Toledo met four of the 26 benchmarks, Cleveland met two, Cincinnati met 7 and Youngstown met 1; the differences in reporting and headlines as to the report cards in other parts of the state is interesting. In Cleveland — Cleveland school district celebrates rise in state ratings is the headline.

Cleveland school officials celebrated gains in academic performance Friday, their enthusiasm tempered by the knowledge that it’s still a long uphill climb.

As expected, release of the district’s state 2009-10 report card showed the schools scored “continuous improvement,” which is the equivalent of a C and an increase of one notch from the district’s previous mark, “academic watch.”

Among the so-called “Ohio 8″ urban school systems, Cincinnati became the first to be designated as “effective,” a B. Akron, Canton, Columbus and Toledo are in continuous improvement and Dayton is in academic watch. Youngstown is the only school system in the state in “academic emergency,” an F.

There was also this article in the Plain Dealer – State report cards bring good news for some Northeast Ohio schools.

State Superintendent Deborah Delisle said she was pleased with many of the statewide results:

•Overall student scores on 24 state tests rose slightly, marking a new high.
•Nearly 88 percent of districts earned a rating of effective or higher – essentially a grade of B or higher.
•No additional districts fell into academic emergency. Youngstown remained the only one in that bottom category, which is the equivalent of an F.

But Delisle said she was disappointed that the statewide graduation rate declined slightly for the second year in a row, to 83 percent. The education department is analyzing the data to determine what steps should be taken, she said.

The Dispatch reported on the Report Cards on Wednesday – Many school grades rise, but fewer districts rated A-plus:

Fewer central Ohio school districts earned an A-plus grade this year, and a handful more ended up with a B.

But the news from this year’s report cards isn’t too gloomy: Most districts are taking home respectable grades, and charter schools are getting better.

Only three of the 49 districts in the region have a C grade, two fewer than last year: Columbus, Lancaster and Whitehall. And because Whitehall climbed a grade, no local district has a D.

Fourteen districts lost ground since last year and 10 gained. The rest held steady.

As pointed out earlier in August by the Dispatch — report cards were late later than normal.

In Youngstown, Ohio supt. vows takeover if Y-town scores don’t rise.

The city school district remains the worst in the state, and the state superintendent says if improvement isn’t made, she’ll take over to do what needs to be done.

“We’re not going to continue to allow Youngstown to languish academically,” Deborah Delisle, state superintendent of public instruction said Friday. “We’re going to take steps to ensure they improve and succeed.”

State report card data for 2009-10 released by the Ohio Department of Education show Youngstown remains in academic emergency, the only district in the state with the lowest designation.

There’s also Mixed bag in Ohio: Marks show gains, declines from ’09 from the Youngstown Vindicator.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported on their public school system report card on Wednesday — Report card gives CPS highest ranking yet.

Cincinnati Public Schools achieved an “effective” ranking on the state report card system for the first time since the state report cards began 10 years ago.

It’s the highest rating ever for this district of more than 33,000 students and is a “milestone “for academic progress, officials said.

“Effective” is the third highest of six categories on Ohio’s report card, an annual rating of schools and districts based on students’ passage rates on statewide tests, graduation rates, attendance trends and other data.

There’s also this article from today Ohio school chief decries results:

Ohio’s top schools official said Friday she is disappointed that for a second year in a row high school graduate rates declined at public schools and that, on average, fifth-graders failed to meet state standards on reading and math tests, a long-term trend evident in state report card data released Friday.

In a tele-conference from Columbus, Ohio Superintendent of Schools Deborah Delisle also defended the state’s use of a “value-added” measurement of student academic growth against some who say that it may penalize schools and districts with high numbers of advanced students.

Seven local highest-performing districts lost their top rating in part because of value added …

Also worth noting is the Lebanon Schools story, last year they dropped three rankings, in one year they are now back up to “excellent with distinction” — Lebanon’s jump in school rank no accident points out how it was done:

Lebanon school officials scrambled to add ESL instructors, tutoring and other instructional services to quickly identify and aid underperforming students during the last school year and it paid off without the aid of the new state law.

Last year Cleveland had 75% of its schools listed as being in either academic watch or academic emergency — 44 Cleveland Municipal Schools are listed in Academic Emergency — 29 are listed in Academic Watch – Cleveland Municipal lists 113 schools, this means 73 of them are listed in either emergency or watch.

Toledo City Schools has 60 listed — 9 are Academic Emergency — 11 are in Academic Watch — this means 20 out of the 60 are in either watch or emergency.

Cincinnati has 58 schools listed — 7 are in Academic Emergency — 17 are in Academic Watch — this means 24 are in either watch or emergency — which is interesting considering Cincinnati overall is rated “Effective” considering Toledo has less schools in the watch category and only two more in the emergency category.

The main difference between Cinci and Toledo is the “value added scoring” which as this post points out, in some areas with advanced students has created a lowering of scores.