PROFICIENCY TESTS Scores follow state trend

Eagle Heights scored well above Legacy Academy, but the public schools bested both.
By RON COLE
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Pupils in two Youngstown charter schools continue to perform below city public school pupils on proficiency tests, but the leaders of the city's largest charter school say they're gaining ground.
"We felt rather good about the progress that we did make, but we know there's still a job to do," said Joe Conley, principal of Eagle Heights Academy.
Fourth- and sixth-grade pupils at Eagle Heights and Legacy Academy, charter schools on the city's South Side, took proficiency tests in the spring, along with public school children across Ohio.
Mirroring a statewide trend, children in Youngstown's public schools outperformed those at Eagle Heights and Legacy, although scores for both the public and charter schools were well below state minimum performance standards.
For instance, 31 percent of city public school fourth-graders passed the math test, compared with 22 percent at Eagle Heights and 6 percent at Legacy. The state standard is 75 percent.
In reading, 23 percent of Youngstown public school sixth-graders passed, compared with 14 percent at Eagle Heights and none at Legacy. Again, the state standard is 75 percent.
Statewide, 43 percent of public school fourth- and sixth-graders passed all five parts of the proficiency tests (reading, writing, math, citizenship and science). The two Youngstown charter schools posted a 6-percent passage rate.
The five charter schools
Charter schools are publicly funded, privately operated schools. There are nearly 100 in the state, including five in Youngstown: Eagle Heights, Legacy, Youngstown Community School, Summit Academy Youngstown and the Life Skills Center of Youngstown.
Of the five, three enroll children in the fourth- and sixth-grade tests: Eagle Heights, Legacy and Summit. Summit, a school for children with attention deficit disorder, tested only one sixth-grader and three fourth-graders.
Eagle Heights, opened in 1998, outperformed Legacy in all five sections of the fourth-grade test and in four of the five sixth-grade tests. Legacy, which opened last fall, posted zero passing rates in sixth-grade reading and science.
Legacy Principal Verna Wylie could not be reached to comment.
DeAnna Hardwick, Eagle Heights' dean of students, said the school is making strides in all areas of the test.
For instance, 34 percent of fourth-graders passed the citizenship test this year, up from 17 percent last year. The passage rate on the sixth-grade writing test jumped from 46 percent last year to 65 percent this year.
Eagle Heights is within 1 percentage point of the city public schools on the fourth-grade citizenship test and 3 percentage points on the sixth-grade writing test.
"Overall, we're hanging with them pretty tough," said Hardwick, who was part of an administrative reorganization at the school this past school year.