News Staff Report
Escambia County High School has been listed by state education officials as a failing school and has been given an “F” in the second year of using a letter grade to assess the success or failure of individual schools.
The grade is particularly tough to take this year since the school has shown overall improvement in other testing. In addition, ECHS has a 93 percent graduation rate – hardly an indication of a failing school. The school also raised its Alabama Department of Education report card grade by 4 points. But this test takes none of that into consideration.
This failing school list is actually a ranking based on math and reading results posted by one group of students on one test taken last spring.
The bottom 6 percent of schools are labeled as failing. In effect, as long as this system is in place, the state will always have failing schools – wherever the lowest 6 percent may fall.