Traditional Report Cards
2023-2024 Guide to Ohio School Report Cards
guidance document now available.
Ohio’s Traditional School and District Report Cards provide valuable information about the performance of schools and districts. The Overall Ratings for Local Report Cards reflect the collective performance of schools and districts across various educational components. The elements of these ratings include:
- Star Rating System: Schools and districts are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, with half-star increments, providing a clear and accessible measure of performance. A 5-star school is higher performing than a 1-star school.
- Five Key Components: The overall rating is based on the performance in five components: achievement, progress, gap closing, early literacy, and graduation. Additional information about post-graduation readiness and technical documentation round out these components and provide a full picture of district and school performance.
- Reform and Transparency: This rating system was introduced as part of a reform to enhance transparency and accountability in Ohio’s education system. To learn more, visit the following resources:
While report cards provide essential data, visiting schools, talking to educators, parents, and students, and reviewing school or district webpages can provide a more complete picture.
For more detailed technical information, you can explore the documentation below.
Traditional Report Card Components
Traditional report cards are made up of five key components that are used to calculate the overall rating. Those components (achievement, progress, gap closing, early literacy, and graduation) are explained in detail below. A new College, Career, Workforce, and Military Readiness component adds additional information. This new component WILL NOT be included in the overall rating until at least the 2024-2025 school year.
Figure 1. Components that make up
The Overall Rating for Traditional Report Cards
Achievement
The Achievement Component Technical Document provides a comprehensive guide to understanding how academic achievement is measured in Ohio’s traditional district and school report cards. It details the two measures used: the Performance Index and the Performance Indicators, with the former being used to assign the Achievement Component Rating. The document includes an overview of measures, business rules, calculation methods, and detailed inclusion criteria, ensuring transparency and clarity in the evaluation of student performance on Ohio’s State Tests. It serves as a crucial resource for educators and administrators in interpreting and utilizing report card data effectively.
The Performance Index measure as defined in ORC 3302.01(A) and 3302.03(D)(1)(c) uses the performance level results for students in grades 3 through high school on Ohio’s State Tests. The Performance Index score accounts for the level of achievement of every student, not just whether they are “proficient.” Each test a student takes is assigned an achievement level based on the test score with higher test scores resulting in higher achievement levels. On the Performance Index, the higher performance levels receive larger weights in the calculation – but all achievement levels are included. More information about test achievement levels is available annually in the Understanding Ohio’s State Tests Reports guidance document.
The Performance Indicators measure (ORC 3302.02(A)) is a report-only measure within this component – meaning the data does not factor into the rating determination. The Performance Indicators measure reports the percentage of students scoring proficient or higher on each of Ohio’s State Tests disaggregated by grade level and subject.
Progress
The Progress Component closely examines the advancement of all students by considering their previous performances on state tests. It evaluates the academic progress of students relative to the expected growth on Ohio's State Tests. The assessment employs a "value-added" model, which measures academic progress by comparing the change in a group of students' achievements against an anticipated level of progress, derived from their past achievement records.
Gap Closing
The Gap Closing component shows how well schools are meeting the performance expectations for students in English language arts, math, and graduation. It also measures how schools are doing in supporting English learners to increase language proficiency, reducing chronic absenteeism for all students, and identifying gifted students and providing gifted services.
Graduation
The Graduation Component is a measure of the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and the five-year adjusted cohort graduation rate. A weighted graduation rate is calculated using the weights established in Ohio Revised code 3302.03 so that the four-year graduation rate contributes 60% toward the component rating, and the five-year graduation rate contributes 40% toward the component rating.
Early Literacy
The Early Literacy Component measures reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade. This component includes three different unrated measures that help provide a more complete picture of early literacy in our schools and districts. The three measures are combined to create a single rating for the Early Literacy Component.
College, Career, Workforce, and Military Readiness
The College, Career, Workforce, and Military Readiness component
WILL NOT be rated or included in the overall rating for schools and districts until the 2024-2025 school year at the earliest.
Data collections and business rules have not been finalized for this component. All currently available data for each measure will be reported and a preliminary component percentage displayed but this data should be considered for informational purposes only.
