A group of local school superintendents say that, given more local control by federal lawmakers, Ohio should go further to reduce testing and tweak an accountability system that parents and teachers find confusing and unhelpful.
The Akron Area School Superintendents’ Association, which includes school chiefs from Summit, Medina and Portage counties, issued a list of recommendations Tuesday in response to a plan by the Ohio Department of Education, which must align with new federal education standards.
Signed into law in 2015 by President Barack Obama, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gave flexibility to the states by loosening federal regulations and testing requirements under the landmark No Child Left Behind education reform of 2001.
State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria met last week with the local groups of superintendents.
“I have to give him credit,” said Woodridge Superintendent Walter Davis, who heads the group. “He is definitely a good listener. And, certainly, we think he has the best interest of the kids at heart.”
Davis said he’s now hopeful DeMaria will accept some of their requests.
Davis was “alarmed” when, after meeting last year with 1,500 stakeholders, including a roomful at the University of Akron in September, DeMaria decided not to eliminate any of seven tests required by Ohio but not federal law.
The tests include a battery of end-of-course exams for high school students, which Davis’ group would like to see replaced by the ACT or SAT, social studies tests in middle school, and a fall third grade reading test as part of the state’s pass-or-get-held-back Third Grade Reading Guarantee.
Eliminating state-mandated tests would require legislative action.
The state already has scaled back testing by 50 percent between 2014 and 2016. Still, Davis said he’d rather have tests that are graded and returned the same year, not after students have moved on. And he’d like to measure how teachers use those locally generated tests to craft and deliver instruction.
“Instead,” Davis said, “they are more of a punitive measure to rank schools in a report card that quite frankly is so hard to understand that in all my [seven] years at Woodridge Schools I have had no one question or refer to the tests. They’re not relevant.”
Testing, traditionally used to measure student achievement and more recently to drive staffing and funding decisions, has been a point of contention in Ohio.
Lawmakers in Columbus adopted Common Core in 2010 and began statewide testing of the more rigorous national learning standards in 2014. The new system focused on teaching and measuring critical thinking but was quickly rebuked by the public when it turned out that testing took days away from learning and parents could simply opt out their kids, which hurt the school’s report card. The state’s plan does not address the opt-out issue.
The local superintendents also called on the state to:
• Keep a student subgroup, which is the smallest number of students used to report performance, at 30 out of a concern for student privacy.
• Not penalize schools’ graduation rates if students with learning disabilities are kept on individualized plans beyond four or five years.
• Clarify and align the state’s “K-3 Literacy Improvement” component on the report card to the more commonly known Third Grade Reading Guarantee.
• Not require the reporting of high school exam retakes or excused absences, which are mixed with unexcused absences.
• Make wraparound service — such as support for medical and mental health issues — universally available and boost early childhood programming, which the state said it plans to triple.
The state will take this and other feedback before submitting its final plan to the U.S. Department of Education in April, three months ahead of schedule.
“We appreciate the constructive feedback we’ve received from stakeholders regarding Ohio’s state ESSA plan,” Ohio Department of Education spokeswoman Brittany Halpin said. “One of the main themes communicated thus far was the need for stability in the state assessment system. Accordingly, Ohio is proposing to maintain its current system.”
Signing the recommendations were superintendents from Stow-Munroe Falls, Coventry, Nordonia Hills, Barberton, Mogadore, Norton, Tallmadge, Field, Hudson, Wadsworth, Green, Revere, Cuyahoga Falls, Copley-Fairlawn, Twinsburg, Manchester, Springfield and the Six District Educational Compact, Summit Educational Service Center and Portage Lakes Career Center.
Akron Superintendent David James, though not a member, is supportive of the group. He is lobbying with the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, the Ohio 8 Coalition and the Cuyahoga County Educational Service Center on many of the same issues.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .