NOTE: This is the Foreword from Fordham’s latest report, released today.
Over the past few years, states across the nation have undertaken big changes in public education—a system reboot, if you will. Policymakers have raised academic standards, toughened up exams, and demanded stronger results from schools. Like other states, Ohio has also put into place a standards and accountability framework with the clear goal of readying every student for college or career when she graduates high school.
It’s no secret that a flood of controversy has accompanied these changes. The Common Core, a set of college-and-career ready standards in math and English language arts, has been the subject of great debate. Yet the Common Core remains in place in Ohio and at least forty other states. States have also adopted next-generation assessments aligned to these standards, though the rollout of the new exams has been rocky. As a result of these transitions, Ohio policymakers have temporarily softened accountability and slowed the implementation of new school report cards.
Given the difficulty of these changes, one may ask why we conducted an overhaul in the first place. Why must states, including Ohio, see through the full and faithful implementation of educational change?
Some of the answer rests in the pages of this report. The statistics presented here bear out the stark reality that too many Ohio students have not been fully prepared for their next step after high school—whether college or career. Consider the following facts about Ohio students:
- Just two in five middle-school students pass national reading and math exams (which use a more stringent definition of “proficiency,” compared to Ohio’s historically soft definition).
- Only 15 percent of students leave high school having earned a passing score in at least one AP exam.
- Roughly one-third of students who take the ACT exam reach the college-ready benchmarks in all four content areas.
- Approximately 40 percent of college-goers require some form of remediation in English or math before taking university-level courses.
The achievement statistics for historically disadvantaged students are even bleaker. For example, while 43 percent of white students are proficient on national eighth-grade reading exams, one can say the same of just 16 percent of African-American pupils. State exams reveal similar achievement gaps between different groups of students, whether by family income, race or ethnicity, or disability.
The data in this report mark a starting point by which Ohio leaders can track our state’s progress going forward. Are more students hitting rigorous academic benchmarks as they proceed from Kindergarten to graduation? Are more students truly prepared for college or career when they leave high school? Only time will tell, of course, but the standards and accountability framework that has been implemented gives us confidence that strong educational gains will be made in the years to come.
