Like a student reluctant to bring home their report card, Alabama education officials have once again delayed the annual release of a report grading schools.

Alabama communities eager to see what grade their schools earned will have to wait until Jan. 11, according to a Nov. 20 memo sent by interim Alabama Superintendent Dr. Ed Richardson.

Madison County Superintendent Matt Massey has his doubts that the report cards will have anything other than a negative impact on Alabama's public schools and the communities they serve.

"This report card is bad," Massey said. "It's not good for the state. It's not good for education."

The original release date was set for December, and no reason was given for the delay.

In the memo, Richardson said school officials have a mandate based not only in federal and state law, but also a professional mandate to report on what's happening in public schools.

Alabama typically lands at the bottom of most national measures of school quality, including Education Week's Quality Counts metrics, where Alabama earned a D in achievement and a D+ overall.

At least 18 other states have adopted A through F grading systems, and the first release typically causes an uproar among the education community.

When Texas released provisional grades in early 2017, 152 school districts adopted resolutions condemning the use of the grading system.

Michigan's Department of Education dropped plans for their state's grading system this past March after public feedback, officials there said.

Massey, elected in 2014, said he isn't afraid of the grades, but thinks one letter grade is overly simplistic and doesn't tell the whole story of what's happening in a school, a criticism often voiced in other states using the grading system.

He said he believes state lawmakers, who passed a law in 2012 requiring the use of the single letter grade, want to create distrust in public education and are using these grades to do so.

Madison County has a blend of schools, some rural, some suburban. Massey said he expects the 27 schools in his community to earn good grades. He doesn't know that for sure, though, as superintendents and school officials are still in the dark about what their grades, based on the 2016-2017 school year, are, he said.

In the memo, Richardson said Alabama's 137 superintendents will get a first look at their grades on Dec. 14, after he presents state-level information to the state board of education. Local school officials will have through Jan. 10, 2018, to review the data and "develop local messages" about what the report card.

The report cards will be released to the public on Jan. 11, 2018.

The state department of education is hosting a webinar for school officials on Dec. 18 to help craft those local messages, according to the Nov. 20 memo.

It's that local message that has Massey worried.

"For some parents, a 'B' isn't good enough," he said, and a 'C' means trouble.

"Nobody wants to send their kid to a 'C' school," Massey said.

Grades are based mostly on results of students who took the ACT Aspire, which the state board of education voted to drop in June because they didn't believe it was well aligned to what Alabama's teachers are required to teach in the classroom.

Because of that state board action, Massey said the portion of the grade related to achievement is irrelevant.

"So we fired the test company (ACT Aspire), but yet [are using it to] determine the letter grade from a test we said isn't a good test," Massey said.

Massey said the state law only places labels on schools and doesn't provide any help for schools that struggle to achieve at high levels. "It's not about accountability," Massey said. "It's about sticking a label on a school to create distrust. It's not about making schools better."

The state law does not dictate consequences for schools earning low grades, but does authorize a recognition and reward program for schools earning top grades and those improving their grade from one year to the next.

The recognition portion of the law begins with the second-year grades are reported. Funding for the reward portion depends on state lawmakers appropriating money for that use.

A separate law, the Alabama Accountability Act, passed in 2013, labels schools whose student proficiency levels are in the bottom six percent statewide as "failing" and provides tax incentives for students to leave failing schools.

Of the 4,000 students who used provisions under that law, about one-third were zoned to attend a failing public school.

Alabama law defines the grades to be assigned to schools as follows:

A - "making excellent progress"

B - "making above average progress"

C - "making satisfactory progress"

D - "making less than satisfactory progress"

F - "failing to make adequate progress"

The law mandates that a school's and system's grade be based on a combination of "student achievement scores, achievement gap, college and career readiness, learning gains, and other indicators as determined by the State Superintendent of Education to impact student learning and success."

The formula for how the grades are calculated was left for the state department of education to create.

How the letter grade will be calculated

Grades will be calculated for systems, schools with a 12th grade and schools without a 12th grade. ACT Aspire results factor heavily into the grades.

