State Remediation Data Needs a Reality Check

There's a reason so many school districts are appealing the state report card data that just came out for the 2014-2015 school year. One of the major culprits has been the so-called "Prepared for Success" dataset that measures students' participation in college preparation, as well as their performance on the ACT and SAT, how many students remain in college two years after graduation, and a couple other things.

But here's where I start scratching my head. In Aurora, the state data say that about 1/2 of all kids need remediation based on their ACT scores.

Half?

Aurora is easily one of the finest districts in the state. Its middle school is a blue ribbon school. Its proficiency and growth scores routinely top the scales.

Yet half of those kids need remediation upon graduation? Really?

Does this even seem possible to you?

Especially considering the good news released last year by the Ohio Board of Regents that found that while college enrollment was up, remediation rates were down? And those remediation rates were down for the class that's included in this new report card dataset -- the dataset that claims the average Ohio district only had about 25% of their ACT takers and an astonishing 3.8% of their SAT test takers test remediation free?

Something's not right here.

I know a little about this. I teach freshman composition at the University of Akron -- a large, urban university. I've heard for years in education policy land that "kids today can't write" and they need all kinds of remediation.

I'm here today to tell you that I simply haven't seen this rampant problem. I just haven't. Are there kids who struggle to write. Yes. Are there tons of kids who struggle? Not that I've seen. At least, not yet. Yes, my sample size is small. But I have freshmen in an open enrollment, urban university. And I have yet to come across anyone whose writing was so bad it's helpless. Some need more help than others, but to be held back a year for remediation? That's simply not needed, in my experience.

I've long been cynical about this sudden need for remediation in colleges. And for good reason. First of all, kids are more prepared for college today than at any point in American history. There are more dual enrollment options, Early College High Schools, AP and International Baccalaureate courses, not to mention a cultural push for college than when I went to school.

Yet this is the generation that's in desperate need of remediation? Something's not right. Either all these programs and efforts are failing. Miserably. Or there's something else going on.

And, in fact, that's what the research indicates. Several studies have shown that basing remediation needs on test scores is flawed, with as many as 1/3 of students being unnecessarily placed in remedial courses.

I think it's a simple matter of money. Why? Because if a university can put a kid in a remediation program, the student has to pay for it but it doesn't count toward their degree. So the university is collecting another 3 (or more) credits on top of the credits the student will have to pay for their degree.

It is certainly coincidental that the rise in calls for remediation coincided with the deep cuts made to higher education from state legislatures, beginning in the late 1990s (in fact, the first instance of "college remediation" popping up in the literature on Academic Search Complete is 1998).

For example, the University of Akron lost more than 23% of its state per pupil support between 2002 and 2011, adjusted for inflation. Overall, Ohio's main four-year campuses lost more than 14% of their state per pupil revenue.

This cut in funding coincided with the steady rise in remedial courses being taken by students, which courses' bonus revenue helped offset the state funding cuts at universities, along with increased fees, etc.

I'm not saying remediation isn't warranted. I'm not saying we shouldn't address the issue head on and aggressively. What I am saying is that 1/2 of Aurora students taking the ACT do NOT need remediation. And that 1 in 4 Ottawa Hills students taking the ACT do NOT need remediation.

And that if these scores are off, couldn't they also be off in places like Lorain, which according to the new report cards, had 20 of their 140 or so students who took the ACT test remediation free? How about the bad rates in Cleveland, Dayton, Columbus, Western Local, etc.?

Sometimes I wish the wonks (like me, I suppose) who put together datasets would step back and think about the results and whether they actually mean anything. If remediation rates are dropping, according to the Board of Regents, how can it be that in the average Ohio school district, only 1 in four ACT test takers and not even 4 out of 100 SAT test takers test remediation free?

Perhaps, as the studies I mentioned earlier show, basing remediation rates on test scores should be re-thought.

A lot.

And, perhaps, you start to understand why so many districts are appealing these report card results.

First New Report Card Grades Out. What a Mess.

