FROM PAGE 1
+ SECTION A, PAGE 4
Charters fare
poorly in state
report cards
Toledo School for the Arts,
M.O.D.E.L. rated excellent
By IGNAZIO MESSINA
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Nearly half of Ohio’s failing
schools are charter schools, according to state performance
report cards released yesterday.
Locally, a number of charter
schools received lower performance grades from the state.
Among
the
now-failing
schools is Aurora Academy in
East Toledo — Ohio’s oldest operating charter school.
Out of the 330 charter schools
listed in the Ohio Department
of Education’s 2006-07 Local
Report cards yesterday, 85 are in
academic emergency, 54 in academic watch, 80 in continuous
improvement, 16 effective, and
eight excellent. Eighty-seven
charter schools did not get a
rating.
Statewide, there were 182
schools, both traditional and
charter, in academic emergency,
said Mitchell Chester, senior associate superintendent of policy
and accountability for the Ohio
Department of Education.
Charter schools in Ohio now
make up more than 46 percent
of the state’s failing schools. Mr.
Chester said the law has teeth to
hold poor-performing charter
schools accountable.
“A charter school that can’t
get above a poor level of performance after three years [can] be
shut down,” he said.
Mr. Chester added: “Part of the
debate is the mission of charter
schools and the students that
they serve.”
Two Toledo charter schools
were among the state’s best.
Toledo School for the Arts
Schools
Continued from Page 1
11 districts statewide in academic watch.
Akron now appears to be the
top-rated urban district in the
state, having achieved 8 out of
the 30 indicators and scoring an
83.7 performance index.
For the second consecutive
year, no Ohio school district
ranked in academic emergency
— the worst of the five categories.
However,
182
individual
schools statewide still received
an F for 2006-07 in the performance data released yesterday.
Receiving what amounts to a
D are 230 schools — up from
218 during 2005-06.
Mitchell Chester, senior associate superintendent of policy
and accountability for the Ohio
Department of Education, told
reporters yesterday morning
he was encouraged to see more
school districts still in the excellent category than in 2004-2005
and earlier, despite the new
tests.
Across the state, there were
declines in the percentage of
students passing reading exams
for grades six, seven, and the
10th-grade Ohio Graduation
Test.
For example, 77.7 percent of
students passed the sixth-grade
reading test — down from 83.6
percent during 2005-2006.
“It does tell us we really need
to pay attention to the middle
grades,” Mr. Chester said.
retained its excellent designation, met 19 out of 21 possible
state standards, and scored an
impressive 100.8 performance
index score on the 120-point
scale.
M.O.D.E.L.
Community
School also retained its excellent
designation, but director Mary
Walters said all students at the
school take an alternative assessment.
“These children all have autism and are not tested at the
same level as typical children,”
Ms. Walters said.
“To be honest, it’s really apples
to oranges.”
Allison Perz, executive director of the Toledo-based Council
of Community Schools, said
charter-school performance suffered because of low scores on
new exams administered for the
first time during 2006-07.
Children at traditional schools
also performed poorly on those
new tests — science and social
studies, in both fifth and eighth
grades — and school district ratings suffered.
“I don’t think anybody in the
charter-school movement is trying to shy away from high academic achievement, standards,
and good quality for students,”
Ms. Perz said.
Last year, Aurora Academy was
ranked excellent, even though it
had one of the lowest composite
of test scores among all schools
in the city — charter or traditional — and only met one of the
state’s standards, attendance.
The school again met just one
state standard, attendance, and
scored a 64.3 performance index
The Ohio Department of Education has released its 2006-07 report cards, which include data on 330
charter schools statewide. The state assigns ratings to public schools and districts, from best to worst,
excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch, and academic emergency.
Statewide, eight charter schools were rated excellent, 16 effective, 80 continuous improvement, 54
academic watch, and 85 academic emergency. Eight-seven charter schools did not get a rating for
various reasons, such as testing too few students or not operating for enough years.
Here is how the charter schools in Toledo performed:
Number of Number of
2006-07
2006-07
Designation
standards standards Performance
met
possible Index Score
1
1
0
Performing Arts School Of Toledo*
Not Rated
The Autism Academy Of Learning
Not Rated
0
1
115.3
Toledo School For The Arts
Excellent
19
21
100.8
M.O.D.E.L. Community School**
Excellent
10
10
109.1
Glass City Academy
Continuous Improvement
0
6
0
Wildwood Environmental Academy
Continuous Improvement
8
19
85.4
Horizon Science Academy-Toledo
Continuous Improvement
11
18
86.2
Horizon Science Academy-Springfield
Continuous Improvement
4
14
85
Winterfield Venture Academy
Continuous Improvement
3
15
82
Bennett Venture Academy
Continuous Improvement
3
12
84.9
Electronic Classroom Of Tomorrow
Continuous Improvement
2
30
78
Meadows Choice Community
Continuous Improvement
1
18
68.5
Academy Of Business & Tech
Continuous Improvement
3
19
73.1
Ohio Virtual Academy
Continuous Improvement
19
29
87.9
Englewood Peace Academy
Continuous Improvement
4
19
72.7
Maritime Academy of Toledo
Continuous Improvement
1
4
60.6
Polly Fox Academy Community School
Academic Watch
2
12
60.8
Phoenix Academy Community School
Academic Watch
0
13
56.7
Alternative Education Academy
Academic Watch
9
30
79.4
Lake Erie Academy
Academic Watch
1
19
71.6
Eagle Academy
Academic Watch
0
11
67.7
Life Skills Center Of Toledo
Academic Watch
0
12
60.1
Victory Academy of Toledo
Academic Emergency
1
5
60.1
George A. Phillips Academy
Academic Emergency
1
19
64.6
Summit Academy Secondary School - Toledo Academic Emergency
0
10
63
Imani Learning Academy
Academic Emergency
0
6
62.9
Alliance Academy of Toledo
Academic Emergency
0
30
56.1
Toledo Academy Of Learning
Academic Emergency
1
27
61.3
Aurora Academy
Academic Emergency
1
19
64.3
Toledo Accelerated Academy
Academic Emergency
0
15
66
Paul Laurence Dunbar Academy
Academic Emergency
1
12
66.7
*school closed
**M.O.D.E.L. school is for autistic students who take alternative assessments
THE BLADE
Source: Ohio Department of Education
score.
This year, it was among the 85
statewide that was designated
academic emergency, or F on a
grade scale.
Alliance Academy of Toledo,
a kindergarten through 12thgrade charter school with about
350 students, was among nine
local charter schools placed in
academic emergency.
However, five of the six Toledo
charter schools run last school
year by the company didn’t perform well.
George A. Phillips Academy,
Paul Laurence Dunbar Academy,
and Toledo Accelerated Academy, which is now called Toledo
Preparatory Academy, were each
All Ohio school districts and schools were rated by the state based on their performance in meeting
30 indicators, which include test scores, graduation rates, and attendance. Most Ohio school districts
maintained their rating they received in 2005-06. Here is how districts and school buildings statewide
rated:
Districts
Excellent
2002
-03
85
2003
-04
117
2004
-05
111
Schools
2005
-06
192
2006
-07
139
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
-03
-04
-05
-06
-07
630
920
889 1290 1143
Effective
177
229
297
299
347
771
906
1136
1217
1255
Continuous Improvement
278
224
175
112
113
1242
1211
962
643
693
Academic Watch
52
34
21
7
11
237
125
239
218
230
Academic Emergency
16
4
5
0
0
338
222
288
208
182
THE BLADE
Source: Ohio Department of Education
“Those are the grades we really
saw a reading decline.”
Reading scores improved,
however, in grades three, four,
five, and eight.
In math, Ohio students made a
second year of overall gains, the
education department said. Proficiency rates for grades three,
six, seven, and eight increased.
The percent of students proficient increased by 9.6 points in
the third grade and by 8 points
in the seventh grade, compared
to 2005-06.
Results for local districts reflected the state averages.
Ottawa Hills remained the top
local school district in the rankings. It is the third-highest rated
in the state with a 108.5 performance index score.
Wyoming schools in Hamilton
County was the highest-rated
district with a 109.3 performance
index. Solon schools southeast
of Cleveland, which scored 108.6
performance index, was second.
In an Aug. 9 letter between the ProMedica Health System and the
University of Toledo, ProMedica Chief Executive Officer Alan Brass
noted that the future of a medical student-resident partnership
between the two parties could be in jeopardy unless certain
conditions are met.
Here is an excerpt from that letter, which was written by Mr. Brass
to UT President Lloyd Jacobs:
081507_RP5_DLY__A4 1
HOW LOCAL CHARTER SCHOOLS PERFORMED
HOW SCHOOLS PERFORMED
STRAINED TALKS?
+
THE BLADE: TOLEDO, OHIO t WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2007
THE BLADE
The three school districts are
among 12 statewide that met all
30 performance indicators.
East Cleveland Schools had
the worst performance index
score — a 71.1. Dayton was just
slightly better with a 71.5 performance index.
Toledo Public placed 599th
out of the 610 school districts.
It scored a 79.1 performance
index. Without the new tests factored in, the district would have
received an 83.2 performance
index and kept its C-grade continuous improvement rating,
Superintendent John Foley said.
Lima City Schools, also in
academic watch, was even lower
than Toledo — 602 on the list —
with a 78.6 performance index.
Bowling Green Superintendent Hugh Caumartin said the
report cards were met with
mixed emotions.
“We achieved 28 of the 30 standards, which is pretty good,” he
said. “In fifth-grade math, which
has been one of our challenges,
we met the state’s standard.”
Like many school systems,
Bowling Green couldn’t meet the
minimum standard for the fifth
and eight-grade social studies
exams.
“The standard procedure of
the Ohio Department of Education is ‘ready, fire, aim,” he said.
“They are probably going to go
back now and take a look and
see why kids didn’t do well and
begin to aim.”
School districts were also
rated on the performance of
subgroups of students.
Mr. Chester said achievement gaps remain one of the
greatest challenges for Ohio
but when 2005-06 and 2006-07
performance is compared, gaps
in achievement narrowed, although slightly.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires states to hold
schools and districts accountable for the achievement of each
Medical
medical students to Toledo Hospital for obstetrics-gynecology
and pediatrics rotations.
Late yesterday, ProMedica
agreed to extend talks for the
student contract for a third time,
although a spokesman declined
to say for how long.
Mr. Brass was not available for
comment yesterday. ProMedica
had no immediate comment on
why business conditions were
part of medical student negotiations, but the hospital system
is committed to resolving the
issues, said ProMedica spokesman Christine Wasserman.
Dr. Jacobs said he believes the
sides will work out differences.
“I believe that fundamentally
all of us recognize this is about
students,” Dr. Jacobs said yesterday. “And because this is about
students, this is about the future
— literally about the health care
of our children and grandchildren in this community.”
ProMedica has long had a
rocky relationship with the former Medical College of Ohio,
which doesn’t deliver babies and
relies on Toledo Hospital’s large
Continued from Page 1
of correspondence obtained by
The Blade yesterday.
“For example, if the [co-payment] issue is not resolved soon,
that will likely impact the willingness of the physicians to continue to voluntarily teach your
medical students and residents,”
Mr. Brass wrote to UT President
Dr. Lloyd Jacobs in an Aug. 9
letter. “If that is the case,” Mr.
Brass added, “having no teachers will impact our ability to
implement the medical student
and resident agreements in our
hospitals. At the same time, the
trust relationship between our
sports medicine faculty and the
university continues to become
further strained.”
The two business conditions
and threat to doctors in training
have become mired in negotiations for a contract that was
to end yesterday. The proposed
agreement would allow UT to
continue sending third-year
placed in academic emergency.
Lake Erie Academy and Eagle
Academy both got Ds.
Wildwood
Environmental
reached eight out of 19 standards and was rated in continuous improvement.
Contact Ignazio Messina at:
imessina@theblade.com
or 419-724-6171.
student group, including racial
and ethnic groups, low-income
students, limited English proficient students, and students
with disabilities.
The adequate yearly progress
measure indicates whether
schools and districts have gaps
in achievement among these
groups of students.
The percentage of Ohio districts meeting adequate yearly
progress decreased to 29.7 percent from 31.6 percent in 200506.
Because the number of tests
counting for adequate yearly
progress has increased, more
schools and districts have become accountable for more student groups than in the past, Mr.
Chester said.
The report released yesterday
also stated:
w 96.5 percent of core courses
are taught by teachers who meet
the federal definition of highly
qualified teachers — a bachelor’s degree, a state license, and
demonstrated competency in
the subject area they teach. But
students in high-poverty schools
are less likely to be taught by
highly qualified teachers than
students in low-poverty schools.
w The state’s graduation rate
for 2005-06, the most recent
year of available data, is 86.1
percent, one-tenth of 1 percent
lower than the 2004-05 rate. The
graduation rate was significantly
lower for black students, 69 percent, than for white students,
89.8 percent.
