Contents
Guest Editorial

• Ohio Students Make the Grade
• Implementing Value-Added Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities

Recommended Reading

• Education Funding Follies

Reviews and Analysis

• Dayton’s Children Making Gains in Reading and Math
• A Promise Made . . .

Announcements

• The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools Needs Your Help

Guest Editorial
Ohio Students Make the Grade
Each day in Ohio's classrooms, great things happen that can't be tested. Caring teachers help reserved children build self-confidence, school administrators challenge at-risk students to continue their education, and students learn the value of cooperation and respect for others.

While we can't directly measure all these wonderful things, the recently released state and local report cards for every district and school in Ohio show the positive impact of teachers' efforts on student learning.

Their hard work--along with the efforts of superintendents, principals, school staff, parents, students and community members throughout the state--is making a difference.
Test scores are up. Over the past seven years, the statewide average of all students' test scores has increased by more than 19 points, up to 92.9.
Our schools continue to improve. Eight out of ten school districts earned Excellent or Effective ratings on the report cards. For the first time, Ohio has no districts in Academic Emergency.
More students are graduating each year. For the eighth year in a row, Ohio's graduation rate increased, up to 86.2 percent.
But we have some tough challenges ahead. We still see unacceptable achievement gaps between groups of students, especially for students with disabilities, students from low-income families and students of color.

Ohio had 19,000 students drop out of high school last year, many from high-poverty school districts. Those young Ohioans may now be destined for low-paying, dead-end jobs at best, or incarceration and generational poverty at worst.

There's a cost to all of us when students don't succeed in school. Higher levels of education are directly tied to higher levels of income. A U.S. Census Bureau report states that high school graduates can earn $1.2 million in a lifetime. Those with a bachelor's can expect to earn $2.1 million and those with a master's, $2.5 million. Every student deserves a quality education that will help them succeed in life.
Educators can't do this alone. It will take the leadership and resources of business and labor, legislators, higher education and local communities to prepare our students for the workforce and life. An investment in public education is crucial. Together, we must guarantee the future of our children.

Susan Tave Zelman is Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Ohio.

by Susan Tave Zelman

Implementing Value-Added Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities
With last week's release of Ohio's report card data, many teachers, school leaders, and district officials are reflecting on accomplishments well-earned, and charting a course to raise student achievement this school year. In the same spirit, the State Board of Education is studying the current achievement data with a close eye on the future. Beginning in 2007-08, Ohio's educational measurement system will incorporate a "value-added" model, one that will offer parents, teachers, and students a clearer understanding of student gains from year to year.

Value-added assessment measures individual student academic progress over the course of time. Currently, Ohio's accountability system measures individual student achievement at one moment in time rather than over the course of a school year or years. And the state's temporary growth calculation is only an aggregate measure of school and district progress over a two year span.

As a growth model, value-added also more accurately measures the specific impact that a school, teacher, or curriculum has on individual student learning over time. For example, consider a class of freshman at Harvard. After four years of instruction, one might find that upon graduation each student is an excellent writer, scoring well on a writing test. This could be due to the great education they received. Or, it could be that the students were already excellent writers when they entered Harvard. If the latter is true, then Harvard most likely contributed little to the students' being good writers. Which is true? A value-added system would tell us because it shows how much growth the students made during their studies.

A common complaint about Ohio's current accountability system is that it unfairly rewards and punishes schools and districts for the percentage of students "passing" achievement tests. For some districts, such as those serving predominantly middle-class or affluent students, this task is easier. However, districts serving a majority of economically disadvantaged students might be punished for not meeting proficiency standards--even though students are showing noticeable growth in performance. The present system does not recognize the point at which either group of students started--and thus cannot measure the "value added" by teachers and schools over time.

Other stakeholders, particularly those in the gifted community, worry that schools and school systems are focusing on increasing proficiency levels at the expense of high performing students who, they argue, are not being pushed to maximize their full potential because they have already achieved proficient status.

In both cases, a value-added model will give state officials a more complete picture of student learning while providing local district staff and administrators valuable data to inform and help drive instruction.