The Ohio State Report Card grades for the 2014-2015 school year are finally out after about a 5 month delay. And only partially out at that (only K-3 Literacy, Prepared for Success and Graduation Rates were released). While there is plenty of data to comb through, my big take away from this is simple: it's a mess, primarily due to the hoopla over the PARCC tests and their opt outs. There are 78 districts that are protesting at least some of the grades released yesterday, with many appealing several.

Probably the most interesting grades released yesterday were the K-3 Literacy grade. Only 65% of Ohio's school districts receive a grade. And those grades weren't that hot with about 85% of districts receiving grades getting a C, D, or F. However, at the end of the day, only 668 3rd graders weren't deemed proficient in reading, according to the state data. That's .5% of the 122,000 students in third-grade last school year in Ohio's school districts. That seems pretty good to me.

Obviously, I'd like to see that number get closer to zero. But having 99.5% of third-graders be proficient seems like as close to a third-grade guarantee as you can get without getting to 100%, which is the percentage that should be all of our goals.

So if 99.5% of students meet the K-3 literacy requirement (proficiency in reading), why are the grades so low? It's primarily due, I think, to how many kids are caught up to proficient in each school year. For example, less than 1 in 4 second-graders that are behind in reading are caught up by the end of the grade, according to the state data.

But what seems most important to me is whether, at the end of the day, a third-grader is reading at the level he or she should by the time he or she finishes the grade. And in 99.5% of the cases, they are.

Charter schools are struggling more than districts, which is pretty much par for the course in Ohio.

 Though even in charter schools, only 5.4% of students are not proficient in reading by third grade. What is remarkable, though, is the concentration. For example, in Ohio's 613 school districts, 33 districts accounted for the 668 non-proficient third graders. Meanwhile, in Ohio's nearly 300 charter schools that were eligible to receive the K-3 Literacy grade (about 100 are exempt dropout recovery schools), 22 accounted for all 508 students who weren't proficient.

First of all, it's amazing that despite having only 9,300 third-graders, charters still had nearly as many students deemed non-proficient as Ohio's districts, which educate 122,000 third graders. But overall, more than 94% of Ohio charter school students were deemed to be proficient in third-grade reading last year. That's not bad. Not as good as districts, but not disastrous either. So that's decent news.

Again, I am comparing districts to charters because every district lost funding to the charter school deduction last year and about 1/2 of all charter students come from outside Ohio's urban centers. In addition, charters are funded by moving money from districts to the charters, not from individual buildings to charters, which means every kid -- even the highest performing in the highest performing building -- loses state revenue to charter school deductions.

There will be time to cull through much of the data released yesterday. But suffice it to say that this may be the most exciting time for Report Card controversy in years, thanks to the PARCC exams, which no longer are around, and the fact that many children were opted out of the exams, which probably has affected schools and districts' scores.

Judging from the appeals and protests, it is very likely that these data will change. Messy indeed.

The Proper Perspective: A New Cross-Ideological Discussion

Today is a big day, for it is the day that I join forces with Fordham's Jamie Davies O'Leary to bring a new voice to the Ohio Education Policy Debate. We're calling it "The Proper Perspective". It's an effort to bring sound, reasoned policy discussions around common issues of the day. Sometimes we'll agree. Sometimes not. But throughout we will be respectful and work through many of the policy issues we have in many cases just shouted through.

I'm excited because this effort is a natural outgrowth of the coalition building that's been happening in Ohio over the last several years, initiated by the need to improve our state's charter school system, but one I think can serve us well throughout the education policy arena. Without further ado, he we go...

“The Proper Perspective” is a discussion between Jamie Davies O’Leary, senior Ohio policy analyst for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Stephen Dyer, education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio. This joint effort was hatched one afternoon after Jamie and Steve had a lively back-and-forth over email about (what else?) charter school data. Interested in many of the same data points and research questions, they decided to share some of this exchange more publicly, helping both to illuminate trends in Ohio public education and formulate policy recommendations through their insights.

