Earlier this January, the state of Tennessee announced it will be giving schools a grade of A to F, taking full effect in the 2017-18 school year. The new federal law, called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), requires all states to identify and intervene in the most low preforming schools. ESSA was signed into law on December 10, 2015, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

“Each school’s grade will account for how students performed overall and also disaggregate the data to account for subgroups such as race, socioeconomic status, and students with disabilities,” stated Nakia Towns, the state of Tennessee’s assistant commissioner of data and research.

The state intends to give assessments to the students to be used as tools for improvement and, as Towns explained, something not meant to be punitive. However, multiple educators seemed to disagree, including teachers at Central High School.

“There is a lot of problems with this. First, it is inconsistent. You don’t have to make an A to get an A,” commented Ryan Mallory, an English teacher at Central.

According to an article written by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, “The system the state is proposing allows for schools that are not posing the highest proficiency scores to earn an A ranking, making the playing field fairer,” It is true that you can still get an A, while not necessarily earning it.

“Second, it’s normative. There’s no standard grading scale or a benchmark scale that the schools can look to reach. There will always be someone failing,” shared Mallory.

The article also mentions that the schools will be held accountable for having low absentee rates or for their success in drastically reducing absenteeism.

“You can not force the students to do anything. They should be grading the parents. But you know, we teachers will do whatever we have to do to get the students ready for whatever tests they have to take,” stated Tina Staton, Central’s Psychology and Sociology teacher.

The state plans to intervene in the five percent lowest-performing schools and intervene in high schools where the graduation rate is 67 percent or less. Intervening includes working with the staff to come up with a plan, monitoring the effect and if they wanted, taking over.