Ohio Department of Education by the numbers:
610 public districts
1.8 million students
1.7 million full-time employees
The Ohio Department of Education would have received a grade of D on its 2014 report card if it calculated a statewide score for all Ohio public schools combined the way it does for individual schools and districts.
Ohio public school students together met just 14 of the 24 indicators set by the state, according to a Springfield News-Sun analysis of statewide school performance.
The state-wide score is an indication that while Ohio school districts perform differently on the state performance indicators, Ohio has a long way to go to meet the goals of overall quality education.
“We’ve known here in Ohio that we have areas that we need to improve on,” said John Charlton, associate director of communications for ODE.
In order to meet an indicator, such as fourth grade reading, at least 80 percent of students in a school district must score proficient or better on their yearly assessments. The threshold goes up to 85 percent for 11th grade assessments.
Changes to the scoring, including raising the minimum proficiency standard from 75 to 80 percent this year, and the introduction of Common Core standards meant some districts’ grades went down this year while their actual performance went up slightly.
The state’s score last year would have been a C, but dropped to a D this year despite minor proficiency gains on 14 of the indicators.
“It’s certainly more rigorous,” said Clark-Shawnee Local Schools Superintendent Gregg Morris. He suspects a lot of schools experienced a drop in their letter grades, which led to a drop in the state average. “When you make a major change, surely you’re going to struggle in those early years.”
The new standards are meant to address areas where students are lagging behind, Charlton said, but the progress will not be instantaneous.
“Before we started the third grade reading guarantee we had 27,000 third graders who couldn’t read at grade level,” Charlton said. “It’s still below proficient, but it’s improving.”
Third grade reading proficiency was at 81 percent for the 2013-14 school year, up from 77.4 percent five years ago.
The goal is to see improvement in other statewide measures over time, Charlton said.
“We know 40 percent of our graduates who attend public universities have to take remedial classes… 18 percent of diploma-ed adults in Ohio can’t pass the military entrance exam,” he said. “Hopefully in five years we don’t have that.”
Another measure used to grade schools is called the performance index. It measures the test results of every student, not just those who score proficient or higher, and rewards schools and districts for improving performance.
The statewide score for that measure would give Ohio a grade of B.
Districts also get graded for graduation rates and the average four-year rate of 82.2 percent gives the state a grade of D.
While ODE provides statewide data on its website, the department doesn’t use the data to determine a letter grade for the state as a whole as it does for the more than 600 public school districts.
Some local school leaders said they were surprised to learn that the state earned a D in some categories.
“If we haven’t moved the meter, then we’re not doing very well. What is happening to change that?” Springfield City School District Superintendent David Estrop said.
Springfield got an F for indicators met, but received an A for it’s value added grade, which measures whether students have made a year’s worth of progress.
Others said the low grade was expected given the transition to Common Core standards.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Ohio Rep. Bob Hackett. “The movement to Common Core is in the process. There’s always transitional issues.”
Education, which accounts for about half of the state’s budget, is still a huge priority for legislators, Hackett said. He feels positive that the necessary work is being done to improve standards without just throwing money at the problem.
There has been pressure put on the state to improve school standards by the business community, which is in need of a better prepared workforce, Hackett said.
He believes in the Common Core standards and said the legislature has done what they can to improve funding, with 70 percent of schools expected to see an increase following the passage of H.B. 59 last year.
ODE used to include state averages on the annual report cards, but hasn’t done so in years, Charlton said.
“It’s really not a good indication,” he said, and tends to hide districts that are doing poorly as well as those doing well. “We believe that we are being transparent,” by posting all the data online.
The D grade is not surprising, Charlton said, because the state knows there are areas in need of improvement. The ODE is held to the same standards as individual schools and is scrutinized for bad performance in the same way, but the ultimate responsibility for making progress lies at the local level, he said.
“The Department of Education can recommend changes… but bottom line it’s up to the districts, the schools and the teachers,” Charlton said.
Morris agreed that changes have to come from the local level.
“Our teachers, our principals are really, really working,” he said. “If we’re going to improve it has to go back to our classrooms.”
Hackett said the solution likely lies in a combination of both local and statewide effort.
“Local board control is extremely important,” he said. “But industry tells me all the time that we need to raise the standards.”
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