In some areas, they’ll find opportunities to coalesce, and even celebrate. In a state often divided vehemently on public education, there’s value in finding alignment with those you may have disagreed with previously.

In other areas, interpretation of the same facts is bound to diverge. That’s OK. We’ll strive for thoughtful dialogue—backed up with research and data—rather than ad hominem attacks or the same ideological shouting that has marked Ohio’s education reform debate for too long. Thanks for joining us and for listening—to both of us. We hope it will be both entertaining and enlightening.

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A decade of performance gains: What does it mean?

In the last ten years, Performance Index scores have improved across the board in Ohio’s traditional and charter sectors. Some charters and districts have shown radical improvement. Others have stagnated, and a few have seen a drop. But overall, it appears that Performance Index scores—a measure of achievement in tested grades and subjects—are rising, which means that schools and districts are improving and that our accountability system is headed in a good direction.

Here are a few data points.

Districts

·       In the ten school years between 2004–2005 and 2013–2014, districts saw a 6.8 percent increase in their Performance Index scores, from 92.80 to 99.10.

·       Of the 610 districts that received Performance Index scores in each of the school years, only twenty-three (or 3.8 percent) saw a drop in scores.

·       Big 8 urban districts improved by more than 10 percent, which was greater than districts overall.

·       Big 8 urban districts have a 3.4 percent higher score, with a 6 percent higher poverty rate than charters.

Charters  

·       In the ten school years between 2004–2005 and 2013–2014, charters saw a 45.5 percent increase in their Performance Index scores, from 53.65 to 78.06.

·       This improvement was achieved despite the average poverty rate jumping from 64.5 percent to 82.2 percent.

·       Of the hundred charters that received Performance Index scores in each of the school years, 14 percent saw a drop in scores.

 Performance Index scores range from 0 to 120.

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Jamie Davies O’Leary

It appears that Ohio schools—especially those serving poor kids—have improved modestly in the last decade. Achievement scores have risen among traditional public and charter public schools alike, in some instances by phenomenal margins.

There are multiple explanations for the across-the-board improvements. Ohio’s accountability system—however loathed by some critics—might be doing its job, albeit slowly. Districts may have improved in the face of pressure from the increased transparency and scrutiny schools must face from the school report card system. Meanwhile, the uptick in school choice and competition—charter schools, private schools accepting vouchers, open enrollment, etc.—might be encouraging schools to focus more on meeting students’ needs and thus producing better outcomes for kids. More cynically, perhaps everyone has just gotten better at teaching to the test and improving their scores.

Good news is hard to come by for schools serving poor kids, so I don’t want to minimize these gains. It’s important, however, that we acknowledge that Performance Index is only one metric by which Ohio should gauge the success of its accountability system. Average composite ACT scores (from 2004 to 2013) have barely budged. According to the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), reading achievement is flat (there has been a modest increase in math scores). While we should celebrate those schools that have improved dramatically, much more is needed in many instances. Dayton and Youngstown had the second- and third-highest PI gains (as a percentage) among Ohio’s Big 8 districts, but current PI scores of 75 and 78 (respectively) remain unacceptable. (The statewide average in 2013–14 was around 95.) Poor graduation rates and growth scores corroborate the need for more dramatic efforts in these cities and elsewhere. So let’s not get overly excited about the improvements schools are making along the PI measure.

Regardless, the takeaway for me remains the same: Ohio should stay the course on accountability and resist any attempts to scale back efforts now that the federal Everyone Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) empowers states to change or abandon portions of their respective accountability frameworks. And we’d be wise to study those districts and charters that saw serious improvements (such as the very high-performing Columbus Preparatory Academy, a charter that nearly doubled its PI score). 

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Stephen Dyer

Ohio’s school districts – and especially its charter schools – have seen marked student performance gains over the last 10 years.

The biggest improvements were in the lowest performing districts and schools, which indicates that low starting points play a role. But we shouldn’t short-change these schools’ improvement. It’s good news.

There are caveats. For while the state’s charter schools showed the greatest 10-year performance gains, charters had much further to go, having scored about 15% lower than the lowest school district 10 years ago.

