Despite low grades in certain components of Athens City Schools District's report card for the 2016-2017 school year by the Ohio Department of Education, the district is improving.
The district received a D in achievement and kindergarten to third grade literacy, which are the same grades it received in those areas on the 2015-2016 report card. The district saw improvement in grades in gap closing, which improved from an F to a C, and progress, which improved from a C to a B. The district’s grade for graduation rates and having students be prepared for success stayed the same with each component receiving a B and a C respectively.
“While we do not believe that standardized test scores tell the complete story of a student’s education, we are pleased that students are demonstrating academic growth,” Thomas Gibbs, superintendent for Athens City Schools District, said in a press release. “Our dedicated teachers, administrators and staff members continue to work with students and families to ensure that each learner is reaching his or her potential on a daily basis.”
Gibbs said that the district has improved in 16 of 24 tested areas and performed better than the state average in 20 of the 24 tested areas.
Gibbs also said that the performance index of the district at the start of the academic year was higher than the state's and improved more than the state did. The district had a performance index of 74.7 percent by the end of the 2016-2017 school year and the state had a performance index of 84.1 percent.
“All measures are improving, which would indicate that we're on the right track. We're moving in the right direction,” Gibbs said. “We just need to be consistent and continue to improve where we can.”
Ohio Department of Education previously had a system that had different category names, which were translated into letter grades, so the department switched over to officially using an A through F system about five years ago, Chris Woolard, senior executive director for Accountability and Continuous Improvement for the Ohio Department of Education, said. Those grades are based on data from state tests, college entrance exams and graduation rates states received from each district, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
“While this has been a system in transition, it's definitely a system that's stabilizing,” Woolard said.
State Rep. Mike Duffey, R-Worthington, said he believes the trend is moving away from those summative ratings. He believes those results "dumb down" the result so the public does not get the full details of its district's ratings.
“I think people really need to get into the core results and the core results need to not be aggregated among all students because all students are different district to district,” Duffey said.
Duffey said he is planning to introduce legislation, hopefully in the next month, to the Ohio House of Representatives that would drop the A through F scoring and report data in a more straightforward manner. He was not sure how that would change how the data is calculated, but the goal is to change calculation so the public can understand the information better.
“I don't think that this is a fast introduction like other legislation because other legislation is fairly cut and dry and does not have nearly as many stakeholders or as much promotional significance for people,” Duffey said.
Duffey said he believes the public has lost confidence in the report card, which means the report cards are not serving their purpose.
“You have to have the confidence of parents, of educators, of superintendents and school boards if you want people to actually care about what the report card reads and change their behavior on the basis of that,” Duffey said. “On that metric, the report cards get an F.”