The College, Career, Workforce, and Military Readiness (CCWMR) component measures how prepared the graduating class from a district or building is as they transition to post-secondary education, enter the workforce, or join the armed forces. The readiness of a graduating class is estimated by calculating the number of students that achieve one or more of the component measure goals.
Additional Technical Documentation and Resources
DEW provides resources to assist in understanding the local report cards.
Getting Started
Student Enrollment and School Choice
The Ohio Report Cards provide a comprehensive overview of student enrollment across various educational settings, including Traditional Districts. These measures capture the diverse educational choices, such as enrollment in community schools, participation in scholarship programs, and attendance in specialized programs. By examining these enrollment metrics, stakeholders can gain insights into student mobility, school choice options, and the effectiveness of different educational pathways in meeting the needs of Ohio’s diverse student population. The data does not reflect the quantity or quality of options within each category because to achieve a full understanding of school choice would require knowledge of school locations, enrollment policies, and voucher qualifications.
Student Attendance
In the pursuit of academic excellence and student well-being, schools must monitor attendance diligently. The Attendance Rate measures the total time students spend in school against the total enrolled time, acting as a gauge for the school environment’s effectiveness in promoting regular attendance. The Chronic Absenteeism Improvement Indicator tracks the percentage of students who are chronically absent, indicating they miss a significant portion (10% or more) of the school year. Schools use this data to identify trends in absenteeism and implement targeted interventions that improve student attendance and academic success.
Financial Data
The financial measures provide information about spending on classroom instruction, average spending per student and comparisons to other districts and schools. The reported measures also include source of funds (local, state, federal, other) for the district in comparison to state totals. The expenditure rankings include a ranking of each district's operating expenditure per pupil sorted based on expenditure per pupil within the whole population of districts; and a ranking of each district's percentage spent on classroom instruction within the whole population of districts.
Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS)
PBIS is a framework that guides school teams in the selection, integration and implementation of evidence-based practices for improving academic, social and behavior outcomes for all students. The PBIS process emphasizes four integrated elements: data for decision making, evidence based interventions and practices that support varying student needs (multi-tiered), systems that efficiently and effectively support implementation of these practices, and continual progress monitoring to ensure outcomes are met. PBIS is not a curriculum or a one-day training. PBIS is a systems change process that requires on-going commitment in order to create effective systems for teaching and addressing behavior and social-emotional skills. All schools are expected to move through the stages of PBIS implementation. This includes schools that serve only preschool students even though they do not receive a report card. A traditional district’s status is determined based on the implementation status of all schools.
Student Opportunity
Beginning in 2023, Ohio’s State Report Card will include several staff- and student-level metrics related to opportunities provided to students within schools and districts. These metrics intend to capture the broad spectrum of educational and co-/extra-curricular activities that students can participate in to support and enhance their educational and socio-emotional development. Several staff-related metrics provide insight into the capacity and availability of various support teams. Data for these metrics are reported by districts in a variety of ways. Student-level metrics are disaggregated by student demographics and grade levels where possible. Detailed information on the calculation of each metric is provided below. District, similar district and state-level comparisons are provided on the report card website where possible and appropriate.
Wellness and Physical Education
The national association for sport and physical education creates a set of guidelines for physical education in grades kindergarten through twelve. Ohio Revised Code
3301.079(A)(3) states that either these guidelines or a set created by the state board of education must be adopted. This statue also requires that the state employ a full-time physical education coordinator to provide guidance and technical assistance to districts, community schools, and STEM schools in implementing the physical education standards adopted under this division. To accompany this law, the legislature also adopted ORC Section
3302.032 (A) and
3302.032(B) to create wellness and physical education measures on the building and district report cards. State law requires the reporting of physical education and wellness measures. For district and school report cards, the data are reported through four measures. These measures include: The extent to which the students meet physical education benchmarks, Whether the district implemented a local wellness policy required by federal regulation, Whether the building and/or district elected to administer Body Mass Index screenings to students (data gathered by Ohio Department of Health), and Participation in the Physical Education Pilot Program.
Last Modified: 10/24/2024 12:41:08 PM