COLUMBUS — The latest round of Ohio School Report Cards offers a reason for optimism among parents of young children in Richland County.
Early literacy skills appear to be rebounding after the tumultuous years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest round of Ohio School Report Cards.
The Ohio School Report Cards are released once a year by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
These report cards rate public school buildings and districts on a variety of components like student achievement, progress, early literacy and more, often relying on state standardized test scores.
For each component, schools receive between one and five stars. One star means a district needs significant support to meet state standards. Three stars means a district has met expectations. Five stars means a district has significantly exceeded expectations.
Last year, four districts failed to meet state standards for early literacy. This year, just one did.
The uptick in reading and writing skills among K-3rd grade learners reflects a statewide trend. This year, 64.5 percent of third grade students are reading at or above grade level, an improvement from 62.3 percent last year, according to ODEW.
An analysis from the Ohio State University’s John Glenn College on Public Affairs found that older students are also seeing gains in English Language Arts.
Statewide, student performance in English Language Arts “has mostly recovered to levels seen before the start of the pandemic (with the exception of eighth grade), and indeed now exceeds pre-pandemic achievement in several grades.”
The analysis also found that pandemic-era achievement gaps in ELA “have substantially narrowed and are now near their pre-pandemic levels.”
Nevertheless, students with disabilities and students whose first language isn’t English have yet to catch up to pre-pandemic rates.
Math scores lag behind, graduation and attendance improving
Meanwhile, statewide math achievement remains “considerably lower.”
“The remaining shortfalls represent about a month of learning in elementary grades and grow to between one-third and one-half of a school year in middle school grades,” the analysis found.
“Achievement also remains lower in science and social studies in some grades, although the magnitudes vary.”
Over the last several years, Gov. Mike DeWine and the ODEW have pushed for schools to use evidence-based literacy curriculum aligned to the science of reading — which experts say is the most effective way to teach literacy.
Other positive trends include statewide improvement in student attendance, graduation rates and the percentage of students earning an industry-recognized credential.
Statewide, the percentage of students who earned an industry-recognized credential increased from 10.6 percent for the Class of 2022 to 19.5 percent for the Class of 2023.
Overall graduation rates are the highest they have been in more than a decade, with 87.9 percent of the 2023 student cohort graduating within four years and 89.1 percent of the 2022 student cohort graduating within five years.
Meanwhile, chronic absenteeism rates declined from 26.8 percent to 25.6 percent.
