Academic growth noted at charter schools

YOUNGSTOWN — Charter schools operating in the city showed greater yearly academic growth than city schools last year, according to a report prepared by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

The report is based on new “value-added” data from the Ohio Department of Education that looked at math and reading performances in grades four through eight over a two-year period as a way to judge academic growth. The added value is that the state is now also assessing schools by tracking pupil educational advancement over a period of time, rather than just through one-shot achievement testing.

Only seven of the 10 charter schools operating in Youngstown with pupils in those grade levels are part of the state’s value-added data. Those schools not on the list didn’t have two years of data to report to the state for comparison purposes.

OAPCS said its report shows that 57 percent of the seven local charter schools met or exceeded the state’s academic growth expectation between 2005-06 and 2006-07. Only 38 percent of the 16 public city schools reviewed by the state met or exceeded the state’s growth expectation, the report said.

For more, see Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com