Mrs. House discussed the recent release of the State Report Card. She stated that the district’s graduation rate continues to be high, which earned the highest grade on the card. Mrs. House remarked that the district’s lowest grade, the grade of D for “Progress,” does not accurately reflect the actual progress made by our students.
For example, seventh graders take seventh grade accelerated math and pass the state’s seventh grade math test, and they progress from seventh grade accelerated math to the first year of high school math, effectively jumping one year ahead. But the report card doesn’t measure that growth accurately, instead reflecting those seventh graders’ progress in a negative number, which Mrs. House says is “absurd.”
“They went from seventh grade math to high school math but the state tells us they didn’t grow enough,” said Mrs. House.
On the ‘improving at-risk K-3 readers’ C-grade, Mrs. House said that districts often manipulate their scores to make them look better. "They can choose how many kindergartens to include as being on track or not on track. And if you choose not to report them, you don't have a grade in that," she said. "We don't do that."
By the time Milford students finish the third grade, 99.9 to 100 percent are meeting the third grade reading guarantee.
It has been the district’s decision to do what is right for students, not to hold students back to show improvement on the state report card, Mrs. House remarked.
“We will not hold back students to make our numbers look good,” she said.
Mrs. House said the district has to decide to continue to do what's right for individual students or to make decisions that "make the district look good." "There's really not a way to do both," she said. She said parents would be infuriated if their child was treated like a number and told that they could not take the courses they were ready to take because it might impact the district's overall grade on the report card.
The district received the following grades:
Achievement - C
Progress - D
Gap Closing - B
Graduation Rate - A
Improving At-Risk K-3 Readers - C
Prepared for Success - C
Overall District Grade - C
