Report: students from wealthier schools perform better on state tests than poorer students

Staff report

COLUMBUS

There’s a link between students’ performance and socioeconomic status, according to a study commissioned by three Ohio education organizations.

The Ohio School Boards Association, Ohio Association of School Business Officials and the Buckeye Association of School Administrators commissioned the report through the Ohio Educations Policy Institute.

“Our organizations want to work with our members to improve school-district report cards and solve problems, but what we do not want to lose in the recent confusion over report-card results is the continuing performance gap we see between students in low-wealth districts and those in higher-wealth districts,” Damon Asbury, OSBA’s director of legislative services, said in a news release.

The groups want to continue monitoring the link between poverty and student achievement even as changes in report cards are implemented. The report indicates that the gap between low-income students and their wealthier counterparts continues, regardless of the more stringent measures on school district report cards.

The Ohio Department of Education released report cards last week for schools and school districts across the state. Those report cards showed lower grades than what parents in many communities are accustomed to seeing from their respective schools and districts.

State and Mahoning Valley educators point out that the state tests have been changed three times in the last three years and the state raised the thresholds for performance.