Ohio Department of Education and Workforce explains how to use district and school report cards

Officials from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce gave a technical briefing to the House Education Committee on how to access and interpret district and school report cards and the datasets that underlie them.

Jenny Stump, Chief of Policy and Legislative Affairs for the Department of Education and Workforce, told the committee the department publishes annual report cards by Sept. 15 that include multiple components—achievement, progress (growth), gap closing, graduation, early literacy and a college/career/workforce/military readiness (CCWMR) measure—and that the CCWMR component is currently ‘‘report only’’ but in rulemaking to become part of the overall rating.

Why it matters: Report cards provide data on academic achievement, growth, subgroup gaps, graduation rates and early literacy that committee members will use to ask questions of districts and to inform budget and policy decisions. Staff described public download options and a secure data center for district review.

Stump, introduced to the committee by Chair Sarah Fowler Arthur, said district and school report cards include ‘‘a wealth of information’’ such as assessment performance, subgroup disaggregation, early literacy measures and per-pupil spending. She explained there are three report-card types—traditional, career-technical and dropout prevention/recovery—and said the briefing would focus on the traditional district and school report cards.

Stump walked members through the report-card site, noting six components that roll up into an overall rating expressed as 1 to 5 stars (with half-star increments). She said the department publishes downloadable Excel files going back roughly 18 years, advanced reports that show multiple years of a single district on one page, and student recovery dashboards with charts for visual trend analysis.

On component weighting, Stump explained that achievement and progress (growth) together account for half the overall weight, with graduation, gap closing and early literacy sharing the other half; if CCWMR is added to the overall score it would be included in the latter group. She said more detailed resources are available in the department’s report-card guides and noted that the secure data center permits district or school personnel to review report-card data for accuracy before finalization.

During the question-and-answer period, Representative Sean Brennan asked whether adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are accounted for on the report card. Rachel Wakefield, administrator of accountability, responded that the report card does not account for ACEs; the department does track economic disadvantage rates and allows users to compare performance against that context, but ACEs themselves are not a report-card metric.

Stump and department staff offered to provide committee members further presentations on related topics after the budget, and committee members asked staff to help schedule follow-ups on specific data areas. The briefing was technical in nature; the committee did not take policy action during the presentation.