The tremendous weight of one test on a school's grade doesn't sit well with Massey.

"It's irresponsible to use a test that took a kid 40 minutes to take," Massey said, "and [then] completely make a determination about schools that is going to have incredible ramifications for property values, and could put people's jobs on the line."

Achievement, defined as the percentage of students who reached proficiency on the ACT Aspire test, is weighted heavily. For districts and schools with a 12th grade, achievement is worth 20 percent. For schools without a 12th grade, achievement is worth 40 percent of the overall grade.

Growth in proficiency from one school year to the next, which many experts and educators believe is a better indicator than a static achievement score, is included as a significant measure and is weighted more heavily than achievement.

For districts and schools with a 12th grade, growth is worth 30 percent. For schools without a 12th grade, growth is worth 50 percent of the overall grade.

Chronic absenteeism, defined as the percentage of students who miss 15 or more days of school, will be worth 10 percent of the grade for all report cards.

For districts and schools with a 12th grade, graduation rates account for 30 percent of the overall grade, and the percentage of students who demonstrate college and career readiness will be worth 10 percent.

Massey believes assigning a single grade is too simple and doesn't take into account the multiple factors that make a school successful.

Dr. Eric Mackey, executive director of the School Superintendents of Alabama, agrees with Massey that the grade relies on too few indicators. "Parents and community members need to see a holistic picture of how students are performing and growing in all areas," he told AL.com in an email.

Mackey served on multiple task forces to implement the state grading law since it was passed in 2012. Mackey said superintendents have worked with state education officials to add more indicators to the report card, but those indicators haven't yet been incorporated into the calculation of the grade.

For example, the percentage of students involved in a school's extracurricular activities will be displayed on the report card, but will not be factored into the grade until officials determine how best to do so.

Mackey said the decision state education officials made not to give partial credit to students who are nearing proficiency and extra credit for students who are high achievers doesn't value all children's abilities and conflicts with recommendations of the task force.

Mackey said he continues to work with state education officials to improve the report card.

Here's how state education officials say they will calculate grades.

School Report Cards - Nov. 20, 2017, memo from Interim Alabama Superintendent Dr. Ed Richardson by Trisha Powell Crain on Scribd

Pages eight through 10 in the document embedded above are examples of what the report cards are expected to look like.

Reporting versus accountability

The Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring high-quality data is used in decision-making and reporting in education, released their second annual "Show Me the Data" survey results Wednesday. The survey looked at what type of reporting state education websites have available and how easy that information is to find.

It's important to realize that reporting on success and using the grades for accountability purposes, where there are consequences for low grades, are two different things, Executive Director Paige Kowalski said.

Multiple indicators should be included in a report card, Kowalski said. But, she said, research shows that nine out of 10 parents want to see a summative rating for their school.

That rating, in Alabama's case a letter grade, gets everyone on the same page and provides a starting point for a conversation about how well the school is serving the community's children, she said.

School report cards are essential for communities to understand how well their children are being served by the public schools, Louisiana state superintendent John White said.

Report cards also provide a way for businesses, nonprofit organizations, and community organizations to know what's happening in schools.

Louisiana recently overhauled their reporting system, and Kowalski said it is a model for other states to consider.

The problem Massey sees with assigning a letter grade is that the public will see the letter grade and that's what will stick, but the letter grade doesn't tell the whole story.

Massey said he has expressed his concerns to state lawmakers and hopes they will restructure or even repeal the law in the next legislative session, which starts Jan. 9, two days before the Jan. 11 public release of school report cards.

"There are some legislators that don't want to support education, and they don't think it can change so they're just willing to burn it to the ground," Massey said. "And that's what I think this report card is about."

"Ninety percent of Alabama's children go to public schools," Massey said. "[Lawmakers] shouldn't be trying to destroy public education. They should be trying to support it."

Prior to employment at AL.com Trisha Powell Crain served as a member of the Accountability Task Force from 2013 to 2015 that recommended initial indicators and weights for the report card for the state superintendent's consideration.