A-F Accountability Statement
(Modified from Lubbock Cooper ISD statement)
This week, Wink-Loving ISD and public schools across the state of Texas will be issued an A-F rating based on a standard of measurement developed without the input of students, parents, teachers, or community members. While we do not yet know the rating we will receive, we feel a responsibility to convey our district’s stance on the rating system.
This rating will not be a measurement of the hard work our students and teachers put in all year long, but an analysis of a once-per-year test score. It will fail to determine academic success, instead gauging the economic status of our students. It will not accompany any encouragement or suggestion for improvement, but will potentially label our campuses, neighborhoods, and community as lacking. It will not account for the unique needs of the whole child, evidence of learning, diversity, academic needs and competency, extracurricular offerings, community involvement, teaching strategies, or cumulative performance. This rating will have no effect on our strong and rigorous academic program through which we challenge and encourage our students. It will not deter our focus of preparing students for life after high school, whether that be a college, career, or military path - a far more substantial feat than training students to perform on a multiple-choice test. This rating is not how we will measure our students.
We respect the difficulty of designing a system to quantify the success of a school. It is much more efficient to measure the scores from a single, standardized test than to measure the success of the students throughout the year. Looking back at last year, we have so much to be proud of at WLISD and all of these accomplishments are excluded from A-F calculations.
If you are a resident of WLISD, we hope you will reflect back to our student’s accomplishments with pride. If you are not, know that your area school district has their own accomplishments that would impress and inspire you.
Moving forward, we will accept the rating we receive as an arbitrary measurement with no effect on the way we teach, protect, encourage, and love our students. We will continue our tradition of excellence with the support of our community, and we will continue fighting for a community-based accountability system that appropriately measures the strengths, weaknesses, and needs of all students, regardless of background, ZIP code, or socioeconomic status.