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Valley school districts’ state report cards reveal ups and downs
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning Valley school districts saw grades across the board in the latest state report-card data released Thursday by the Ohio Department of Education.
Though no Valley district got all A’s, Boardman, Poland, South Range, Jackson-Milton and Lakeview earned all A’s and B’s.
Youngstown, on the other hand, scored six F’s and one D.
Other districts were everywhere in between.
Interim Youngstown Superintendent Stephen Stohla said the district is working toward improvement, but it’s not a quick process.
“It didn’t get like this overnight, and we’re not going to fix it overnight,” he said. “The teachers and all of the board members want student achievement. I don’t know anyone in the city who doesn’t want student achievement.
It’s going to take hard work and sticking to a program to make that happen.”
Measurements
There are up to seven grades in the latest release for schools and districts: Performance Index, Indicators Met, Annual Measurable Objectives and Value-Added Overall, Value-Added Gifted students, Value-added lowest 20 percent and Value-Added students with disabilities.
Performance Index shows how many students passed the test. Indicators Met shows how well they did on the tests.
There are 36 possible indicators included in the Indicators Met component including state tests in all tested areas, new tests in grades fourth and sixth social studies, high-school end-of-course tests and a gifted-student achievement and opportunity indicator.
Gap closing, or Annual Measurable Objectives, evaluates how well all students are doing in reading, math and graduation. It shows how well students are doing regardless of their income, race, disability or ethnicity.
Value-added shows progress in math and reading for fourth- through eighth-graders. Value-added evaluates if students have met, didn’t meet or exceeded a year’s worth of growth.
Value-added includes grades for overall, gifted, lowest 20 percent in achievement and students with disabilities.
Ohio Department of Education officials said this week that some districts may see lower scores because the state has raised expectations for what students must learn in the classroom.
“We’ve long expected that grades might decline as we began to raise the bar for our students and schools,” Lonnie Rivera, interim state superintendent of public instruction, said in a news release. “We believe both teachers and students will take steps to adjust to the new standards and tests.”
Last year, the state Legislature passed a provision calling for a “safe harbor” to give students and schools time to adjust to the new standards and tests. Safe harbor allows districts not to include student progress as part of teacher evaluations. Schools also will not use student test scores to hold students back, except for meeting graduation requirements and scores on Ohio’s third-grade reading test.
The components released Thursday measure schools’ and districts’ performance in achievement, progress in closing achievement gaps among different student groups and reading and math progress.
Data on kindergarten-to-third-grade literacy improvement and the four- and five-year graduation rates were released last month.
There was a delay in the release of report-card information this year because of the transition to new tests and because of the late delivery of Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test results. Ohio dropped the PARCC after one year.
schools respond
Poland Superintendent David Janofa credited students, teachers and administrators for the positive marks under difficult circumstances.
The district raised its gifted score. It began about 18 months ago, ensuring that each student identified as gifted had an individual plan.
“We pulled up our bootstraps and did everything we had to do,” Janofa said.
He still cautions that the data don’t tell the whole story.
“Our middle school and McKinley Elementary School met 100 percent of the indicators, but [those schools] have a B in those categories, he said.
It’s still a work in progress, Janofa said.
“I’m very proud of being one of the premier schools in the state,” he said.
Warren earned D’s and F’s in Performance Index, Indicators Met and Annual Measurable Objectives but A’s in every value-added category.
“Our data that came out today is what we wanted to see,” said Superintendent Stephen Chiaro.
It’s the beginning of the work the district has to do, he said.
It follows the district’s focus plan, which hones in on student progress or value-added, the superintendent said.
“If every teacher moves up four or five students, our Performance Index score will go up,” Chiaro said.
As those measures move up, the other elements will increase, too, he said.
“We realized it can be achieved,” Chiaro said.
It won’t happen quickly though.
“We’re not going to meet [all] indicators immediately, but if we’re able to demonstrate that we’re making progress, and move up our Performance Index score by one letter grade, the Indicators Met will go up,” Chiaro said.
paper or computer
Warren students took the tests both on computer and with paper and pencil. Chiaro hadn’t evaluated the data sufficiently to determine if the manner in which students across the state took the tests affected scores.
