Dayton also scored worse in math, with 24 percent of students proficient. Cleveland was at 28 percent, while Youngstown, amid a state takeover after years of poor performance, had 33 percent score proficient in math.
DPS Superintendent Lori Ward said the other “Ohio 8” urban districts have had more consistent academic leadership, and have built initiatives such as Cincinnati’s community learning center network. She said those districts also have done better than Dayton in mastering out-of-class programs and social services that support students.
“This is my sixth year as superintendent, and we’re on our fourth person leading the district’s academic agenda,” Ward said, adding that the district has posted the position of Chief Academic Officer. “If we can just focus on what students need, both academically and nonacademically, we will prevail.
“We have committed people. It’s a tough time for us, and it’s easy for people to lose hope, but I can’t. As the leader of this district, I refuse. I will not lose hope.”
Scores from new tests
Dayton’s low scores were from the spring 2015 PARCC tests — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers — which Ohio has abandoned after one year.
Ohio Department of Education spokeswoman Kim Norris said ODE will not comment on preliminary test results, saying schools are still able to appeal possible errors until Jan. 6.
“I think there’s no doubt that these tests were more challenging than those in the past,” said Tom Ash, director of governmental relations for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators. Ash said it’s very difficult to turn around any struggling urban school district, but there are strategies.
“You’re dealing with poverty and a lack of school preparation for kids coming in,” he said. “I think if you want systemic change, you need to start with getting 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool, to make sure they’re ready to learn.”
Improvement strategies are especially important for Dayton Public Schools, which has been warned by ODE that it is at risk of state takeover by an Academic Distress Commission in 2018 if test scores don’t improve.
Clairie Huff-Franklin, Ohio’s director of those commissions, confirmed last week that no matter how bad Dayton’s scores were on the 2014-15 tests, they will have no impact on the district’s risk of state takeover. That clock starts with tests that will be given later this school year.
But Dayton appears to have moved in the wrong direction on the 2014-15 tests, at least in English. After scoring slightly higher than Cleveland schools and about 7 points behind Columbus in 2013-14, Dayton was 13 and 21 points behind those districts, respectively, in 2014-15.
Dayton teachers union president David Romick warned against putting too much stock in a single year of PARCC tests, which were brand-new to educators and are already gone. This spring, Ohio students will take new math and English tests, which are still being finalized.
And it’s possible testing plans could eventually change again under the new federal education bill passed by Congress this month and signed into law by President Barack Obama. ODE officials said last week there currently are more questions than answers about the new law.
Dayton would have to receive overall grades of “F” on the state report card for 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 to face state takeover in fall 2018.
DPS does have successes. Ward said graduation rates rose from 59 percent to 71 percent in four years, and safety net programs such as credit recovery keep at-risk students on track for graduation. The district also has seen a moderate rise in kindergarten readiness rates, and an increase in funded preschool seats to try to build on that growth.
But the district continues to battle what Ward calls “the brutal realities” of 94 percent poverty, a large special needs population that requires expensive intervention, and difficulty replacing the flood of veteran teachers (one third of all staff) who have retired in the past three years.
“We bang our heads and say, ‘What are we doing that is so wrong that we can’t move the outcome more?’ ” Ward said.
Charters score higher
The preliminary state test results also showed DPS students scoring worse than students at Montgomery County’s charter schools, a majority of whom live in the Dayton district.
While Dayton had 24 percent of students proficient or better in math, the 21 charter schools in the county had a combined 39 percent proficiency. Fourteen charters scored higher than DPS’ overall numbers, while seven scored worse.
In English, the charter students achieved a combined 44 percent proficiency compared with DPS’ 27 percent.
Aaron Churchill is Ohio research director for the Fordham Institute, which sponsors local charter schools and performs education research. Churchill said comparing charters and districts can be tricky, because some charters draw students from both Dayton and some inner-ring suburbs.
“My big takeaway from this data is that Dayton Public Schools is really struggling,” Churchill said. “You go back through the ‘Big 8’ city districts — I think they are a better comparison point when you’re looking at urban school settings — and DPS definitely seems behind.”
Comparing DPS’ test performance to charters’ performance depends on how the data is calculated. A prominent Stanford study last year found DPS and charter performance roughly equal. Dayton’s performance index on state tests in recent years has been roughly equal to the average performance index for local charters.
But when counting the pure percentage of students tested and passing in both settings, the charters came out ahead of DPS in 2013-14 and in the preliminary results of 2014-15.
Ward argued that it is unfair to compare charters that have a variety of governing models and policies, with fewer regulations, to an entire school district such as Dayton.
Ohio success stories
Cincinnati Public Schools achieved 59 percent proficiency on the 2014-15 preliminary English results, and 48 percent on the math. That comes on the heels of a decade-long increase in Cincinnati’s graduation rates, from 51 percent in 2000 to 82 percent in 2010.
Janet Walsh, director of public affairs for Cincinnati Public Schools, said there was no silver bullet, but she pointed to some critical components — deep understanding of student performance data, aligning community partners with best practices in education, and the community learning centers that Ward mentioned, to offer tutoring, social services, health services and more.
“Early on, it was a little more difficult to get staff on board than parents, because change in urban public school systems is a lot of work,” Walsh said. “School and district leadership just tried to remain very focused and student-centered. … When the success stories started occurring, most of the skeptics converted.”
Walsh said it took 2-to-3 years to see results in Cincinnati, adding that Dayton’s higher poverty levels and wider charter school competition give Dayton more challenges.
Local strategies?
Walsh and Ash agreed that struggling districts need to show progress on early initiatives to get people invested.
Dayton did make some progress in 2013-14, getting a higher grade on K-3 literacy than Columbus and Cleveland. The K-3 literacy grade for the 2014-15 school year will come out in mid-January.
Ward said Dayton is always trying to learn from its peers, with one group headed to Akron this winter to work with its curriculum team, while another studies Toledo’s inclusion model in special education.
Meanwhile, DPS is implementing its own district improvement plan, which was built with input from state support staff and drew praise from ODE last month. Ward also pointed to a new reading curriculum adopted this year, and continuing efforts on teacher recruitment and attacking chronic student absenteeism.
“The name of the game is the numbers,” Ward acknowledged. “But we have to make sure that we are implementing our programs with fidelity.
“We have to make sure we have the right people in place — teachers that not only know deep content, but truly have a passion for the children that we serve. And we have alignment of all of our plans. … We have to face the brutal realities of poverty and special needs, but believe that we will prevail.”
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