Sen. Joe Bellino votes against bill to repeal A-F public school ranking system
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Michigan could see the A-F grading system to rank public schools eliminated under a bill approved by Senate Democrats and headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
House Bill 4166 would repeal the current grading system while preserving the current index system that measures school performance. While it passed with a party-line vote in the state Senate, it received bipartisan support in the state House.
Bill sponsor and former teacher state Rep. Matt Koleszar described the A-F system as placing a "punitive label" on schools that is redundant with the statewide index in a floor speech before the bill passed the state House.
Republican opponents, including Sen. Joe Bellino Jr., R-Monroe, said that the bill headed to Whitmer will take away from parents an easy-to-understand tool to evaluate school performance.
“An effective education is critical to a child’s future success, yet this bill does nothing to help kids learn, address learning loss due to the pandemic or improve student performance,” Bellino said in a news release after voting against the bill. “Rather than helping empower parents to make informed decisions about their children’s education, the Democrats are trying to repeal a transparent and easy-to-use system that allows parents to see how well their local schools are doing.”
Representatives from the Michigan Department of Education testified in support of the bill during a recent Senate Education Committee hearing. Teachers and school officials also indicated support for the bill with the Michigan Association of School Boards, Michigan Education Association and the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators expressing approval to the committee, according to meeting minutes.
In 2018, former Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, approved the A-F system passed by Republican lawmakers during a lame-duck legislative session.
"The rammed through at lame duck in the wee hours of the night A-F law created a duplicative, confusing system that received bipartisan opposition and passed the House by the narrowest of margins," Koleszar said in a floor speech.
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Michigan's school index system — which would remain intact if the A-F system is repealed — is designed to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requiring every state to have an accountability system for public schools. It includes data about each school and assigns points based on factors such as chronic absenteeism, graduation rate and English learner progress.
The school index system provides sufficient information about schools' performance, said state Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, in a floor speech Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Bellino votes against bill to change Michigan school grading system
