OHIO GRADUATION TEST \ What’s it mean? Ohio Graduation Tests are part of Ohio’s education reform to establish an aligned system of standards, assessments and accountability for Ohio

PURPOSE

Ensure that students who receive a high school diploma demonstrate at least high school levels of achievement.

Measure the level of reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies skills expected of students at the end of the 10th grade.

Meet federal requirement for high school testing.

The Ohio Graduation Tests are a more rigorous measure of students’ high school achievement and have replaced the Ohio Ninth-Grade Proficiency Tests, effective with the graduating class of 2007.

Students take the OGT for the first time in the spring of their sophomore year. Students can continue to take the tests in the fall and spring of their junior and senior years and during the summer.

PASSAGE

Students who do not pass one or more tests on their first attempt will retake the tests they need to pass during their junior and senior years. OGT tests are administered each fall and spring, with an optional summer administration available within some school districts.

OGT tests have approximately 35 multiple-choice questions and up to eight constructed (written) response items.

Students have up to 21‚Ñ2 hours to take each of the tests.

Students in the senior class of 2007 and beyond may graduate and receive a diploma without passing all five tests of the OGT if they meet the following requirements:

Pass four of the five tests and have missed passing the fifth test by no more than 10 scale score points;

Have had a 97 percent attendance rate each of the last four years and must not have had an expulsion in the last four years;

Have a grade-point average of 2.5 out of 4.0 in the subject area missed and have completed the curriculum requirement in the subject area missed;

Have participated in any intervention programs offered by the school and must have had a 97 percent attendance rate in any program offered outside the normal school day or year, including those offered by someone other than the school;

Obtain letters of recommendation from each teacher in the subject area not yet passed and the high school principal.

austintown ogt results

The state requires that at least 75 percent of a school district’s sophomores score at proficient or higher on each of the five tests. Austintown proficiency percentage rates for sophomore OGT tests as reported for 2008 (with 2007 rates followed by 2006 rates in parentheses) are:

Reading: 90.4 (92.7, 94.4)

Math: 83.5 (88.9, 90.2)

Writing: 87.5 (95.2, 92.8)

Social studies: 84.1 (87.6, 88.8)

Science: 76.7 (85.6, 84.6)

Source: Ohio Department of Education