Miller, Craft weigh in on report cards

0

The Ohio Department of Education released the report cards for districts and individual schools on Thursday, eliciting a wide range of responses from educational leaders across the state.

Districts and schools received letter grades — A through F — in six component areas from the 2016-2017 academic year. The components are Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing, Graduation Rate, K-3 Literacy and Prepared for Success. According to ODE, there are no new measures on the 2016-2017 report cards.

Superintendent Andrew Miller said the latest state report card for Buckeye Valley Local Schools showed “some areas to take pride in as well as some areas for growth.”

Following are the grades Buckeye Valley Local received in each of the six components on the report card: Achievement, C; Progress, B; Gap Closing, D; Graduation Rate, A; K-3 Literacy, B; and Prepared for success, C.

“When looked at in isolation, it is certainly less than impressive — some good, some not so good — but when compared to other districts in the area, as well as districts across Ohio, I believe Buckeye Valley fared very well,” said Miller.

Miller noted two areas in which Buckeye Valley students made gains that pleased him: an A in the overall “value added” score in the Progress component and an increase in the performance index under the Achievement category.

“Progress shows that over the past two years overall students are experiencing more than a year’s growth as noted by the A; along with gifted students,” Miller said. “The lowest 20 percent and students with disabilities are experiencing a year’s worth of growth as noted by the B and C, respectively.”

Miller explained the significance of the performance index score.

“(Performance index) improved from 90.5 to 95.3,” he said. “This is important because, unlike passage rates, this includes the performance of all students and shows the district is improving.”

Quite possibly the most notable gain for Buckeye Valley was the K-3 Literacy grade, which improved from an F on the previous report card to a B on the 2017 report.

Delaware City Schools Superintendent Paul Craft said students in his district displayed growth from the previous testing period on the 2017 report card.

“Our ‘Overall Progress’ gain index puts us in the top 12 percent of districts across the state, meaning that our teachers are clearly helping our students to grow more than the average students in the state,” Craft said. “This is the seventh of the last eight years our district has received an A for overall student growth, the measure we have the most direct impact over since it measures how much a student improves in performance no matter the performance level from which they started.”

Following is the rundown of the grades Delaware City Schools received in each of the six components on the report card: Achievement, C; Progress, B; Gap Closing, F; Graduation Rate, B; K-3 Literacy, C; and Prepared for success, D.

Craft was pleased with several improvements Delaware City Schools students made on the 2017 report card, including performance index, graduation rate, and overall test scores.

“Our Performance Index, a broad measure of overall student performance, improved by over four points, while districts across the state improved by around 2.5 points,” Craft said. “Our 5-year graduation rate of 95.7 percent was a record high for our district, putting us in the A category for that measure and 10 percentage points higher than the state and national averages. Our students scored higher than the state average on 22 of 23 achievement tests, in some cases by more than 15 percent.”

Craft noted that the report card has continued to become more complicated over time and doesn’t tell the entire story of how well students are doing in school.

“No single grade tells us all we need to know about how we are doing for kids,” he said. “With that said, if I could pick only one grade that I would want us to do well on it would be ‘Overall Student Progress,’ and once again we are one of the top districts in the state on that measure. We will use these results as best we can to help us get better at what we do for kids.”

(NOTE: Next week, we’ll review the state report cards for Big Walnut Local Schools and Olentangy Local Schools.)

.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}

Craft
http://www.delgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2017/09/web1_Craft-preferred-photo.jpgCraft

Miller
http://www.delgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2017/09/web1_Andy-Miller-BVLS.jpgMiller

By Andrew Carter

[email protected]

State Report Cards

Districts and schools received letter grades — A through F — in six component areas from the 2016-2017 academic year. The components are Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing, Graduation Rate, K-3 Literacy and Prepared for Success.

Contact Andrew Carter at 740-413-0900. Follow him on Twitter @DelOhioEditor.

No posts to display