Columbus Dispatch...
State switching to new system of grading academic performance  
March 12. 2012 

Ohio is about to lose nearly 95 percent of its “excellent” schools. 

Last year, 382 school districts and charter schools received an A, or excellent rating, on state-issued report cards. 

If a new evaluation system the state plans to start using this year had been in place, only 22 would have gotten an A — just one in central Ohio (Granville). 

In Franklin County, 11 of the 12 districts that earned A’s on last year’s report cards would drop to B’s, and one, South-Western City Schools, would fall to a C. 

Columbus would drop from a C to a D. 

“This is a far more-rigorous system than the one currently used, and in general, grades will be lower by one or even two levels from the counterpart ratings that we have been using in our current accountability system,” state Superintendent Stan Heffner told school superintendents in an email this week. 

Despite an expected outcry from school officials across the state, Heffner and other educators say the new rating system will give a more-accurate picture of how schools are performing. And report cards will be easier to understand because the state will issue letter grades instead of using ratings like “effective” and “academic watch.” ( The Dispatch has converted ratings to letter grades in its stories.) 

Ohio’s plan for holding schools more accountable was outlined in a waiver request the state submitted to federal regulators last month seeking freedom from several provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. In addition to the new report-card ratings, Ohio plans to start using national Common Core academic standards and new student assessments beginning in the 2014-15 school year. 

The push is part of the state’s effort to boost student performance to ensure that high-school graduates are ready for college or careers and can compete with their peers across the nation and in other countries. 

“We’ve got to elevate our game. The first step is giving a more honest appraisal of where your strengths and weaknesses are,” said Terry Ryan, vice president of Ohio Programs and Policy for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. 

As evidence of the work Ohio schools need to do, Ryan and others note that while students do well on state tests, they earn much lower marks on math and reading exams on the nation’s report card, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress. More than 40 percent of college freshmen in Ohio must take remedial courses in college. 

Yet, under the current system 92 percent of traditional school districts got the equivalent of an A or B; that would drop to 66 percent under the new system. 

“The notion that (so many) school districts in Ohio could be rated excellent or effective is simply not possible given the remediation rates from kids going on to Ohio colleges, to say nothing of our scores on other standardized tests,” said Marc Schare, a member of the Worthington Board of Education. 

Under the new system, each district and school would receive an overall grade calculated from four separate scores in the following categories: student performance on state tests and graduation rates; a school performance index; how much progress students are making; how well economically disadvantaged, minority, disabled and other categories of students are doing. 

A simulation of how the new rating system based on last year’s student test scores and other data by the Ohio Department of Education shows: 

• Under the new system, 74 percent of charter schools would get a D or F grade while 9 percent would get an A or B. 

• Among traditional school districts, 87 percent would get a B or C under the new system. 

• One traditional district, Warrensville Heights in Cuyahoga County, got an F in all four of the new categories. Three charter schools — none from central Ohio — also had straight F’s. 

Many educators argue that new report cards ratings won’t give a complete picture of how well schools and districts are educating students. 

“I don’t know how a high-performing district like ours and many others gets a B,” said Mike Johnson, superintendent of the Bexley school district, which would fall from an A under the new system. 

“It might be a way of communicating in the simplest way but you miss a whole lot.” 

For instance, nearly half of Bexley students take advanced-placement courses in high school and 75 percent score high enough to earn college credit for their work, Johnson noted. 

Dublin schools Superintendent David E. Axner questioned some aspects of the methodology, such as holding districts with diverse student populations to a higher standard than less diverse ones, but said Dublin will continue to focus on helping students reach higher levels of achievement. 

“We really accept the challenge,” Axner said. “We’ll do our best to get an A and we’ll continue to aim to do the best we can for these kids.” 

Worthington’s Jennifer Wene said parents and others cannot rely on report cards grades alone. 

“Our message to parents is judge us by your experience with your child,” said Wene, the district’s director of academic achievement and professional development. “Our grade may or may not be better on the report card but I guarantee you our data will be better. But when you give a grade, many people don’t look beyond and into the data.” 

Read this and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch