Many students often hate to take home a bad report card and that is the case now for many Ohio school superintendents including Cincinnati's Mary Ronan.
"600 of the state's 608 districts, ours included, we all dropped in grades on the latest version of the report card," the superintendent of Cincinnati Public Schools said. .
Cincinnati Public School results, as graded by the Ohio Department of Education:
- Achievement—D
- Gap Closing—F
- K-3 Literacy—F
- Progress—F
- Graduation Rate—F
- Prepared for Success—D
Ronan blamed several things including new standards, three different state testing companies in three years, online testing and the complex nature of the state report card. In fact, the state released a 32-page document to the public explaining how to interpret the latest report cards.
Ronan said the results are frustrating after improvements the last couple of years. She said her message to district residents is that things are improving.
"Look at our ACT scores, that's one indicator," Ronan said. "Look at the huge progress, a ten percentage point increase, in our graduation rate. We're moving in the right direction, unfortunately it is not reflected on the state report card."
Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Julie Sellers said she does not think anyone can trust the current state report card system.
"This is probably the perfect opportunity for the state to take advantage of all of the new opportunities around the Every Student Succeeds Act," Sellers said. "Where state by state we can be looking at what types of testing we're going to use and how there's going to be accountability."
The report card release comes just as the district is asking voters to approve a $48 million dollar emergency operating levy in November.
