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DAYTON — Kim Kappler's last job change took her from one of Ohio's poorest school districts to one of its wealthiest.

In 2005, Kappler came from Norwood schools — ranked 505th out of 610 for median income in 2004 — to Oakwood, ranked eighth in the state on the same list.

"In both of those situations, parents love their kids and want what's best for them," said Kappler, Oakwood's director of curriculum, instruction and testing. "But in Oakwood, the parents can provide things Norwood parents cannot."

And it's not just summer camps and lots of books. Kappler's list of advantages starts with the basics — eye and ear screenings, dental hygiene, good nutrition.

"Parents in Norwood just had less education and experience," she said. "In Oakwood, parents recognize their success is based on their own educational attainment."

Just as educators say household wealth, or lack of it, can reliably help or handicap a student's school success, median income in a community powerfully predicts standardized test success for school districts.

To determine just how strongly test scores and income are connected, the Dayton Daily News compared the statistical relationship between 2004 median income from tax returns with just released "performance index scores," a state measure of test performance last school year across all tested grades, for all 610 Ohio school districts. The correlation was robust — more than twice what researchers expect for a strong connection.

When the same calculation was run for other factors on Ohio's state report card — race, teacher pay, teacher training and school district spending and size — the connection was less than half as strong as for income.

An identical analysis for just the 82 Dayton-area districts gave the same result — income was by far the strongest predictor of test success.

Oakwood's income, for instance, would predict high-scoring success, and yearly it is among the highest-rated districts in the state and locally. Northridge, the lowest-income area district, would shock statisticians if it ever reached a top test ranking. It never has.

Ohio's system of evaluating schools — district report cards — relies heavily on tests to judge school district effectiveness. But some educators and researchers question if that approach is fair.

"All the talk of school failure, but it's always the schools in the more affluent areas that are doing pretty good," said Chris Lubienski, a University of Illinois researcher who studies the effect of student characteristics on test performance. "Schools in high poverty areas are always the ones in trouble."

Count Ohio lawmakers among those interested in other ways to measure school district effectiveness. In 2003, the legislature required the state education department to put in place a "value-added" system that will launch with the 2007 report card. Next year, this system will use a complex statistical model, similar to one developed for the state of Tennessee by statistician Bill Sanders, to try to quantify teacher effectiveness by controlling for the effect of income and other factors.

Mitchell Chester, the assistant state superintendent who oversees Ohio's testing program, said the state's own analysis of the relationship between median income and test performance also found a strong connection, although the state found the correlation was not as strong when about 60 districts with very high median income over $40,000 were removed.

Chester cautioned the studies don't prove wealth, or lack of it, predetermine test scores. Schools do make a difference, he said.

"Is in fact what is going on here is some school districts are providing a rich, engaging and intellectually challenging curriculum and some are not?" he said. "You tend to find in higher wealth communities there is a demand for that. In communities with lower wealth you are not as sure to find that curriculum demand."

Quality teaching and good curriculum can move students to higher test scores, he said. The state must hold schools to its expectations for test performance, but the value-added system can help further identify which schools are doing the job of helping kids learn.

"One of the appeals of value-added is it's a measure not of simple attainment but of whether school districts are moving the kids from where they started," he said. "It will be interesting to watch the data unfold. Are the strongest gaining districts some of those with lower results when you look at achievement at a point in time?"

Lubienski agrees that schools do make a difference. Researchers commonly find teachers and schools can account for up to 30 to 40 percent of a school's test result, he said. But that still means 60 to 70 percent of a school's scores are connected more strongly to outside factors, family income especially.

"We've known since the 1960s that despite what we'd like to think, schools don't have as much of an effect on achievement as some of the background factors do," he said. "But schools are the one area you can influence through public policy. You can't legislate that parents read to their kids."

Even so, Lubienski is not sold on Sanders' value-added system. The specifics of the math behind his calculations have not been made public — Sanders' methodology is proprietary. The system seeks to hold constant all outside factors that might influence test scores to examine just the school's effect on each individual student.

Lubienski is skeptical.

"I just don't think social science is at that point," he said.

But Jerry Clark, Piqua's just-retired superintendent, said years of watching kindergarteners hold their first crayons or open their first books led him to fight for new state measures of student growth.

"The rating system was designed only for one snapshot, as if everybody were playing with the same set of circumstances," he said.

Using a wide spectrum of strategies, Piqua this year earned an "effective" state rating this year despite being one among the Dayton area's poorest districts. Piqua's test performance ranks well above where its median income would predict.

"There are school districts that are doing a great job that may never score as well as districts serving kids from more advantaged families," he said. "I'm thrilled there will finally be some recognition."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2485 or selliott@DaytonDailyNews.com.