By Geoff Zimmerman
There has been a lot of attention recently on school performance and the school rating system in Ohio. Ohio schools and districts can be classified in one of six rating categories: Excellent with Distinction, Excellent, Effective, Continuous Improvement, Academic Watch, and Academic Emergency. These categories are based on three factors: performance indicators, performance index, and value added.
Below is a statewide map of district ratings in the 2011 report cards.
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2011/08/2011_ohio_school_report_cards.html
A recent study by the Ohio Association for Gifted Children has brought attention to the way that schools and districts are graded. The report, called "Grading on a Curve: The Illusion of Excellence in Ohio's Schools," says the number of districts Ohio labeled Excellent or Excellent with Distinction (similar to an A and A+) has quadrupled in nine years, even though other national measures place student performance in this state below national averages. The authors call for an accountability system with tougher standards, including implementing nationally normed high school assessments, and incorporating high quality metrics such as college remediation rates, performance on Advanced Placement tests, and average score on the ACT and SAT.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at data for two of the three factors that make up Ohio school rating: performance index and value added.
Performance Index
The performance index rewards the achievement of every student, not just those who score proficient or higher. Traditional school districts and school buildings, including community schools, earn points based on how well each student does on all tested subjects in grades 3-8 on Ohio’s Achievement Assessments and on the 10th grade Ohio Graduation Test.
All assessments have five performance levels which include: advanced, accelerated, proficient, basic and limited. The percentage of students scoring at each performance level is calculated and then multiplied by the point value assigned to that performance level. The points earned for each performance level are totaled to determine each schools performance index score, where applicable.
On November 10, 2011, the state of Ohio released a ranked list, by performance index, of all districts in the state. The rankings include traditional public schools as well as charter schools, joint vocational school districts and STEM schools. The budget passed earlier this year requires the department to release the rankings. Starting next year, a school’s rating will be included on its state report card. The department says the rankings “will provide parents and taxpayers a new way to evaluate how local schools are performing while allowing educators to compare their performance with peers.”
It is important to note, however, that the performance index is just one measure of success and looks solely at standardized test scores. Additional factors beyond sorting by the performance index score will be added to the official rankings when they are released next fall. Shown below are the top 15 districts in the state based on this preliminary report, followed by links to all schools and districts.
*Indicates that Community School reported more than 50% of students on an IEP in FY11 and, therefore, were not subject to evaluation for closure under 3314.35. Data accurate as of 10/26/2011.
The complete ranked list of all Ohio districts is available, along with the complete ranked list of all Ohio schools.
Value Added
Value added is a measure of student learning growth. While the performance index is a measure of achievement, value added is a measure of progress. The value added measure recognizes that districts and schools may be making significant academic improvement in the performance of their students over the course of a year even though they may have not met the standard for student achievement on a single test. A score of "Above" indicates greater than one year of progress has been achieved; "Met" indicates one year of progress has been achieved; "Below" indicates less than one year of progress has been achieved. Scores are calculated for reading and math in grades 4-8. The Fordham Foundation has published an excellent Ohio Value Added Primer that provides an easy to read overview of the topic. From the report:
A measure of achievement gives us a snapshot of what students know at the time they were tested. A measure of achievement could, for example, report whether a student was reading at grade level or what proportion of 5th grade students in a school were reading at grade level. A measure of progress, by contrast, tells us how much a student has learned over a designated period of time. A measure of progress might report that a student’s reading score improved 100 points from 4th grade to 5th grade, or that most students in a school’s kindergarten began the year far behind grade level but ended the year above grade level.
Cincinnati Public Schools was recently highlighted for being ranked in the top 5% in the state for value added ranking. CPS ranks 13th among Ohio’s 609 districts on the state’s value added growth measure. By contrast, other Ohio urban districts made less progress on the measure: Akron ranked 323; Cleveland, 568; Columbus, 199; Dayton, 59; and Toledo, 609.
Greater Cincinnati school districts that also fared extremely well on the state rankings of value added learning growth include Lakota, rated first among the 609 districts; Mason, rated fifth; Indian Hill, sixth; and Middletown, 12th. Value added, like the performance index, is of course just one measure of success, but one that points to positive trends for the future.
The table below shows the value added rankings for school districts in Hamilton County. The classification color indicates how much learning has taken place over the course of the year. Green indicates more than a year of learning growth; yellow indicates students gaining a year’s worth of expected learning growth; red is less than a year of learning growth.
The complete list of value added rankings for Hamilton, Butler, and Warren Counties has been compiled on WCPO.com.
Conclusion
The Performance Index and Value Added are measures of achievement and progress, respectively. They are good measures of achievement in Ohio, however they are both based on standardized test scores and need to be combined with other measures in order to paint a fuller picture. Ohio does need more and better measures of college and career readiness. The state is in the process of adopting new, tougher standards and statewide tests for grade 3-8 and more college-ready tests for high school. The new tests will be field tested next year and will replace existing tests in the 2013-14 school year. Ohio recently adopted the national Common Core initiative and is one of 44 states that agreed to embrace similar, college-ready standards.
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