State Education News

Senate will redo bill on grading districts (Columbus Dispatch)

Republican leaders in the Senate say the goal of a new A-to-F report-card system and tougher school-accountability system is to ensure that all students graduate from high school ready for college…Read more...

Educators open to stricter standards (Hamilton Journal-News)

If making teachers take a rigorous exam to get their license, similar to the way lawyers take the bar exam in order to practice law…Read more...

Educators debate proposed exam (Springfield News-Sun)

Ohio educators responded with tempered support to the American Federation of Teachers’ call for a more stringent exam…Read more...

Political Fight Threatens To End Funding For Autism Treatment In This Session (WBNS)

The state education department spends over $250 million dollars annually in special education costs for children with autism…Read more...

Local Education News

Many kids miss school as 'stomach flu' spreads in Ross County (Chillicothe Gazette)

Several local schools reported a large number of students out sick Wednesday, one day after health officials said the so-called “stomach flu” appears to be fairly widespread…Read more...

Licking Heights school copes without busing (Columbus Dispatch)

There were a lot of whistles and hand signals, a few kids wandering through the parking lot yesterday with their cellphones pressed to their ears…Read more...

Schools create rainy day fund (Newark Advocate)

Granville school officials have established an emergency “contingency” fund that is dependent in part upon how quickly the Granville Inn is sold…Read more...

Custodians, groundskeepers laid off at Heights (Newark Advocate)

Licking Heights Board of Education last week moved forward with another round of reductions, laying off custodians and reducing the hours of dozens of bus drivers…Read more...

Teachers get STEM training (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

Some teachers were a little overwhelmed by the vast amount of information available in the new Defined STEM program…Read more...

Editorial

Short takes (Columbus Dispatch)

KIDS OFTEN are involved with activities at school beyond the traditional school day, and often when it’s dark. Combine poor visibility with a lack of sidewalks and well-marked or well-lit crosswalks…Read more...

Better busing (Findlay Courier)

Earlier this year, Gov. John Kasich's administration introduced "Beyond Boundaries," a program to help school districts, local governments and state agencies deal with less state funding…Read more...

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) has just released a preview of its new ranking of Ohio public school buildings’ performance.

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) is giving parents, educators and taxpayers a preview of a new approach for comparing academic performance among schools and districts. Effective September 2012, House Bill 153 requires all school districts and school buildings to be ranked using the Performance Index (PI) score. Such rankings will provide parents and taxpayers a new way to evaluate how local schools are performing while allowing educators to compare their performance with peers.

The school district list will include all city, local and exempted village school districts as well as joint vocational school districts, community schools and STEM schools. The school building list will include all schools that are part of city, local or exempted village school district as well as community schools, joint vocational schools and STEM schools

Preliminary Rankings
Buildings	Districts
All school buildings	All districts
High schools	Traditional districts only
Middle Schools	District Notes
Elementary Schools
Community Schools
Building Notes

Each school building in city, local and exempted village school districts, as well as joint vocational school districts, community schools and STEM schools are ranked using a Performance Index (PI) score. PI scores combine individual students’ results on all tested subjects in grades 3-8 on Ohio’s Achievement Assessments (OAAs) and on the 10th-grade Ohio Graduation Test (OGTs). The Performance Index score has been widely used and endorsed by Ohio educators since its adoption in 2003.*

The PI scores are not new, and it has been possible to create ranking lists with them using existing interactive tools on the ODE website. Such district and county rankings have been done frequently by independent groups, but this is the first statewide ranking completed and released by ODE.

The rankings are required under House Bill 153. The final ranking list is required to be released by September 2012.

*Calculating the Performance Index All assessments have five performance levels, which include: Advanced; Accelerated; Proficient; Basic; and Limited. The percentage of students scoring at each performance level is calculated, and then multiplied by the point value assigned to that performance level. The points earned for each performance level are totaled to determine each school’s Performance Index score, where applicable.

2011 District Preliminary Ranking List - All Districts