Contact Ignazio Messina at:
imessina@theblade.com
or 419-724-6171.
obstetrics unit to help teach
medical students. The hospital
system severed ties with the
medical school in 1999, when
the university was considering joining with Mercy Health
Partners to establish St. Vincent
Mercy Children’s Hospital, but
started to mend relations three
years later.
UT, which merged with the
medical school last year, also has
some students doing obstetrics
and pediatrics rotations at several other northwest Ohio hospitals, but none does as many
deliveries as Toledo Hospital.
The medical school has a few
students doing family medicine
rotations at other ProMedica
facilities, including Flower Hospital in Sylvania.
The university will try to find
other hospitals where it can
place students if negotiations
with ProMedica fail, said UT
spokesman Matt Lockwood.
“We would be willing to explore any opportunity if it’s a
quality educational experience,”
he said.
The Blade yesterday obtained
+
Ohio ACT
scores up;
Michigan
stands still
National rates rise
slightly for ’07 class
FROM BLADE STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Ohio’s average ACT composite
score rose slightly for the scholastic class of 2007, following a
national trend of increases over
the last three years, while the
average score in Michigan remained the same, according to
a national report to be released
today.
Nationally, high-school graduates received an average score of
21.2 on the college admission
and placement exam this year,
up from 21.1 last year, suggesting that graduates are slightly
better prepared for college-level
courses.
In Ohio, the average ACT score
also rose by one-tenth of a point,
to 21.6, and the average score
in Michigan remained at 21.5,
the ACT National Score Report
stated.
A record 1.3 million students
took the ACT test during the
school year that ended in the
spring, with scores improving in
all four subject-area tests: English, math, reading, and science.
Each test is scored on a scale
of one to 36, and the composite
score is the average of all four individually required test scores.
The ACT says one-year trends
are not necessarily meaningful,
but that the average scoring increase of 0.4 points since 2003 is
significant.
“Surely we have a lot of work
ahead to be sure all students
graduate from high schools with
the skills they need to succeed at
the next level, but we do seem to
be making some encouraging
progress,” said Richard Ferguson, chief executive officer and
chairman of ACT, the Iowa City,
Iowa-based nonprofit that owns
the exam.
Math and science, the two
areas in which students have
typically been least prepared
for college, have also shown
increases in the number of students meeting or surpassing a
benchmark score — the minimum score needed on an ACT
subject-area test to indicate a
50 percent chance or higher of
getting a B or higher in a related
college course.
Students who scored at or
above the benchmark score of
22 in math increased for the
third consecutive year from 40
percent in 2004 to 43 percent
this year.
For the second year in a row,
the number of students who
scored at or above the benchmark of 24 on the science portion of the ACT also increased
from 26 percent in 2005 to 28
percent this year, the report
stated.
About two-thirds of Ohio
seniors take the ACT and about
half of all high schools have an
average composite score between 20.1 and 22.1, according
to the Ohio Department of Education annual report on education progress released yesterday.
The annual report also stated
that advanced-placement courses are offered in about 61 percent
of Ohio schools, and 38.4 percent
of the participating schools have
at least 10 or more students enrolled in the courses, while 22.5
percent of high schools have
between one and nine students
in the advanced classes.
However, of the students
who take advanced-placement
courses, about two-thirds of
them earn at least a three on a
scale of five.
a series of letters dating to March
between UT and ProMedica officials about medical student
contract talks. They provide a
glimpse, however, into a dispute that goes beyond a single
contract. UT about a year ago
started to waive or provide discounted insurance co-payments
to Health Science Campus employees using its medical services. That has since been extended
to more than 200 ProMedica
doctors who teach UT students
after Mr. Brass objected in April
to UT’s initial move, saying it has
hurt their physician practices.
Another disagreement involves UT’s team physician. In
letters from Mr. Brass to Dr. Jacobs, Mr. Brass writes ProMedica
should have the right to appoint
UT’s team doctor. UT officials
contend they should mutually
pick the team doctor. Dr. Roger
Kruse, a ProMedica employee,
is the Rockets physician whose
contract expires July 1, 2009.
Contact Meghan Gilbert at:
mgilbert@theblade.com
or 419-724-6134.
+
8/14/2007, 11:50:21 PM