For many years, “As a matter of courtesy” the State Board of Education, and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, your tax supported watch dogs for education, have been very reluctant to categorize the quality of any of the schools in this state. Platitudes such as “All of our schools are _______ (you fill in the either vague or positive” adjectives) were the common utterance.

Along comes the Feds and they want the states to identify the “Drop-out factories!” Mercy! An actual rating system for local schools in a state that is 35th in the nation in high school completion!

Recently the Washington Policy Center, under the Freedom of Information Act pried out the actual “ratings” of all of the public schools in this state. I might point out that Fraser Institute who rates all of the Provincial schools in Canada had done a similar rating system for several years but that could be ignored as it “wasn’t official.”

The terminology that the State Board of Education has chosen is typical for educators. They don’t want to portray any schools as “bad.” I refer to this as “Pouring maple syrup on lutefisk.”

At the top of the scale there are “Exemplary” schools. Only 4% of the schools in this state make this category. Federal Way has one! The Public Academy has earned this, and in my opinion well deserved recognition. As this school was originally founded to “test” a new concept in education, one might wonder why this concept hasn’t spread more widely. We could call these schools “A” rated!

The next step down the scale is “Very Good” according to the State Board. Are there any Federal Way schools that meet this distinction? Nope, nada, zilch! 6.5% of the state’s schools are in this category. We could call these schools “B” rated.

Moving down scale we come to “Good.” Federal Way has a few secondary schools that meet this criterion. Thomas Jefferson and Todd Beamer high schools, Lakota and Sacajawea middle schools meet this criterion. It is interesting to note that this is one International Baccalaureate and two Cambridge schools. 29.4% of Washington State’s schools are in this category. These are probably “C” rated schools.

The next step down is, and this is where educators excel at “Syrup on Lutefisk,” is “Fair.” All of the rest of Federal Way’s secondary schools fall in this category along with 48.7% of the states schools. This is the largest category of schools in the state! We have two high schools in this category and six middle schools here. These schools, on a regular report card would probably get a “D.”

And finally, where educators do their best with the “Premium” grade syrup, this state has “Struggling” schools. Not “failures,” not “Bad,” not “Awful,” schools just “Struggling” schools! 11.3% of all schools in Washington fit this description. Federal Way doesn’t have any secondary schools in what should be graded as “F” schools.

A look at the percentages here shows that 60% of Washington’s public schools are either “D” or “F” rated! Surely someone ought to be concerned about this? Shouldn’t they? Maybe they should look at the 4% that are considered exemplary, at least for this state, and try imitation! But wait! Most of these have fully engaged the parents of the kids attending! Oops! Frank and candid conversations with parents! We evidently just aren’t ready for this.

At a recent Board meeting great praise and hoopla was exhibited for a Cheerleading Team that were “State Champs.” Perhaps this group, and I understand that they have to have better academic averages than the teams they “cheer” for, should be exerting their efforts on the academic performance of their classmates whose school scored the lowest in the district.

When is “Fair” not “Fair?” When it comes to school ratings!