The Thomas B. Fordham Institute says Ohio’s school report cards are unfair to schools with high rates of poverty.
The education research and advocacy group released its recommendations to improve Ohio’s school report cards Thursday. In it, the group says the state focuses too heavily on test scores and not enough on student long-term growth, leaving high poverty schools with D’s and F’s.
Fordham’s Ohio Research Director Aaron Churchill says weighing a school’s grade more on student growth from year-to-year will help show which schools are truly improving academically.
“And part of that’s explained by what we’ve seen in research over the years where lower income students trail behind their higher income peers on state testing.”
Fordham also recommends Ohio reduce the number of letter grades contained on the report cards from the current 14 to 6.
