You'll need to take some time to get a grip on what it all means.
By Times Staff Writer
Published August 29, 2004
What do all of these numbers mean?
Schools are arranged by attendance area and grade level (elementary, middle and high school). Fundamental, magnet and high schools draw from throughout the county. Within each attendance area, schools are grouped by the letter grades the state gave them. And within each of those subgroups, the schools are listed alphabetically. Although the school grades are listed for each of the last six years, the rules have changed annually, which makes year-to-year comparisons imprecise at best.
You might be tempted to look only at a school's letter grade. Don't. The other information tells you more about a school's performance. In fact, even all of these numbers are one step removed from the raw data of how a school performed on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. For that information, please consult the FCAT Web site, http://fcat.fldoe.org and start clicking away until you find the school you're looking for. If you don't have access to a computer, they are available at no charge in all public libraries.
In the broadest terms, under the state's grading system, a letter grade of:
"A" means a school scored 410 points or more.
"B" means a school scored 380 points or more.
"C" means a school scored 320 points or more.
"D" means a school scored 280 points or more.
"F" means a school scored fewer than 280 points.
(There are other things that factor into the grade, but the key number is a school's total points.)
Those total points come from adding up the first six columns of numbers in the chart. Not all students' FCAT scores count toward a school's grade. In general, students' scores counted if they had been at the same school in October and February and if they were in the standard curriculum. (See accompanying story to understand how the state defines "meeting high standards" and "making learning gains.")
There is one other important factor. Even if a school scores enough points for an A, it may fail to receive one if the lowest-performing readers are left behind. And here is one of those places where the grading system breaks down a bit. The lowest-performing readers are the 25 percent at a school who scored worst on the reading exam. They might be great readers, but the other readers at the school simply tested better. In fact, the worst readers at one school might be among the better readers at another school. No matter, if half of those worst readers fail to make enough progress, the school will not get an A.
There is another column - AYP "Adequate Yearly Progress" status - based on the No Child Left Behind federal standards. This column simply notes whether the school met the federal standard. The federal government used the same raw data - FCAT scores - but judged them differently and broke the results down by looking at different groups of students. If you want to see detailed results, please go to the St. Petersburg Times Web site at www.sptimes.com/schoolsearch
