Despite controversy, state report cards wield value

Even before parents, teachers and local school officials could sink their teeth into the feast of data contained in Thursday’s release of 2014-15 state report cards for Ohio schools, acidic criticism gushed out fast and furiously.

“These report cards are not just inaccurate; they are harmful to our children, our schools and our communities,” Ohio Board of Education member A. J. Wagner lashed out Thursday.

State Rep. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, bristled in: “Disproportionate and misleading scores create a perception that does not reflect the reality of our education system in Ohio.”

In the Mahoning Valley, Austintown Local Schools Superintendent Vincent Colaluca, whose large suburban district saw several declines on the new report cards, is among those local school leaders who aren’t fans of this set of report cards or the tests that produced them.

He contends the report-card presentation isn’t done to measure how schools and students are doing. “It’s to send a message about public schools” that puts them in a bad light, he suggested.

We’ll defer judgement for now on the validity of some of those specific critiques, but clearly problems have surrounded this batch of tests and report cards, so much so that the state has discontinued their use after one short year.

IMPACT OF LATE RELEASE

In addition, tardy release of these report cards for 2014-15, in the home stretch of the 2015-16 school year, makes it next to impossible for district and building officials to analyze results and implement strategies for improvement this term. Ditching of yet another test format also quashes any valid and consistent comparisons of year-to-year trends in academic achievement.

But for all of their flaws, the new report cards nonetheless do wield some value. They, of course, cannot serve as the sole standard by which districts should be measured on academic standing. But they do serve as one vital snapshot to all stakeholders, including many taxpayers with no other direct ties to schools on returns from their hefty financial investment.

That general snapshot, for example, illustrates once again that the majority of Mahoning Valley school districts continue to stand out as high-caliber performers. Though some districts in the region scored lower this year on some of the specific subject and value-added areas on the evaluations, in general, most school districts and buildings maintained status-quo overall standings.

Nearly half of Mahoning County’s public school districts – Boardman, Canfield, Poland, South Range, Springfield and Western Reserve – received a superlative grade of A on meeting a high level – 30 or more out of a possible 33 – of performance standards the report cards measure. Three others – Jackson-Milton, Lowellville and West Branch – achieved above-average proficiency, and Austintown received a C or average proficiency.

Sebring and Struthers received Ds, and Campbell and Youngstown received Fs, with the latter two districts meeting 8 and zero standards, respectively.

SAME-OLD, SAME-OLD IN CITY SCHOOLS

Clearly, that goose-egg result for Youngstown once again demonstrates that the district warrants wholesale change from the top despite the many all-too-familiar laments and excuses.

“It didn’t get like this overnight, and we’re not going to fix it overnight. ... I don’t know anyone in the city who doesn’t want student achievement,” Interim Youngstown schools Superintendent Stephen Stohla said about the results.

The problem, however, has been that the city district has been in the basement of academic achievement for decades now and can no longer play an endless waiting game. As such, the results reinforce the absolute necessity of expeditiously activating the Youngstown Plan, a state-administered takeover of the district that is currently held hostage by a misguided school board member.

The report cards also bolster the case for strengthening oversight and reforms of Ohio’s charter schools. In Mahoning County, not a single one scored higher than an F in overall performance standards.

Clearly, too, the acrimony over this year’s cards cannot be completely brushed aside. State leaders must ensure new test designs pass muster among educational leaders and that they have sufficient staying power to ensure valid measurements of year-to-year trends.

If those tasks are accomplished and this school year’s cards are released on time, the focus then can rightly move away from igniting conflict and controversy and toward sparking meaningful improvement in academic growth for Ohio’s 1.6 million school students.