In 2005, the Washington state Legislature gave the state Board of Education a task: Find out if public schools are making the grade. The results are in, and they show school officials have some homework to do.

The Washington Policy Center Public School Accountability Index is based on information from the state board and provides a fair and consistent measure of public school performance. The index includes test scores in reading, writing, math and science, and graduation rates. It factors in demographics and past performance and assigns a number between 1 and 7 to each school. Each school is then ranked as exemplary, very good, good, fair or struggling. The ranking system was developed by the state Board of Education.

With more than 2,100 public schools in the state, the results show nearly 60 percent of Washington students attend schools rated just fair or struggling. Less than 10 percent of students attend schools rated very good or exemplary.

In the five major districts around Spokane (Spokane, Central Valley, West Valley, East Valley and Mead) just one school, just one, received a ranking of exemplary – Ness Elementary in West Valley. The local results are similar to the state results – 58 of the 102 schools in those five districts rank only fair or struggling.

How can that be? Despite the claims of education spending advocates, it’s not because of a lack of money. Washington state has doubled its school spending in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1980, even though the number of students over that same period has increased by only a third. The people of Washington are generous in supporting kids, providing on average more than $10,200 per student per year.

In Spokane Public Schools, per-student spending is even higher and it is growing, even though the number of students has decreased by more than 3,000 since 2001.

The school in the Spokane area which received the worst score was Holmes Elementary. District officials were quick to point out that Holmes has many low-income students. “Instead of criticism, we’d like some help,” Spokane Public Schools spokeswoman Terren Roloff said in response to the rankings.

She is right that Holmes has many low-income students; the school reports up to 90 percent of its students receive free or reduced-price lunches. But consider this: Ness Elementary, the highest ranking school in five districts, also has a high proportion of students from low-income families, some 70 percent. The success of teachers at Ness in educating low-income students shows that Spokane officials are wrong to blame the student for the low ranking at Holmes.

Parents and taxpayers deserve to know how their schools are doing. If local districts want help, there are many ideas to consider. One of them is to put the principal in charge of the school.

Under the current system, principals have almost no influence over their school budget, staffing or educational program. Those decisions are handed down by the administration office, an office with little knowledge of the individual needs of each student or neighborhood school.

During layoffs, the union requires that the most recently hired teachers be let go first, even if they’re the best teachers. Giving principals the ability to control their budget and retain the best teachers would let them direct classroom resources where they’re needed most.

More than a dozen large school districts across the nation have adopted a reform to correct this. It’s known as Fair Student Funding. One such district is Baltimore City Public Schools. Before Fair Student Funding, Baltimore principals controlled 3 percent of their budgets. Now, after the reform, school principals control 81 percent. The reform superintendent, Dr. Andres Alonso, was also able to identify $165 million in savings at the central office and redistribute the surplus of $88 million to the schools.

Baltimore City Public Schools has also dramatically improved by putting in place principals who are successful at guiding and inspiring teachers to raise student performance. As a result, Baltimore’s schools are no longer on the federal “needs to improve” list, and school officials are not complaining about funding. Oh, and student achievement? It’s up significantly in every grade.

No parent wants his or her child stuck in a school considered just fair or struggling. If Spokane-area schools want some “help,” putting the principal in charge is one idea they could adopt. And for this assignment, they don’t need more money.