The sector’s average Performance Index score has improved an impressive 45%, yet it remains lower than 605 of Ohio’s 613 school districts’. The state’s urban districts, despite having greater proportions of economically disadvantaged students and higher scores 10 years ago (limiting their gain potential) improved by more than 10% on average, which is also impressive.

So while the charter average has improved substantially, it hasn’t been able to make up its performance gap.

Yet.

It’s important to remember that every district lost at least some students to charters last year and about ½ of charter students no longer come from the state’s urban core. So charter-to-urban comparisons aren’t nearly as obvious as they appear.

Children in districts with greater or similar portions of poor students outperform children in charters too, which means demographics can’t fully explain lower charter scores either.

However, despite the many complaints from me and my friends about the state’s test-heavy accountability system, it is producing some impressive results … on test scores. Other important outcomes like critical thinking, creativity and love of learning remain unassessed.

We can also see how far we still have before our charter school sector provides the kind of systemic quality our kids deserve, reinforcing the urgency of remaining on the quality-based track the state has recently adopted.

Ohio's Education Rank Slips Again Under Kasich

I really try to avoid being political here. But politicians tend to tout their educational bona fides on the campaign trail. A lot. So when Education Week's national Quality Counts rankings come out, politicians trumpet their height or pooh-pooh their depth, depending on where the rankings land.

Well, in Ohio, under John Kasich, Ohio has gone from the 5th best rated education system in 2010 to the 23th best this year -- the only state rated in the top 5 in 2010 to have fallen more than 10 spots, and the only state in the top 5 to now rate outside the top 12.

In 2010, Ohio could crow about its education policy achievements. The state had just passed a landmark education reform plan that won the Frank Newman Award from the Education Commission of the States, reserved for the country's most "bold, courageous, non-partisan" education reform of the year. That package included a new school funding system that the folks who sued the state over its old funding system said put us on the path to constitutionality.

Within months of that passing, we got our 5th place rating -- the state's highest rank ever on the Ed Week report.

Fast forward to this year. 

The state has ditched that award-winning finance system and reforms. In its place, the current governor tried to replace it with one that was so panned in 2013 that the legislature essentially dropped it and adopted a funding scheme from 2005. The state's charter school system has become a national embarrassment. And now, Ohio's education system ranks below Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Virginia, Rhode Island, Maine, North Dakota, Delaware, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, Washington, Alaska and Indiana. 

In 2010, that list only included Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia and New York.

Now there are issues with Ed Week's rankings, as there are with any rankings. But the Quality Counts report is put out by a serious publication and impartial journalists who look at many measures of success and struggle. It's about as unbiased and quality an overall assessment of the country's education system as you could find.

What could account for the drop? Any one of a number of things have played a part, including a nationally ridiculed charter school system or the state's continued failure to adequately fund education. 

I also have to point this out to all the Evidence Based Model critics I've dealt with over the years. When Ohio passed the Evidence Based Model in 2009, only one other state had it -- Wyoming. But while Ohio dropped the EBM once Kasich took office, Wyoming did not. Today, Wyoming is the country's 8th rated system -- its improvement from 34th in 2010 representing the second-largest rating gain. Meanwhile, Ohio's performance drop is the country's 10th greatest.

Either way, Ohio's leaders have overseen a precipitous drop in Ohio's education system -- a drop that our kids simply can't afford. We simply must do better.

While much of Ohio's education policy air has been sucked up by the debate over charter schools, their efficacy and what to do about them, I hope legislators and leaders take note of our precipitous drop in these rankings. Many of Ohio's education policy struggles stem from our state's charter school disaster. But these rankings indicate that perhaps there's more going on and simply fixing charters is only a small part of what needs done here -- starting with constitutionally funding all our schools.

New ESEA Returns Power to States. But is that a Good Thing?

It looks like the federal government is going to back off and let states handle more education policy. This is a direct response to the uproar over testing, No Child Left Behind, Common Core, Race to the Top and other heavy-handed, top-down federal initiatives.

