ASHLAND – Ashland City Schools are effectively helping students grow throughout the school year, Supt. Doug Marrah reported to the district’s board of education Tuesday.
Marrah drew board members’ attention to the district’s “A” grade for the progress component of the recently-released Ohio Department of Education school report card. That component measures what educators call “value-added” growth– the extent to which students show progress compared to past performance.
Within the progress component, districts receive grades for all students as well as for sub-groups, including gifted students, low-achieving students and students with disabilities. Ashland City Schools earned an “A” grade in each of those four categories.
The district earned an overall “B” grade on the 2018 report card, the first time the state has assigned overall letter grades to districts.
Meanwhile, the district earned a “C” grade for the report card’s achievement component, designed to measure performance on state tests. The district met just five of 24 indicators for achievement and earned a performance index score of 90.8 out of of a possible 120.
Ashland City Schools report card
But Marrah suggested progress, rather than achievement, is the most important measure of a school’s effectiveness. Board member and retired principal Mike Heimann agreed, saying he always focused most on the progress component to gauge his building’s success during his tenure at Ashland Middle School.
Studies show achievement scores are highly correlated with a district’s income levels. Higher income districts typically have the highest test scores, and students from lower income districts generally score lower on state tests.
To account for this, The Cleveland Plain Dealer created a ranking of districts that shows how much higher or lower each school district’s Performance Index ranking is than its ranking for median federal adjusted gross income.
In that ranking, Ashland City Schools ranked 30th in the state because its performance index rank of 258 was significantly higher than its median income rank of 462.
Marrah also noted the district’s strong high school graduation rates. Nearly 94 percent of high school students in the district graduate in four years, and nearly 96 percent graduate in five.
Despite the successes, board member Jim Wolfe expressed concern about the district’s “D” grade on the Prepared For Success component of the report card.
To calculate that grade, the state gives districts one point for each student who earns either a remediation-free score on the ACT or SAT, an honors diploma or an industry credential before graduation. Students who take Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests or who complete college classes while in high school can earn bonus points for their district.
Marrah said he does not believe the state’s Prepared For Success component is an accurate measure of students’ preparedness for life after graduation.
“They have no fidelity to their process,” Marrah said of the Ohio Department of Education.
Marrah went on to say he believes “the people in Columbus are doing everything they can to put public schools out of business.”
Board member Bryan Lefelhoc praised Marrah’s educational leadership and indicated he trusts the superintendent’s judgement to set academic priorities.
“Those things that are important, I know you factor in,” Lefelhoc said. “Those that aren’t, I don’t think you spend a whole lot of time on that, and I support you in that… I’m more interested in whether our kids are getting a good educcation, and I think they are.”
In addition to overall district grades, the state gives grades for individual school buildings within districts.
In Ashland City Schools, Reagan Elementary, Taft Intermediate and Ashland Middle School received “B” grades overall while Edision Elementary received a “C” and the Ashland High School received a “D.”
The high school earned either “D” or “F” grades for overall student progress as well as progress for each subgroup.
Marrah said while he admits the district has room for improvement at the high school level, he thinks the grades are thrown off because the state data does not properly count students who take high school courses while in middle school.
Full school and district report cards can be found by visiting reportcard.education.ohio.gov and searching by school building or district.
