Like other parents, Raquel initially assumed “AB” meant something akin to “halfway between A and B.”
We met Michael because his mother, Raquel, was a housekeeper at one of the New Orleans hotels that provides EdNavigator to its employees. In the past, Raquel had significant difficulties with the school enrollment system, which resulted in Michael and his siblings being scattered across several different schools. One of our first objectives was to consolidate the siblings as much as possible. Through this process, Michael moved to a new school early in his third grade year.
Michael’s new school, a charter school performing moderately well, had puzzling report cards. It aligned grades for each subject to the achievement levels on state tests rather than the more traditional A-F scale Raquel had always known. The highest grade, for instance, was “Advanced,” just like the highest possible score on LEAP, the test given annually to Louisiana students in grades 3–8. There were five possible grades, descending to “Unsatisfactory.”
This grading system may have made sense to school officials who were highly aware of the LEAP score categories, but Raquel found it terribly confusing, because “B” did not connote “above average,” as is typically the case. It stood for “Basic.” On a LEAP test, Basic was slightly below grade level. To further complicate matters, the school used the abbreviation “AB” for “Approaching Basic,” which was definitely below grade level. Like other parents, Raquel initially assumed “AB” meant something akin to “halfway between A and B,” a good grade.
The report card was all the more confusing because Michael, being only a beginning third grader, had not taken the state LEAP tests yet. He would take them for the first time in the spring of his third grade year. So his grades were being communicated in terms that had little relevance for him — or Raquel.
Even so, when viewed closely, Michael’s grades seemed to include good news. For the first two quarters of the year, he earned “Mastery” for math, indicating that he was fully able to do grade-level work. He had been at “Basic” for English Language Arts — within striking distance of grade level. It looked like Michael was doing pretty well at his new school.
But is that the full picture? Other data points in the report card suggest not. Michael’s school administered a national benchmark test, Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), three times each year. By the end of the second quarter, Michael had taken it twice. His scores, reported as percentiles that compared him to similarly-aged peers across the country, suggested he was far below average. His reading score was at the 7th percentile. His math score was at the 20th percentile.
Raquel was not familiar with MAP. No one at the school had ever explained it to her, nor had Michael mentioned taking the test. She could not recall having seen test results reported in percentiles before. She was accustomed to grades reported in percentages — like 72% or 83%. Even the abbreviation “%ile” was perplexing — more like a printing mistake than anything else. So she paid little attention to that part of Michael’s report card. She focused on his grades, which were slightly easier to understand and told a much rosier story.
So what was the truth? Well, according to data published by the non-profit organization that administers the MAP test, a student with Michael’s score in reading had approximately a five percent likelihood of passing the state test, LEAP, with a score of “Mastery” at the end of third grade. In math, Michael’s score gave him a one percent chance.
Michael was nowhere near grade level. His “Mastery” grades in math made little sense when compared to his entire body of work. He had not learned the key skills of third grade math. Likewise, in English Language Arts, Michael was barely a reader, functioning on a first grade level — already almost two grades behind where he should have been.
Michael was barely a reader, functioning on a first grade level — already almost two grades behind where he should have been.
But let’s review some reasons why Raquel might have believed Michael was doing just fine:
- He was receiving mostly positive grades, including quite good grades in math
- He had never taken the state tests, so Raquel could not compare his report card to those results
- Benchmark test data was provided, but was not easily understandable
- His report card contained no personalized comments or summary to help Raquel see the big picture
Raquel is not unusual. Parents put tremendous stock in report cards. When we recently surveyed EdNavigator-supported families in New Orleans about how they know if their child is on track in school, more of them cited report cards than any other source of insight. According to Learning Heroes polling data, they find them more credible than almost any other source of information. In this case, the report card seems to have obscured the picture rather than clarifying it.
This case study is one of a series in Muddled: How Confusing Information from Schools Is Failing American Families. Click on an image below to read more.
