“I’ve been very disappointed and upset about this. It is so counter to what I believe. I believe in accountability for all schools,” Ross said. “We need to have accurate data for that. So the exclusion of e-school data … from our sponsor evaluations was wrong. If somebody had shared that with me, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Ross repeatedly said the auditor of state and inspector general’s offices are reviewing documents related to the incident, but some state school board members from both political parties suggested a full investigation of the issue would be valuable, saying state education officials need to clear the air and rebuild trust.
The state board considered a resolution that would require such an investigation, but eventually voted to table it.
Hansen, then ODE’s school choice director, purposely excluded the failing grades of online and dropout-recovery charter schools from evaluations of charter school sponsors (agencies that oversee charters). He told the state board in July that he did it so the F’s wouldn’t “mask” successes of charter schools elsewhere. Hansen resigned July 18.
Ross said since the problem happened on his watch, he would take responsibility. He said he would be OK with an investigation, suggesting that it would reveal he had no involvement in Hansen’s plan. But he also urged board members to let the auditor and IG work, saying they are the appropriate agencies to handle the issue.
Ross repeatedly pointed to steps ODE has taken since July, including the creation of a new data governance committee to make sure no one person can skew school data, as well as upcoming education for employees about whistleblower protections. Ross acknowledged ODE should have had those features in place already.
Several board members, including A.J. Wagner of Dayton, asked pointed questions about who knew what Hansen was doing. After a question from Wagner, Ross said he never had a discussion with Hansen about leaving online school grades out of the evaluations.
Board member Mary Rose Oakar asked similar questions of Chris Woolard, ODE’s senior executive director of accountability, after Ross introduced Woolard as one of the leaders of the new data governance committee.
Woolard said there had been extensive discussions of how to include online school value-added grades in report cards and evaluations, but he said he was not involved in Hansen’s decision to excise that data from the charter sponsor evaluations.
Supporters of charter schools and traditional public schools have increasingly been at odds in recent years over each group’s academic performance, as well as Ohio laws on school accountability and funding.
Request for probe
At the end of the meeting, Wagner introduced a resolution that would require an independent study of the Office of Quality School Choice to determine its compliance with the law, with ODE policies and with codes of conduct in its oversight of charter schools.
The resolution included numerous requirements, such as a performance audit of charter school contracts and determinations of whether sponsors properly investigated their schools and whether ODE ignored complaints.
After 10 minutes of discussion, board member Tess Elshoff asked the board to table the resolution until the state auditor’s office and inspector general performed their reviews. The board voted to table the motion by an 11-7 vote along party lines.
The auditor’s report is not expected until next year, and it is unknown whether the IG’s office will perform a full investigation. Democrats have expressed concern about the impartiality of investigations by a Republican state auditor and a Republican-appointed inspector general.
Cut scores set
The state board approved cut scores for last year’s PARCC tests where the proficiency barrier on every test is at 33 percent correct or below, with some as low as 15 percent.
Board member Sarah Fowler said she could not approve cut scores that low, arguing that they would “deceive” parents and students into thinking they are doing well. The eventual vote was 14-4 in favor of the scores.
Students will get scores of 1 to 5 on PARCC tests. While PARCC says students need a score of 4 to “meet expectations” of college and career readiness, Ohio is declaring any student who scores a 3 as “proficient,” with a 4 counting as “accelerated.”
Between 35 and 40 percent of Ohio students earned 4s or 5s on their tests, while 65 to 70 percent earned 3s or better.
Some local school officials and testing coordinators have questioned whether the 2014-15 test results will even be valid, given the number of technical glitches students encountered with online testing.
The state board also approved test standards for schools and districts, saying any school that meets the statewide proficiency level on a given test meets the report card standard for that test. So if 67 percent of sixth-graders statewide were proficient or better on the state math test, any district where 67 percent of students pass that test would meet the state standard.
Mad River Schools Superintendent Chad Wyen said his district is focused on improving instructional practices and project-based learning. He said if the district is successful, tests will take care of themselves.
“We are in ‘safe harbor’ for the next two years and the PARCC is irrelevant at this point,” Wyen said. “The data will be coming out too late to be useful in making instructional decisions, the PARCC itself is no longer being administered, and until whatever assessment is fully administered electronically, there will be no true apples to apples comparison.”
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