To be clear, this doesn't mean testing is going away; it's just that states can limit the time it takes to do them. It also limits the stakes inherent in the tests and no longer requires test scores to be tied to teacher evaluations, which I have always considered a mistake because of year-to-year fluctuations in test results.

But I have to admit that I'm concerned about leaving stuff this important up to the states. Now in some states, it will be fine -- states that have a history of valuing and committing to public education. But in other states, especially those in the least-educated corners of our nation, I fear they will see this and wipe their brows, knowing they will no longer be held to account for failing to properly serve kids.

This whole accountability regime has me flummoxed, I must admit. I like that AYP forces wealthy districts to have to figure out how to serve even small numbers of at-risk youth. I like that my 1st grader is learning tougher math concepts than even my 5th grader did four years ago.

But I hate all the testing and what it's done to the anxiety many kids (including my own) feel, not to mention teachers, administrators, and even entire communities as they get rated based on these things. I want my kids learning cool things. But I hate that it's taken tests to stimulate it.

This concern stretches now nationally with the federal government's step back. Without the high-stakes tests, will kids still be learning these concepts? In some states yes, others no. Without the federal hammer, will at-risk kids be served in all districts? In some states yes, others no. Without as much testing, will we be able to determine if kids are learning all they'll need in the 21st Century world? In some states yes, others no.

This is the problem with the federal government stepping back -- it will lead to the Balkanization of American education. I remember when kids would move here from Tennessee or Kentucky when I was a kid and they'd be 6 months to a year behind what we were learning. That's not good.

I also remember that when we let states handle important civil rights issues previously, it was not our nation's proudest moment. That's also not good.

But I also know that the federal government went too far, overtested and created in many ways a poisonous, high-stakes atmosphere that turned talented teachers away from the profession and created test-anxiety in 8 year olds. This is also not good.

I would hope this policy shift would grant our nation the opportunity to find a better balance. There is little question that basing so much upon how 8 year olds do on a test one day out of 180 does not give a full or complete picture of a school's worth. But it does grant us at least some window into what's going on at the school. If we're going to have tests, they should measure more than analytic ability, but also a kid's creative and practical abilities too, which will drive curriculum to be more creative and practical. The results of these more comprehensive assessments are far less driven by demographics than our current batch.

But learning involves more than tests. As Einstein said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." There are skills that are far more predictive of a child's ultimate success than how well they do on a standardized math test in 4th grade. Things like a love of learning -- what I contend is the most powerful predictor -- grit, independence, critical thinking, teamwork, and a host of other measures should also be valued. I don't know if it's possible to assess these through a quantitative test. But these are all things we want our kids to know and learn how to do. Yet the recent focus on the three Rs had been so intense that kids are only learning the other important concepts by chance.

Getting the federal government out of the picture in many ways will free up states to innovate on these ideas. However, only a handful probably will. And kids in those states will be really lucky. My fear is the rest of our kids won't be. They'll be stuck in a watered-down version of today's accountability structure that will be somewhat less onerous, but also filled with far fewer, and lower expectations.

I have always thought that the best role for the federal government in education is funding. The feds are in the position to provide enough revenue so that, for example, Ohio can finally live up to its funding requirements under the Ohio Constitution. If I had been President, Race to the Top would have been a call to provide adequate and equitable funding to establish a world-class education system throughout the United States. In order to receive this funding, states would have to show their funding formula equitably distributes funding to every child in the state. Then the feds would make up the shortfall on adequacy, if states didn't have enough funding to adequately pay for the formula.

The problem with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top was both provided far too few resources for the far too many strings that came attached with them. My concept is kind of the opposite: A few strings dealing with funding formulas (you can only keep getting the money if your formula continues to equitably distribute the funds so every kid gets what they need to succeed) and far greater resourcing.

Perhaps this step back will give our leaders the chance to re-think the federal government's role in the national education sphere. I doubt that it will, but with each new turn, there's always fresh hope.