Campbell scored one C in value-added and D’s and F’s for all of the other components released Thursday.
Superintendent Matthew Bowen, though, said he puts more reliance on the day-to-day performance in the classrooms than on the report-card scores.
“We hope the state uses a reliable assessment measure to truly give an apples-to-apples comparison of how districts are performing,” he said. “We’re seeing scores all over the map.”
Some national research has found that lower-performing students who take tests on computer score lower than those who take them using paper and pencil.
Campbell took the tests on computer.
Struthers earned a D and a C on the Indicators Met and Performance Index, respectively. The district got A’s in value-added for both overall and gifted students.
It received F’s, though, for value-added for both lowest 20 percent students in performance and students with disabilities and on the Annual Measurable Objectives component.
Superintendent Joseph Nohra, however, said the district’s trajectory is moving in the right direction.
He said he’s not making excuses, acknowledging there are areas where the district needs to work. But he said the loss of eight days of instruction last school year because of calamity days affected test scores.
Like Bowen, Nohra points to a discrepancy between similar districts when students took the tests on computer versus with paper and pencil.
Struthers students took the tests on computer, and Nohra said he recognizes the need to submerge students in technology.
He just thinks there needs to be recognition of the fact that not all students have access to such technology at home.
About 70 percent of Struthers Elementary School students qualify for free and reduced lunches. About half of the students didn’t have coats when the weather cooled, he said.
“These kids don’t have technology,” Nohra said. “We’re their technology.”
A high transient population and the fact that some parents didn’t allow their children to participate in the testing also contributed to the scores, he believes.
proficiency
Canfield earned an A and a B in Indicators Met and Performance Index, respectively, an A in overall value-added, C’s for value-added gifted and lowest 20 percent and B’s for both value-added students with disabilities and Annual Measurable Objectives.
Superintendent Alex Geordan points out that a C means proficient.
“Part of what we realize we have to do is to educate the public about what those [letter grades] actually mean,” he said.
Canfield students also took tests on computer. Geordan noted that some elementary school students in other Valley districts that outperformed Canfield’s took the tests using paper and pencil.
The scores may reflect that it was the first time students had taken a test online, he said.
The district needs to work on helping special-education students, but Geordan points to the improvement at the middle-school level.
“We made some nice growth there,” he said.
Austintown got C’s in both Indicators Met and Performance Index, a D in overall valued added and F’s in the other value-added categories and the Annual Measurable Objectives.
“A C is where you’re supposed to be,” said Superintendent Vince Colaluca.
The areas that need improvement shouldn’t receive F’s,” he said. It should be marked ‘needs improvement,’” Colaluca said.
He contends the report-card presentation isn’t done to measure how schools and students are doing, he said.
“It’s to send a message about public schools,” Colaluca said.
He believes it aims to put public school districts in a bad light.
Even when a district’s performance improves from one year to the next, that may not show because the state raised the required scores, Colaluca said.
Liberty got a D and a C, respectively, in Indicators Met and Performance Index, an A in overall value-added, a B, a C and an F in value-added gifted, lowest 20 percent and students with disabilities and an F in Annual Measurable Objectives.
“It’s always a mixed bag,” said Superintendent Stan Watson.
But he thinks the whole system is flawed.
“The data is so old,” Watson said.
Districts such as Liberty have high poverty and high transience.
“The data we’re seeing may be for people who aren’t even here anymore,” he said. “It’s like a retailer who is trying to evaluate their holiday sales and they get their data after the next holiday.”
Hubbard earned a B in Indicators Met and a C in Performance Index. The district also got F’s in value-added overall, gifted and lowest 20 percent. It got a C in value-added students with disabilities and a D in Annual Measurable Objectives.
Superintendent Raymond Soloman said district administrators and staff are working diligently to ensure students receive quality education. “We’ve examined the data, and we’re developing the plan” to correct any deficiencies, he said.
“Now that we have the data, we start tomorrow,” he said, adding that he expects next year’s results to show improvement.
No Youngstown charter schools earned above a C in any of the seven areas for which grades where released Thursday. In Warren, STEAM Academy earned A’s in overall value-added and value-added lowest 20 percent. STEAM also got two F’s and a D with no grades provided in two measures.