How Value Added looks in Ohio

This from the Columbus Dispatch:

12 local schools on state's 'worst' list

Twelve central Ohio schools are among the worst 5 percent statewide.

Their academic struggles mean they are eligible to receive federal money to help them transform or start over. A list of these schools was released yesterday by the Ohio Department of Education.

Six Columbus City Schools buildings are on the list of the worst-off, as are four in Cleveland and 16 in Cincinnati. Several charter schools -- six of them in central Ohio -- also made the "top" rung on the list.

"No one is going to like the fact that they're on this list," said Mark Real, who heads the Columbus-based nonprofit KidsOhio, which studies education issues. He's been monitoring stimulus-related spending and improvement programs. "But this is not just a 'label and leave it' approach. These schools are in for some pretty intensive care."

This from the non-partisan KidsOhio:

Ohio’s 8 Large Urban Districts and Charter Schools

Rank Higher on

Educational Progress

than on

Absolute Test Scores

KidsOhio.org’s new analysis of state education data shows that many of the state’s lowest-rated schools, both Ohio 8 schools and charter schools, rise to near the middle among schools statewide when ranked according to the state’s own “value-added” measure of annual educational progress.

KidsOhio.org ranked Ohio’s public schools - both traditional district schools and charter schools - according to their Performance Index scores (measuring student achievement on state tests in a given year) and their Value-Added Gain scores (the state’s measure of students’ academic progress from year to year). The analysis covered the 2,688 Ohio schools that received scores for both measures in 2008, and the data revealed that:

• Ohio 8 district schools ranked, on average, 2,199 out of 2,688 schools on test scores, but jumped 663 places to an average ranking of 1,536 on student progress.
• Charter schools taken as a group had an average ranking of 2,288 on test scores, but an average ranking of 1,362 on student progress, an increase of 926 places.

The analysis also identifies further common ground between traditional district schools in the Ohio 8 (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) and public charter schools: both groups of schools serve high percentages of economically disadvantaged students and students with special needs.

In addition, KidsOhio.org ranked all of Ohio’s 610 traditional school districts on the two measures. Each of the Ohio 8 districts ranked higher on educational progress than on absolute test scores. Graphics showing each of the Ohio 8 districts’ ranks on the two measures are available here. You can download KidsOhio.org’s full report on the analysis here. For data on all 2,688 ranked schools, click here; and for data on all 610 school districts, click here.

Hat tip to KSBA