COE Exchange

British Schools Secretary Ed Balls has proposed a plan which would introduce a new “scorecard” to rate the performance of schools. The exact details of the plan are expected to be announced in a White Paper that will be issued some time this spring. It is expected the plan will rate schools based on exam performance and student “well being.” At the annual conference of school heads in Great Britain not a single delegate voted in favor of a single grade to identify a school’s performance.

Delegates were interested in the New York City School process which rates schools from A-F and offers rewards or bonuses to teachers for schools which score an A or B. Among issues raised by those at the conference was concern that schools would be given a low rating if they had detention rate regardless of the rationale for having extensive detention of students. There was extensive discussion at the conference regarding criteria which would be used to rate a school.

British schools have recently introduced the concept of student “well being” as a factor in determining school success or failure. The issue of rating schools invariably comes down to criteria used in deciding success or failure. It is important for educators to debate these issues and education throughout the world can only benefit from this dialogue concerning how to rate schools. But, as the heads so aptly raised, the criteria for rating is a critical question.