- Fordham’s two reports on charter schools in Ohio – released a month ago – are still resonating in media circles. Then Enquirer’s latest prognostication on policy initiatives likely to take center stage in 2015 includes charter school law reform, and notes Fordham’s reports as support. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
- Commentator Marilou Johanek is pessimistic that the fix to charter law will come as promised, despite the CREDO/Bellwether/Fordham reports. I think what she means is that she’s sure something will be done with regard to charter law in 2015, but probably not what she and the Blade are hoping for. (Toledo Blade)
- In the only other news of relevance I could find today, it seems that the administration and the teachers union have something of a differing view of how things are going in Middletown schools these days. The union said a pretty emphatic no to the idea of allowing the district supe to retire and be rehired. Not because they oppose the practice – perish the thought – but because they paint a far less rosy picture of the state of the district than the supe does. (Middletown Journal News)
RESEARCH BITES 1/12/15: Ohio’s Quality Counts Rating – Achievement Gains
Last week, Education Week released its annual “Quality Counts” report. Ohio earned an overall grade of a C. But Ed Week also generates that grade using an assortment of demographic, achievement, and financial variables, some of which are more valid gauges of educational quality than others. The key measures, in my view, are those that track achievement trends over time. This week, I bite into two such metrics, while in Friday’s post, I will award Ohio a revised “overall” rating based on a different computation. The measure I look at today is Ohio’s achievement gains on NAEP, relative to other states. The chart below displays the scaled-score gains from 2003 to 2013, averaged across fourth and eighth grade math and reading tests. Five Midwestern states are shown (OH, MI, PA, IL, IN), the four most-populous states (CA, TX, NY, FL), the leading state along this metric (Aloha!), and the national average gain. What we notice is that Ohio had had below-par achievement gains. In fact, Ohio ranked 30th out of the fifty states on achievement gains (the state’s average rank across the four testing areas). Regardless of whether these gains could be related to demographic changes, it is clear that Ohio’s achievement trend has failed to keep pace with those of leading U.S. states.
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Source: Education Week, Quality Counts. Note: The chart displays each state’s NAEP scaled-score gain, averaged across four grade-subject tests (4th and 8th grade math and reading). Technically, the District of Columbia made the strongest gains (plus 18 points); however, I elect to show Hawaii (a state) rather than DC.
