School district report cards paint larger, still incomplete picture of student performance

Oct. 15—School districts in northwest Ohio and across the state saw a drop in student performance on state tests as reported in Ohio's annual school report cards released on Thursday.

The drop in scores was expected, given the state's near-shutdown for the coronavirus pandemic.

Bu in place of letter grades customarily issued to schools and districts on the state report cards was essentially an incomplete — that is, a "Not Reported" — rating.

It marked the second year in a row the Ohio Department of Education released its Ohio School Report Cards with no letter grades, rankings, or ratings based largely on student testing the previous spring and other performance metrics.

But for those willing to sift through the data, the report cards do provide glimpses of how each school district measures up in areas such as reading and math proficiency, graduation rates, and absenteeism. They also provide demographic and enrollment data.

One such area is the state's performance index score, which measures how well students performed overall on the state tests. The numbers represent points earned by each school and district based on how well their students do on the assessments — meaning the more high-achievers a district has, the more points it earns.

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Search the report card data for each Toledo-area school district here.

During pre-pandemic years, state officials calculated an overall "Achievement" grade via a mathematical equation that combines the performance score along with chronic absenteeism, end-of-course improvements, and gifted student data.

In Lucas County, both Toledo Public Schools and Washington Local Schools saw the largest drops in performance index points, with TPS earning a performance index score of 43.82 — down from 62.79 in the 2018-19 report card — and WLS dropping to 69.67 from 81.7 two years ago.

The highest performing district in Lucas and Wood counties was Ottawa Hills with 102.7 performance index points, down from 109.06 in 2018-19. Perrysburg Schools had the second highest score of 97.07, a decrease from 104.9 in 2018-19.

Other Lucas and Wood county school districts saw their performance index scores decrease between six and 14 points.

Pandemic, other factors affecting scores

Poor testing performance came after almost a full academic year spent coping with online instruction from afar and various split schedules for in-class learning during the pandemic.

But TPS Superintendent Romules Durant said other related factors also affected report card scores.

One example is test participation.

Last spring, a number of parents opted out of having their children take the state assessments, which had to be administered in person — a requirement some objected to because of the coronavirus. Those untaken tests were then counted as "zeroes" toward district's overall scores.

In the case of TPS, almost 14 percent of students didn't take the assessment.

"It's skewed because we had 5,000 students who were in virtual learning — for 4,000 of them, the parent chose not to send them in," Mr. Durant said. "Which means 4,000 students got a zero. So to put it in perspective...if your child had four tests, three of them they got 100s, but you chose not to send them in for the fourth test and they got a zero, they would then go from a 100 percent average to a 75 percent average.

"That was part of the discussion we had with the state. We said, 'Listen, you want us to be able to use this data assessment for a tool to see where kids are measuring out at, well, we can't do that if you're using kids who were not in attendance to take the test,'" he added. "Which often does not really give us good valid data to measure of off. It would have been much better if they controlled for that variable and just focused on students who were in attendance."

Other related factors when measuring its achievement is chronic absenteeism, which state education officials say often leads to lower achievement and graduation rates.

For area schools, allowing for students to log-in from home did not lead to better attendance.

All schools experienced large increases in chronic absenteeism — defined as the percentage of students missing at least 10 percent of school instruction time.

Once again, TPS saw the largest increase, with 43.6 percent of students falling into the category last year compared to 18.7 percent the previous year. Other school districts saw modest increases while a few others also saw their rates go from single to double digits.

What's in a grade?

Ohio's report cards have been the center of debate for years, as state leaders contend they are needed to identify challenges, celebrate successes, and hold education leaders accountable if schools aren't adequately meeting students' academic needs.

In the most severe cases, the state has threatened a possible "school takeover" if a school district had too many subpar grades and failed to improve them.

Thus, the letter grades doled out annually from the department proved contentious.

School leaders often argue that aspects of the tests unfairly categorize districts as "chronically failing." They, along with various lawmakers, have also argued the state tests primarily show that poorer school districts get worse grades while those in richer communities get better grades.

The coronavirus pandemic didn't put a stop to the debate.

But state lawmakers agreed to nix the letter-grade system and standardized testing last year soon after the pandemic went into full swing. As a result, students didn't take state exams used to compile the 2019-2020 report cards.

Students did take assessments last spring.

But lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year to again hold off on issuing grades, stating it would be unfair to hold school leaders accountable for lower test scores in light of all the learning disruptions caused by the pandemic.

Lawmakers still haven't decided whether school districts will be graded next year, or how differently grades might be calculated moving forward.

Meanwhile, school districts might not receive grades this year.

Educators won't apply the same rule for most area students on their report cards. Parents can expect to see those in the coming days now that the first quarter of the school year ended on Friday.

First Published October 14, 2021, 3:41pm