June 2017 - High Performance at a Competitive Rate

By Thomas L. Hosler

The end of the school year is an exciting time. The sound of the final bell is a reminder that report cards are coming home for each student. Sometimes that too can be an “exciting” time for students as report cards bring closure to the school year. Some report cards result in a celebratory trip for ice cream. Others result in a heart-to-heart talk with your son or daughter. The good news is that next school year students begin with a clean slate.

Now imagine if the school year ended and grade cards were not issued until sometime in the first quarter of the following school year. What if some of the final grades were based on a formula that the school did not share? What if the final exams for the year were given a month and a half before the end of the course? If any of these questions left you shaking your head, welcome to some of the challenges that we have with State Report Cards.

The report cards are not issued at the end of the year, but rather sometime after the next school year begins. The formula used to calculate student growth is considered to be proprietary and schools are not permitted to see it or know how it calculates student growth. This formula is then used to grade teachers, schools and districts. State tests, which are designed to test an entire year’s worth of instruction, are given in April, weeks before the end of the school year.

Who can argue with the logic of “let’s grade teachers, schools and districts like we grade students?” It sounds great. But the reality is that we do not do that. A student who grows one whole year academically in a single school year is graded as a “C” by the state. Growing an entire year in math, for example, is a very good thing. In other words, a teacher who works hard and sees his or her entire class grow one year academically in a tested subject would essentially be rated a “C” teacher. But by assigning a letter grade “C” it gives the impression that this achievement is “average.” Is “average” the best way of describing a teacher or school that gets an entire classroom of 4th graders to advance one year in a subject in one year? This is where the letter grades begin to fall short in fully capturing how teachers, schools and districts are performing.

It didn’t take long for groups to add up all the district grades on the State Report Card to come up with a GPA and ranking. In fact, the Ohio Department of Education is poised to do this next year. However, this school year, Cleveland.com ranked Ohio school districts on a GPA they calculated based on the Ohio Department of Education’s Ohio School Report Cards’ six major components: Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing, Graduation Rate, K-3 Literacy and Prepared for Success. Perrysburg Schools’ GPA is tied with 6 other school districts at 17th place when ranked with more than 600 school districts throughout the state. Among that group of top-ranked school districts, of those in the top 17, consider that Perrysburg has the 8th lowest expenditure per pupil. While we applaud the efforts of our students and staff, we know that the report cards do not adequately capture what a Perrysburg experience and education means to our students, families and community. We are making this statement while being one of the state’s higher performing districts. If we were ranked 583, we would be articulating this same point.

Dr. Scott Courtney, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education at Kent State University, recently contacted Perrysburg Schools. In researching school district results related to mathematics achievement scores, he has been studying each school district’s math student performance and the amount that each district is spending per pupil. Perrysburg spends less per pupil than the state average. When he graphed this information, it caught his attention due to the extreme differences in spending per pupil for school districts with identical performance scores. He is now examining districts that are high performing and low spending per pupil, including Perrysburg Schools.

In a letter to our school district leaders, Dr. Courtney wrote: “I am not aware if you received any accolades… but you deserve a lot… Whatever is going on, it is definitely working!” Perrysburg Schools has committed to working with Kent State University as they study what characteristics allow our district to be as successful as it is in such a cost-efficient manner.

The PHS class of 2017 was offered a combined total of over $16.7 million in scholarships. That is a remarkable number. The combined hours of community service logged by Perrysburg students is in the thousands. Our graduates continue to lead and serve locally, nationally and internationally. None of this shows up on a state report card. Perrysburg Schools provides our stakeholders with several ways to learn more about how we are doing, including the “District Dashboard” and “Quality Profile” that are mailed to all residents and our monthly online newsletter, “Spotlight.” We are doing our best to provide a deeper look at how we are performing for our stakeholders. In the end, employers and colleges do not want test-takers. They want hard working, dedicated individuals with a strong academic foundation who can work together to problem solve. While the state report cards are an important measure to see how well we are doing covering the state standards, they do not tell the entire story of how our schools or our students are performing.