COLUMBUS- New state report card data shows fewer Ohio districts receiving an “A” grade on a key performance measure.
The Ohio Department of Education’s report card data released Thursday shows how districts performed last school year. It includes rankings for overall student achievement along with other areas.
Six of 609 districts received an A for their Performance Index, which measures student performance on state tests. That’s down from 37 districts with an A rating last year. More than half of the districts received a C.
But school officials and lawmakers say the report cards are flawed because teachers and students were adjusting to new tests, which have since been scrapped.
The Common Core-based Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, tests were abandoned in June and Ohio law suspends many consequences tied to the tests for the 2014-2015, 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years, as the state transitions to new standards and tests.
Education officials say the so-called safe harbor provides an opportunity for schools to improve student achievement but Democratic education leaders say the report cards should be put on hold as well.
“The state calls it a safe harbor, which should lead one to question: why there are there report cards at all?” said Rep. Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo), ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee.
“Every grade on these report cards is tainted by unverified, arbitrary, poorly designed and implemented tests that have been thrown out by the Ohio legislature,” she said. “The flaws are so pervasive that the grades on the Ohio School Report Cards should not be counted for anything.”
The state’s largest teachers’ union wants education officials to reduce the use of standardized tests to measure student achievement and evaluate teacher performance and the union’s president warns parents to be “leery” of using the latest report cards to make comparisons between districts.
“Ohio’s 2014-15 report cards should be interpreted with considerable caution,” said Ohio Education Association president Becky Higgins. “The drop in test scores was anticipated as local schools and students were adjusting to the substantial changes made to Ohio’s testing system. Among these changes was the use of the more rigorous and controversial…tests that have since been replaced.”
Nearly half of central Ohio district schools and more than 95 percent of local charter schools got a D or F in overall performance toward making kids proficient on the just-released state report cards.
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“Today, the ratings bubble burst for Ohio’s schools and districts,” because of rising state standards and new, tougher assessment tests have generally pushed down performance scores across the board, said the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. “This much-needed reset of academic expectations will better ensure that parents and the public have an honest gauge of how students and schools are performing.”
On the newly released report cards, between 55 and 70 percent of students statewide rated proficient in various subjects by their grade level, such as math and reading, said Aaron Churchill, Ohio Research Director for Fordham. In previous years it had been as high as 80 percent, he said.
While many of the poorly performing schools are located in inner-city or low-income neighborhoods, several suburban districts — including Dublin, Gahanna-Jefferson, Grandview Heights, Hamilton Local, Hilliard, Reynoldsburg, Westerville and Worthington — have schools getting a D or F for “indicators met,” which measures how many students have a minimum level of knowledge in core subjects.
In Columbus City Schools, 104 out of 109 schools received a D or F in meeting performance indicators, but district spokesman Scott Varner pointed to the district’s A in a series of other measures that show how much students are learning during the year.
The Columbus district overall earned an A in the “value-added” category, which shows whether kids made a year’s worth of learning progress regardless of what level they tested at when the school year started. It also got As in value-added for both gifted students and students in the lowest 20 percent of learners, and a B in value-added for students with disabilities.
“We have a lot of growth still to do, but in that progress score, what is really is showing is that our teachers are helping those kids to grow,” Varner said. “We’re seeing tremendous growth. Students, when they come in for over a year, they are getting a year’s growth.”
Worthington schools, which got an A as a district for meeting performance indicators, received Fs in all four value-added categories, including overall value-added.
“We do not believe this data is accurate for Worthington,” said Worthington Superintendent Trent Bowers. He said that, along with the state PARCC and AIR assessments, the district gave the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, test last year as it always does, and the students’ learning progress was consistent with other years.
“We’ve won awards in past years for our value-added performance… I’ll say one thing: We have the same great kids and the same great teachers. It’s really hard to see a swing in the data like we’ve seen and feel like that’s valid.”
The 61 charter schools in Franklin County, including the statewide Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which is based in Columbus, scored poorly on meeting state standards; only 3 didn’t get a D or F. Most of them got Fs.
But in many cases, just as with Columbus City Schools, the charters scored better in value added measures; 18 of the 51 charters scoring “F” in indicators met scored and A or B in overall value added. ECOT, the state’s largest charter school whose operator is a top GOP contributor, was one 12 Franklin County charters scoring “F” in both categories, meaning students are below proficient and not learning at a normal pace.