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Springfield High School disputes ODE scores
By Denise Dick
NEW SPRINGFIELD
Springfield High School’s principal says the school’s Advanced Placement scores aren’t accurately reflected on the most-recent state report card.
The 2013-14 state report card, released in September by the Ohio Department of Education, shows that 42 Springfield graduates took AP tests, and 26 percent earned an AP score of at least 3.
But Anthony DeFelice, high-school principal, disputes those numbers.
He says 49 students took the tests and 19 of them scored at least a 3, making Springfield’s percentage 39 — the highest in the Mahoning Valley. He got the totals from the paperwork returned to the school district by the College Board, the agency that administers AP and SAT tests.
The issue came to DeFelice’s attention after a Vindicator story about AP scores noted that Boardman, with 37.5 percent, had the Valley’s highest percentage of students earning a 3 or higher on advanced-placement tests. AP scores range between 1 and 5, and students can earn college credit depending on how they score. Individual colleges and universities determine the minimum required to award college credit.
“I contacted ODE,” DeFelice said.
He was instructed on how to file an appeal, which he did before the Oct. 13 deadline.
ODE, however, won’t change them.
DeFelice got an email from an official in ODE’s data-quality office that said appeals are limited to data collected and submitted through districts’ Educational Management Information System. Because AP scores come from the College Board, they aren’t subject to appeal.
“That’s unconscionable,” DeFelice said.
The email also notes that ODE is changing to a system whereby AP data will be collected directly from districts via EMIS.
In an email back to ODE, DeFelice calls it an “injustice.”
“The data you reported is incorrect and not a reflection of our true performance and those of our students,” he wrote.
John Charlton, an ODE spokesman, said in an email that it’s possible the data the department received is different from what the school district received.
“We receive a very specifically defined set of data from College Board,” he said. “The district could request and receive a file directly from College Board [i.e, for all their students at once] that is defined differently from what we receive. Unless we have details about what the district receives, we cannot offer an explanation as to why their data is different than the data we received from College Board.”