What I pray does not happen is that kids in some states and regions of the country now fall further behind because their local leaders care less about public education than leaders in other states. That, I fear, may be even worse than high-stakes testing. Though not much.

Why did the Similar Students Model Spark a Nerd War?

Recently, there have been a spate of stories and rumblings about an education performance calculation called a "Similar Students" model -- a model that the Ohio Department of Education is going to be studying over the next several months.

The idea behind the model is to figure out how students are doing, regardless of demographic background. This is a concept with which I share much in common. After all, I have written in this space and elsewhere that I can predict the Performance Index (Ohio's single proficiency measure) scores of 3 out of 4 Ohio school districts if you give me nothing but the district's Free and Reduced Lunch population.

I also am excited by the work of Robert Sternberg, who developed a theory that broke intelligence into 3 categories -- creative, practical and analytical. Why is that exciting? Because poor, minority kids who test in the creative and practical sections are just as likely to do well as white, wealthy kids. This could mean that future testing may not be demographically determined as today's regime, which focuses solely on the analytical does.

And while folks at Yale are developing the Aurora Assessment based on Sternberg's work, it's still being beta tested and used primarily to identify gifted kids in underrepresented subgroups.

The Similar Students Measure was developed by the California Charter School Association to help that state determine performance, given demographic challenges. However, it's now being championed by the big Ohio charter school interests that have made our state a national joke. Why is that? Because the Similar Students Model makes Ohio charters -- especially the state's woefully performing eSchools -- look much better than their awful report card performance would indicate.

And for guys who make $100 million a year providing these dreadful services to at-risk kids, like William Lager of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) -- whose all Fs and one D on the state report card is worse than any school district in the state, even Youngstown, whose performance was so poor that the state put it in academic distress and effectively got rid of the elected school board -- this new system would be a Godsend because it would let them off the hook under the new, tougher accountability regime expected after the historic passage of House Bill 2 this fall.

To their credit, the Fordham Institute had a study done on Similar Students that took the methodology to task and argued that Ohio's current system of using Value-Added data (which demonstrates student growth over the year on standardized tests) is superior. The CCSA went bananas over the criticism and started spouting off to some of this state's most vociferous, anti-quality charter school advocates, who used these criticisms to explain why Similar Students was better and the criticism of it wrong in media and other reports.

Yes. This is what a Nerd War looks like.

Anyway, I felt bad for the CCSA. Because they didn't know what they were getting into when they jumped into the Ohio fray. No one outside of Ohio really can understand the bare-knuckles politics involved here.

But here's a way of looking at it.

The state's top Republican lobbyist -- not its top education policy guru -- is making education policy arguments for the anti-quality charters on this issue. Nothing against Neil Clark, with whom I had a few dealings during my time in Columbus, but he is not an education policy expert. His expertise is political.

That's not his fault, by the way. It's just an indictment of our charter school debate in Ohio that it is a well-paid lobbyist, not a policy nerd, who is the spokesman for the anti-quality charter crowd, which should tell you all you need to know about the policy seriousness of the argument. It's being made by a political operative (though a highly skilled and effective one), not a policy wonk. In a Nerd War, you need nerds fighting for you.

Lager doesn't have that.

So who carries more weight -- a lobbyist in Ohio, or the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University, whose recent study on Ohio's eSchools showed once again how poorly they perform? Mr. Clark called CREDO -- whose studies have become a kind-of gold standard on national and local charter school performance and was set up by pro-charter school advocates -- a "don't-think-tank". Again, catchy cut downs are no substitute for real policy differences.

This isn't to say CREDO is above criticism. For a real, substantive critique of CREDO's methodology, look at what the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado published.

Clark is just out of his element here. But it is telling that ECOT and the online schools have a political operative make their arguments. That's because there simply are no policy arguments or data analytics that can put lipstick on Ohio's eSchool performance pig. They just really, really perform poorly. And, in fact, as I've reported several times for Innovation Ohio and the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project, they are a heavy drag on the entire charter sector, which would still underperform local public schools without eSchools, just not by as much.