How will value-added impact schools and districts?

A value-added accountability model will delineate the relationship between two key indicators of student learning: 1. achievement (how well students score on a test), and 2. progress (the growth in student performance from one point in time to another).

Ideally, a school or district would post high achievement rates and marked academic progress from year to year. However, a school with low achievement rates but clear rates of progress could be spared the usual sanctions reserved for poor performing schools--on the premise that such progress puts students on a direct course to higher achievement levels. Conversely, high achieving schools that show little progress in student learning would be held accountable for how much student learning grows from year to year. The system would ultimately reward above-average growth while holding districts and schools accountable for below-average growth.

Average Yearly Progress (AYP) measures required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will still be calculated using only student achievement scores. However, that could change if Ohio's plan is accepted for a federal pilot program to measure growth--using such models as value-added.

At the state level, how much value-added affects a school or district's rating, what constitutes enough growth from year to year, and when should schools and districts be rewarded or penalized are all important issues still up for discussion. The final decisions surrounding value-added will be made by the Ohio State Board of Education this fall.

Therefore, it is vital that policy makers, educators, and other interested stakeholders weigh in on the pros and cons of how best to incorporate value-added into our state's accountability system. The goal of Ohio's value-added system--to improve the quality of student learning--will only be reached if all stakeholders understand the system, and believe that it represents a more accurate measure of the contributions that teachers, curricula, and administrators add to student learning.

Dr. Owens Fink is a member of the Ohio State Board of Education as well as the board's Accountability Task Force, which has studied and put forth recommendations for implementing the state's value-added assessment model. She represents District 7, encompassing Ashtabula, Portage, Summit, and Trumball counties.

by Deborah Owens Fink

Recommended Reading
Education Funding Follies
It's no secret that the state's education funding system is broken--the Ohio Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional four times. But how to fix it?

Both of the state's gubernatorial candidates had a chance to answer that question last week at a meeting of the Ohio School Boards Association. Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell reiterated his devotion to the 65 Percent Solution, which would require districts to spend at least that much on classroom instruction--as opposed to administrative costs. He also called for reforming collective bargaining and outsourcing some administrative duties.

And Democrat Ted Strickland? He won't say. "I will do that if I win this election," he insisted (and still managed to be the darling of the crowd). Nevertheless, Strickland is confident that his "secret plan" would satisfy the Supreme Court's concerns.

A 65 Percent Solution doesn't begin to fulfill the needs of Ohio's children (see here and here), but a secret not worth telling is just plain sad. Voters deserve better.

"Strickland Mum on Details of His School-Funding Plan," by Jim Siegal, The Columbus Dispatch, August 18, 2006.
"Blackwell Gets Cold Reception, Strickland Applauded," by Patrick Cain, The Akron Beacon Journal, August 18, 2006.

by Quentin Suffren

Reviews and Analysis
Dayton’s Children Making Gains in Reading and Math
Parents, teachers, and school administrators in Dayton are no doubt confused over the state report card results and the paradoxical message they convey. While Performance Index scores are rising--along with some charters' and Dayton Public's ratings--the number of area schools meeting Average Yearly Progress (AYP) targets is declining.
Fortunately, reading and math scores offer two clear indicators of student achievement in the Gem City.

Overall, Dayton's public school children-both district and charter-made significant gains in reading and mathematics as measured by the state's 2004-05 and 2005-06 achievement tests. Over the course of one year, scores for both district and charter sixth and eighth grade students rose, while third grade reading scores declined slightly for students in both types of schools (see Graph I). Fourth grade reading scores rose for Dayton's charter students but declined slightly for district fourth graders. 
In math, charter school students showed marked improvement from 2004-05 to 2005-06, posting significant gains in third, fourth, sixth, and eighth grades. District students scored higher in third, fourth, and eighth grades, while sixth grade results showed a slight decline from the previous year (see Graph II).
 
