Ed Reforms Needed

'A' for almost no effort

Seven schools in Flint, Michigan, received Fs from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's most recent ranking. Just one school got an A, and the rest received Cs. Michigan's own ranking system paints an equally ugly picture: Nearly two-thirds of Flint's public schools landed in the state's bottom 10 percent.

And yet the district doesn't seem to think its staff has much room to improve. Some 94 percent of teachers-and 99 percent of administrators-are currently rated as "effective," the second highest possible designation in the district's evaluation system. Few were deemed "minimally effective" or "ineffective."

The district's evaluations fail to index teacher performance to student achievement, rendering the rankings effectively meaningless. Two bills making their way through the state legislature would change that, however. If approved, the laws would require districts to count student performance as at least 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation.