too often victimized by it all.
“Too often over the last few years with these legislative moves the students have become the pawns and the schools are forced to get defensive of what we’re doing and it interferes with the education,” he said. “The state just needs to find a way to tell us, accurately, what our schools need to do and then just let us teach.”