Reporting Public Policy

A Reporting Project of the Kent State University School of Media and Journalism

K-12 Education

Portage County school districts receive annual report cards

Samantha Cottrill 0 Comments
Superintendents respond to how their grades meet state standards

Students aren’t the only ones who receive report cards. Every school year, Portage County school districts in Ohio receive report cards to measure state expectations for students.

Last month, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released the report cards for the 2016-17 school year.

The report cards have undergone multiple sets of changes over the past several years based on state policy reforms such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Every Child Succeeds Act.

The report cards currently use an A-F letter grading system and have six components: achievement, progress, gap closing, K-3 literacy, graduation rate and preparation for success.

Chris Woolard, senior executive director for Accountability and Continuous Improvement for the ODE said there are multiple measures within some of the components.

“We have a gap closing component that looks at achievement gaps,” Woolard said. “We know historically from research that certain subgroups of students, whether it’s economically disadvantaged students or students with disabilities or minority students, do not perform at the same level as their peers,” he said. “We are looking to see whether all students are achieving and closing these gaps.”

Portage County school districts Aurora, Kent and Windham each received varying grades on their gap closing component. Windham and Kent both received failing grades, whereas Aurora received a B.

When comparing the report cards, the districts with high household incomes and low poverty rates scored higher. Districts with low household incomes and high poverty rates scored lower.

The U.S. Census Bureau provides the median household income and poverty percentage levels for cities in its 2011-15 statistic reports. Aurora had the highest income median of the three districts with $81,887 and a poverty rate of 3.0 percent. Kent had a median household income of $35,619 and a poverty rate of 35.1 percent. Windham was shown to have a median household income of $37,569 and a poverty rate of 33.6 percent.

The Bureau shows the state median household income at $49,429 with the poverty rate at 14.6 percent. Windham and Kent are both under the state median income and well over the poverty rate. Both school districts scored mostly a C and under for each grade component.

However, Aurora is well above the state median income and well under the poverty level, and its school district scored a B or higher in each grade component, maintaining its overall component grades from the 2015-16 school year.

 



District PDF Report Copy Aurora (Text)

Pat Ciccantelli, the Aurora City School District superintendent, said the report cards are “okay.” Ciccantelli expanded and said he recognizes there are missing factors with the report cards.

“I think that there are complications in some of the formulas that [are] pretty deep,” he said. “When a student opts out you get a zero on the [state] test and that’s factored into your overall data …” Ciccantelli explained that in some situations parents aren’t comfortable with their children taking the tests.

Ciccantelli said economic status is one of the factors that affects students’ performances.

“There’s a very high correlation to socioeconomic status and student performance,” Ciccantelli said. “There are some districts that are never going to score as high as we do because of the background and … the high rates of poverty in their community.”

However, Ciccantelli said that is not always the case.

“There are districts that overcome that to a pretty strong degree as well,” Ciccantelli said. “I think it’s something that you … strive to do the best you can.”

George Joseph, Kent City School District superintendent had similar comments about the report cards.

Joseph said the report cards are accurate with what they are identifying in. However, there are some things that are not taken into account.

“The state report card lacks measures showing the whole child including social and emotional aspects of our students,” Joseph said. “Though I’m sure that if it were easy to do, the state would.”

Joseph said that there are other factors that affect his students, such as more than 80 extracurricular programs.

Compared to the 2015-16 school year, Kent City School Districts saw improvements in its graduation rates. For the four-year graduation rate, it increased from 87 percent to 93.7 percent. There was also an increase in K-3 literacy, moving from 10.8 percent to 31 percent. However, the overall progress grade remained the same.

 



District PDF Report Copy_Kent City (Text)

“We’re not happy with the grade but [we] are trying to make progress,” Joseph said. “We didn’t improve, which is an issue.”

Windham Exempted Village District also saw improvement in its graduation rates compared to its 2015-16 school year. The four-year graduation rate for the district went from 76.7 percent to 86.3 percent. They maintained an A in progress. However, the K-3 literacy dropped from 68.3 percent to 44.4 percent.

 



District PDF Report Copy_Windham (Text)

Windham’s Superintendent Gregg Isler said he understands the importance of being held accountable, but it’s hard to get an accurate grade because of changes in test formats.

“We’ve changed the tests that we’ve used, I think, three times in the last five years,” Isler said. “I hope we stay with what we’re doing so we can get a real measure, maybe, of what’s happening and that we don’t change testing instruments. Then I think you can start to see trends and you can start to see reliability …”

Windham had an average daily enrollment of 490 students according to the district’s report card, compared to the 2,909 and 3,225 students from Aurora and Kent respectively.

Isler said the report cards are not structured for districts like Windham.

“I don’t think report cards are set up for … districts our size,” Isler said. “Statistically, if we have 50 kids in our class, eight of them are special education students. All of those kids have to pass the test or no one else can not pass the test, or we don’t make the indicator. Those are challenges.”

Isler agreed that economic disadvantage does affect the performance of districts’ grades on the state report cards.

“If you look across the state of Ohio and you look at how every economically disadvantaged district compared to everyone else, it’s hard to argue that there’s not a difference,” Isler said.

Isler later elaborated on this difference.

“I think if you were looking at the data that is produced from those results, and that when you get such a high percentage of the top 10 percent wealthiest districts in the state of Ohio, that their children score … in advanced or accelerated, that yes that [economic difference] has something to do with it,” Isler said. “But again, that’s the system we’re using so we have to figure out how to do as well as we can for our kids.”

Overall, the school districts saw either a decrease or an improvement in grades from the 2015-16 school year to the 2016-17 school year. The report cards give the schools an opportunity to see where they stand compared to other districts and where they can improve.

Joseph said, “the true key to a public school doing a great job with kids is doing a great job with kids at all levels.”

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Sam Cottrill: Interviews, chart/documents and writing

Jillian Holness: Interviews and writing

Adrian Leuthauser: Interviews and writing

Andrew Mark: Video and video editing

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