Charter school students scored particularly well in both reading and mathematics. Fourth graders in 2005-06 scored 8 percentage points higher in reading and 21 percentage points higher in math than the class before them. Last year's sixth graders scored 27 percentage points higher in both reading and math than sixth graders in 2004-05. And the charter eighth graders of 2005-06 surpassed their predecessors by 5 percentage points in reading and 15 percentage points in math.
These are truly impressive gains, driven in large measure by students in a handful of charter schools: The Richard Allen Academies, Edison's Dayton Academy, the National Heritage Academies' Pathway School of Discovery, the World of Wonder School, and East End Community School. These charter schools, along with some district high performers, are showing the community of Dayton that its children can perform at high levels if they are given access to good schools and quality instruction.
It's been a long, hard road for all of Dayton's public schools--district and charter alike--but charter and district educators' focus on providing a high quality education for their students is beginning to show measurable results. There's still much work to be done, and too many schools are still not delivering the necessary results. But these reading and math gains indicate that school choice--and school improvement efforts--are paying off for Dayton's children.
"Charter Schools Show Uneven Improvement," by Scott Elliott, The Dayton Daily News, August 21, 2006.
by Terry Ryan
A Promise Made . . .
Ohio's largest cities are rapidly shrinking. According to recent U.S. Census figures, Cincinnati was the biggest loser, hemorrhaging 6.8 percent of its total population--over 22,000 residents--from 2000 to 2005, a larger percentage than any other city in the nation.
To repopulate urban neighborhoods and boost enrollment in local schools, a coalition of Cincinnati-area leaders are launching "Strive," a growth plan based on the "Kalamazoo Promise"(see here) that would guarantee college scholarships to regional universities for students completing their education in Cincinnati or nearby Covington and Newport, Kentucky. Kalamazoo's program, funded by anonymous donors, is credited for raising home values and generating inquiries about the city from all over the country.
Area education and civic leaders are sanguine about the plan's potential benefits. CPS Superintendent Rosa Blackwell said, "It's all about giving students and their families great hope." Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory was even more enthusiastic, insisting the program could usher in a "new way of life" in the city.
But there's a problem. Strive doesn't detail the necessary steps districts and schools must take to raise the level of classroom instruction and adequately prepare students for college. CPS currently rates in Continuous Improvement on the state's report card and graduates just 77 percent of its students.
That figure does not account for the number of students actually prepared for college. ACT recently found that just 24 percent of Ohio's tested high school graduates from the class of 2006 were adequately prepared for college-level coursework in English, math, science, and social sciences. Just 57 percent of said graduates pursued a core curriculum (one comprised of four years of English and three years of math, science and social studies) in high school-and that number is falling every year. The average composite ACT score of African Americans (who make up 70 percent of CPS's student population) that pursued a core curriculum in Ohio is 18 (on a 36 point scale), well below many college admissions requirements and hardly an augur of future academic success.
The truth is that hope alone will not help students become successful academically. Better instruction and greater course rigor (as put forth in Governor Taft's Ohio Core plan, for instance) will. Strive and similar programs (Dayton is considering its own "Dayton Promise) represent a wonderful opportunity for Ohioans, but students unprepared to take advantage of it will find this promise a cruel one.
"Strive Takes Plans Public," by Scott Wartman, The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 17, 2006.

"Scholarship Fund to Pay Way," by Howard Wilkinson and Jennifer Mrozowski, The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 16, 2006.

"Dayton Schools Discuss Ways to Keep Students in the City," by Scott Elliot, The Dayton Daily News, July 28, 2006.

Check out ACT's recent Ohio report here.
by Quentin Suffren

Announcements
The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools Needs Your Help
The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a statewide charter school association now in the planning stages, is conducting a survey of Ohioans active in education to develop its service offerings for the coming years. The Ohio Alliance is an effort supported by three national foundations, Ohio donors, and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. If you are a supporter of charter schools or a charter school principal, the Alliance would very much appreciate your input.
The survey should take about 15-20 minutes to complete.  Please complete the survey no later than Friday, August 25. 
Charter school stakeholders (other than principals) and supporters can find the survey here. If you are a charter school principal, click here.