State uses a sliding scale to rate progress of schools

Sunday, August 20, 2006 In writing the guidelines for performance of Ohio school districts in the 21st century, the Ohio Department of Education must have had in mind a 16th century proverb, God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. Grading the annual state report cards favors those (predominantly urban) school districts that are mired in the bottom rungs or academic emergency and academic watch. Those districts are rewarded for making a modicum of progress. The report card is based on 25 areas of performance. Districts meeting 24 or all of those standards are judged Excellent. Those meeting eight or fewer standards are in Academic Emergency; those with 9 to 12 are in Academic Watch. Districts with 13 to 18 are in continuous Improvement and those with 19 to 23 are Effective. But the Youngstown City School District, for instance, was able to move up from Academic Emergency to Academic Watch, even though it meets only five standards, because by another measure, its overall performance index, it showed a 10 percent improvement. It's tough at the top The Boardman Local School District, on the other hand, remained in the middle category, Continuous Improvement, even though it meets 24 of the 25 standards overall. Keeping Boardman from the Excellent rating it would otherwise have is the district's failure to show adequate progress in improving the test scores of a relatively small group of disadvantaged or disabled pupils. In effect, the state department of education is encouraging those districts that face huge challenges in addressing the needs of a student body with a high percentage of disadvantaged students, while demanding that (largely prosperous suburban) districts such as Boardman live up to their potential. Is the system perfect? No. But it is better than those days not long ago when the state made few performance demands on individual districts. We find it troublesome that 192 of the state's 610 school districts were rated as Excellent (an increase from 111 districts just a year earlier). That smacks of grade inflation. Ohio has a few excellent school districts and some very good school districts. But anyone who believes that nearly a third of the state's districts are doing excellent work is living in a Lake Wobegon world, where all the children are above average. The state report card gives school districts and even individual schools within those districts useful information about the job they are doing. But in most cases, Ohio schools have a lot of work to do before their students are ready to compete in today's world economy.