However, it now appears that the CCSA and Fordham have made peace, or at least reached a Nerd War ceasefire. They issued a joint statement this week that's replete with wonk, but essentially says what the CCSA told the Beacon Journal -- that California's model was developed because they don't have the same student-level data Ohio has with its Value-Added measure. The bottom line is this: Lager's forces were dealt a fatal blow on this front with the joint statement. They now have no nerds fighting for them.

In a Nerd War, that's a bad thing.

As Ohio continues to study the Similar Students Model, I hope it expands to look at the work of Dr. Sternberg so we can develop a better, more thorough battery of assessments that aren't so demographically affected and encourage a more well-rounded learning experience for Ohio's kids.

So let this be the first salvo fired in the next Nerd War.

Hopefully, Ohio's kids will win this one, just like they did the previous one.

Charters Fixing Youngstown? Data Say, "Not So Fast."

One of the key provisions of Ohio's new $71 million federal charter school grant is to, according to the state's cover letter, "Integrate quality charter development into the State’s new authority to create achievement school districts serving the children of the most dysfunctional school districts."

That's an EduSpeak way of saying they want to use a good chunk of the money to create more charter schools in Youngstown and any future area that's in "academic distress." (By the way, the only time "achievement school district" comes up on a search of the Ohio Department of Education website is in the state's grant application to the federal government. That designation doesn't exist in this state outside of the grant writers' rhetorical flair.)

But there is a major question: Should charters be seen as the rescuer of Youngstown City Schools? Recently released data would suggest that they should not, as I wrote briefly for Innovation Ohio. 

This is not to say Youngstown is any great shakes performance wise. 

It is not. 

Youngstown has struggled for years to improve their students' academic performance. But Youngstown's struggles are much less profound than Youngstown charters' struggles. And significantly less so. Let's look at the data, which I used to calculate each school's Performance Index (PI) in each proficiency test, along with Youngstown's PI (which is the state's amalgamation of proficiency performance and is used by the state to determine whether charter schools can open in a particular district with 120 being the highest possible score and 30 being the lowest) in each test.

When comparing Mahoning County charter schools – the charters with the greatest percentage of its students coming from Youngstown, as well as the most obvious starting place to expand Youngstown’s charter footprint – with Youngstown, what becomes clear is that even the state’s lowest performing school district (according to the Ohio General Assembly) overwhelms its local charter competitors.

In only 1 of the 20 comparable performance tests do Mahoning County charters perform better on average than Youngstown – and that by a mere two-tenths of 1 percent. In the 19 other categories, Youngstown outperforms the average Mahoning County charter school by an average of nearly 14 percent, from as high as a 34.5 percent difference in 9^th Grade English Language Arts to a 0.7 percent difference in 4^th Grade math. In 13 of those 19 categories, Youngstown outperforms the average Mahoning County charter by more than 10 percent.

Beyond just using the average scores, it is also rare for any Mahoning County charter school to outperform what the Ohio General Assembly says is the state’s worst-performing school district on any comparable proficiency assessment.

In fact, Youngstown outperforms its individual Mahoning County charter school counterparts 2 out of every 3 times on comparable tests. In no broad testing category (English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies) do Mahoning County charters outperform Youngstown more often than not. Only in math, where Youngstown outperforms its Mahoning County charter school competitors by a single case, is the count even close.

While it appears the proponents of the Youngstown Plan seem intent on investing a large portion of the state’s controversial $71 million federal grant on expanding charter schools in Youngstown, the data suggest that there are few, if any, options in Youngstown that would provide better educational outcomes than the Youngstown City Schools. And at the very least, there are not enough high-performers in the Youngstown area to warrant a significant taxpayer investment in that area’s charter schools.

Youngstown does not have a ready-made group of high-performing charters in whom to invest, unlike a city like Cleveland with its Breakthrough Schools. The new CEO should carefully consider whether expanding Youngstown’s poor-performing charter schools should make up a the lion's share of the reform.