BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS -- More than 90 percent of Ohio's public school districts fall short of meeting tough new academic standards, a Cincinnati Enquirer analysis shows.
One year after lawmakers approved the standards, the analysis of data compiled by the state Department of Education shows only 10 of Ohio's 611 school districts are considered "effective," meaning they meet at least 17 of the 18 goals.
Four of the 10 districts are in Hamilton County: Indian Hill, Madeira, Mariemont and Wyoming.
Fifty-six districts, including Cincinnati Public Schools and New Miami Local Schools in Butler County, are considered to be in "academic emergency." Those districts fail to have enough students passing their math, reading, writing and citizenship proficiency exams. They also reported inadequate attendance and dropout rates.
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THE STANDARDS
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State legislation was approved in August 1997 ordering school districts to be rated based on 18 performance standards. Report cards detailing the scores will be distributed statewide next year. The rankings are based on three-year averages.
Standards to be met:
 Fourth- and ninth-grade proficiency tests (citizenship, mathematics, reading, writing): 75 percent passing.
10th-grade students taking the ninth-grade tests: 85 percent passing.
12th-grade tests: 60 percent passing.
Student attendance rate: 93 percent.
Dropout rate: 3 percent.
Standards have not been developed for the sixth-grade proficiency tests and the fourth-, ninth- and 12th-grade science exams. Source:
Ohio Department of Education
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State educators say schools that fail to improve could face harsh consequences, including, in the most extreme cases, a state takeover.
While most districts will be forced to develop an improvement plan under rules being developed by the Education Department, the alarming number of troubled schools is raising questions about whether state leaders will enforce the standards or commit the resources necessary to oversee dozens of districts.
"I don't think the Department of Education is going to have the resolve to get involved in every one of these school districts," said Senate President Richard Finan, R-Evendale. "They're going to have to concentrate on the worst of the worst."
John Goff, state superintendent of public instruction, agreed. "Simply training school districts has not brought enough pressure to bear that all kids have to achieve at a higher level," Dr. Goff said. "But we haven't fully come to grips about how we should go about doing this."
In an attempt to get parents and community leaders more interested in pressuring schools to change, lawmakers ordered the Education Department to create "report cards" that detail proficiency test scores, attendance rates and dropout rates for each district and school building in the state.
Districts won't be officially ranked until next year. But the Enquirer's computer analysis of data in this year's reports showed the majority of students in property-rich suburbs, struggling urban areas and poor rural communities all fail to meet the performance goals.
The analysis, averaging three years of data, found that:
- Average scores on the fourth-, ninth- and 12th-grade mathematics exams met the 75 percent passing threshold in only 10 districts.
- Students in 360 districts failed to meet the math standard for the ninth-grade test, which students must pass to graduate from high school.
- In 97 percent of the districts, average scores on the fourth-grade reading test failed to meet the 75 percent passing threshold. State law now requires schools to hold back children from advancing to fifth grade if they cannot pass the reading test after multiple attempts.
- Only 23 districts met the standards for attendance and dropout rates. Districts failing in those areas include some that otherwise are considered among the state's best. No Southwest Ohio district met the dropout standard.
Most of the successful districts spend more than the state average on students. They also have high percentages of middle- and upper-income families, and parents generally have higher levels of education. The report cards suggest that directing more money to schools is not necessarily the answer. Of the 56 districts in academic emergency, 21 spend more than the state average per student, the analysis showed.
"Unless the community cares, it's very difficult for people to give you anything more than lip service about improving," said Kathy Bregar, an education consultant working on the state's intervention strategies. "A lot of people are afraid of these report cards, but the worst thing would be if nobody did anything at all with them."
Supportive and active parents are crucial for a successful school, said Nancy Miller, whose son will be a junior at Middletown High School this fall. Middletown City Schools met six of the performance standards, placing the district in a category dubbed "academic watch."
While Ms. Miller applauds the move to hold schools more accountable for their performance, she is among those who think the standards may end up unfairly targeting schools with problems that can't be solved by government programs.
"There is no way you can compare districts like Middletown to those with different economic levels," she said. "We have truancy problems, and that leads to poor testing. You don't have that in the wealthy districts."
Ms. Miller said she is concerned that the report cards could lead people to think "the schools aren't doing their jobs, when in many cases it's the parents who aren't doing their jobs."
Michele Hummel, superintendent of Madeira City Schools, said tougher standards are needed in an era when it is economically necessary to prepare every child for college. But many parents and administrators are concerned that scores on proficiency tests will become the only measure of school success, she said.
Madeira is among the schools that have adopted their own goals, such as getting kids involved in after-school activities and expecting teachers to improve their training.
"We wanted to create standards so high that it wouldn't be a cakewalk for anybody," said Ms. Hummel, whose district is one of the few considered effective under the state's goals. "The struggle is over who should control the schools: the local community or state government."
Lawmakers advanced their standards last August in an attempt to build support for a penny-on-the-dollar increase in the state sales tax to boost school funding.
The tax proposal, which voters rejected by a 4-to-1 ratio, was intended as a response to the Ohio Supreme Court's March 1997 ruling that the state's school-funding system is unconstitutional and shortchanges some districts.
Perry County Common Pleas Judge Linton D. Lewis Jr., the judge who first declared the funding system unconstitutional four years ago, will convene two weeks of hearings Monday on whether changes lawmakers made to the school aid formula comply with the Supreme Court's order to fix it.
Many school superintendents contend the system is still broken. As a result, they say, the state standards are "unfunded mandates" that will force districts to seek voter approval for higher school property taxes.
"It's as if they're setting us up to fail," said John Varis, superintendent of the Reading Community Schools.
Twenty-two states, including Ohio, have academic bankruptcy laws allowing varying levels of intervention when student achievement in a district or school dips below tolerable levels, according to a survey by the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
Questions remain about whether the latest round of tough talk will be backed up with action. State legislators approved more stringent rules governing school performance eight years ago. But when school officials and some lawmakers complained the rules were too tough, the Education Department essentially shelved them.
Moreover, critics say, the takeover option won't necessarily solve problems that local school boards have struggled to solve. They point to the Cleveland Public Schools, which already has been under state control but continues to report dismal test scores.
"After spending three years in Cleveland, we understand the (academic) emergency category will almost consume us," Dr. Goff said. "I think you have to be careful about how far you go in dealing with local schools. People don't trust the state. Even if they have a problem, they circle the wagons."
Indeed, even less radical forms of state intervention can fail to live up to the declarations of lawmakers and education leaders. Kentucky, for instance, recently scrapped sanctions for schools deemed educationally deficient, in part because some traditionally high-performing districts complained they could not make the grade.
Once a school earned the deficient designation under the Kentucky Education Reform Act, the certified staff could be placed on probation and be subject to dismissal or transfer, a state-appointed educator was assigned to work with the school, and parents were given the chance to transfer their children to another school.
"It probably was the most controversial portion of our education reforms," said Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education. "We knew some of these districts weren't performing poorly, but it was difficult for even the best schools to keep meeting the goals."
Ohio does not want to take decision-making power away from dozens of districts, Dr. Goff said. But ultimately, he argued, the state needs the power to compel change.
In Cincinnati, teachers must improve their own abilities if schools are to help students make the dramatic improvements the state demands, said CPS Assistant Superintendent Kathleen Ware. Cincinnati is among the districts that must improve in nearly every area. The district is implementing its own standards, incentives and penalties for individual schools.
"This issue is long overdue," Ms. Ware said. "It forces educators to focus on the bottom line, which is academic achievement. But we know all of it means nothing if we don't hold schools accountable for results."
