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First portion of report cards to be released Thursday
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
The most-recent state report card scores will be released in two parts, and schools can expect lower results.
“We view this as a transition year,” Chris Woolard, senior executive director at the Ohio Department of Education’s Center for Accountability and Continuous Improvement, said in a webinar with news media.
The first release, which will include kindergarten through third-grade literacy, graduation rates and prepared-for-success measures, will be released Thursday.
On Feb. 25, Achievement, Gap Closing and Progress components will be released as well as scores for drop-out recovery and career-technical centers and information about district financial expenditures.
ODE typically releases the annual reports, which document how students fared on state tests, in late August. But the move to new assessments through the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and delay in delivery of those PARCC results set back the entire process.
“The delay is because of the transition to new assessments this year,” Woolard said.
State officials said the results will be lower than what schools have come to expect because of the increased difficulty of the tests.
Even with the delay, though, the latest report cards won’t include an overall district or school grade. That won’t come until 2018.
The newest report cards will include grades for the same 10 measures as last year’s: four-year and five-year graduation rates, performance index, indicators met, annual measurable objectives, value-added for four groups of students: overall, gifted students, lowest 20 percent and students with disabilities; and kindergarten through third-grade literacy.
The number of indicators – the components that make up the “indicators met” measure – includes 36. The indicator for gifted students is included in the score this year.
Though student participation doesn’t directly impact school and district grades on the “indicators met” measure, it does affect the performance index.
The performance index gauges the performance of all students.
There won’t be penalties, however, for state tests in the 2014-15, 2015-16 or 2016-17 school years. That’s a provision called “safe harbor.”
Penalties that will be suspended under the “safe harbor” allowance include being designated a “challenged school district,” implementation of the EdChoice scholarship for students attending a poor-performing school and school restructuring.
“Safe harbor” also prohibits schools and districts from using student performance on the state tests for grade promotion. It also means student value-added performance won’t negatively affect teacher and principal evaluations. There is some effect, though, for the city schools under the Youngstown Plan.
That’s the legislation, which is being challenged in both Franklin County Common Pleas Court, that appoints a new five-member academic distress commission.
The commission selects a state-paid chief executive officer to manage and oversee the city schools. The CEO would have broad authority.
The commission makeup is being challenged by the city schools teachers’ union in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. If the law is allowed to go into effect and the commission appoints a CEO, the city district will be affected a bit differently.
“Safe Harbor provisions for students and teachers are the same as they are for any district,” Kim Norris, an ODE spokeswoman, said in an email. “Safe Harbor would not prevent the district from going into year two of the new” academic distress commission.
Under the law, the second year that a school district falls under the poor academic performance designation, the CEO may alter, limit or suspend provisions of collective bargaining agreements.