Looking into Youngstown schools' grades

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown City Schools officials say looking beyond the district’s overall F grade on the state report card reveals several areas of academic progress.

Youngstown schools saw a 39 percentage point increase in the Gap Closing component compared with the 2016-17 report card, from 3.3 percent to 42.3 percent. The Gap Closing component shows how well the district met the performance expectations for the most vulnerable students in English language arts, math, graduation and English language proficiency.

“That’s an incredible gain in one year,” school district CEO Krish Mohip said. “That shows we’re making significant progress even though we got an F in that component. ... The report card puts emphasis on proficiency, but we’re concentrating on growth. We have to see growth before our students reach proficiency, but we will reach those goals, too. Our teachers, administrators, students and families have a lot to be proud of. We’ve turned things around in this school district.”

Also, the district said it realized “dramatic” improvement in closing the reading gap among black students. The reading gap is a measurement of the percentage difference between the actual performance of black students compared with the state average. YCSD’s reading gap for this group decreased from 54.6 percent on the 2016-17 report card to just 3.5 percent on the 2017-18 report card, a 51.1 percentage point reduction. That percentage point reduction puts Youngstown in the lead of the state’s urban school districts and at No. 18 among all districts across the state, the district said.

Similarly, in closing the reading gap among Hispanic students, YCSD realized a 41.6 percentage point reduction between the 2016-17 and the 2017-18 report cards.

That reduction puts the city schools in first place – tied with Canton – among Ohio’s urban districts and 14th of all districts in the state, the district said.

But Dario Hunter, a Youngstown Board of Education member, called Friday for Mohip’s resignation.

“Two years of overspending, bloated administrative salaries, frivolous photo ops and indefensible conflicts of interest haven’t yielded any real academic results for our children. In fact, their progress has taken a large step backwards as the K-3 Literacy Improvement mark went from a B to a D this year. That stunning two-grade drop in Mr. Mohip’s report card should come with a red-inked ‘see me after class’ next to it,” Hunter wrote.

“Last year’s B mark in K-3 literacy was due to programming in the district that preceded Mr. Mohip’s tenure. In two years, he managed to ruin that rare bright spot in the district’s performance. ... The Academic Distress Commission should ask for Mr. Mohip’s resignation.”