Monday, April 05, 1999
Report card stakes high for Cincinnati
BY DANA DIFILIPPO and CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
With 47,200 students, Cincinnati Public Schools is the Tristate's largest district and has the greatest amount to lose — or win — on its report card rating.
Faith in the troubled district has been shaken by years of poor performance. Officials hoped an improved report card rating would convince a skeptical public that recent changes are reversing the downhill slide.
Cincinnati met five of 18 minimum performance standards on this year's trial edition of the state-mandated report cards, placing it in the lowest category, academic emergency — the same place where all of Ohio's urban districts landed.
An improved rating, they said, could help slow plummeting enrollment and secure support for a needed tax levy on the November ballot.
CPS officials were heartened by the district's performance compared with the state's other urban districts. A letter from James Van Keuren, Ohio's assistant state superintendent, noted CPS' favorable position among the urban districts.
“Your district is performing higher than your similar district group on most of the state's performance standards. In fact, Cincinnati's performance is the "best in group,' for all of the Twelfth Grade Proficiency Tests as well as on the graduation rate,” Mr. Van Keuren noted.
Cincinnati Public is “doing a lot to reinvent ourselves,” said CPS Superintendent Steven Adamowski. “We are determined to be out of academic emergency.”
• In December, CPS officials unveiled an accountability plan that calls for the redesign of troubled schools, incentives for improving schools and rewards for successful schools.
• A new student-based budgeting system begins this summer, under which money follows students as they transfer within the district. Under the old system, schools were funded ac cording to their staffs. The new formula will create a market-based incentive for schools to attract and retain students.
• Board members recently adopted a charter school policy intended to redesign failing schools and give more autonomy to successful schools. Charter schools, called community schools in Ohio, are independent, public schools that operate free of many state and local mandates.
• Teaching teams have been restructured in kindergarten through third-grade to help improve performance on the fourth-grade proficiency test. Teachers stay with students until they achieve the standards needed to pass the test.
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