Eight public school districts out of the more than 70 in the Miami Valley did not meet the state proficiency standard for third-grade reading on the 2011-12 Ohio Achievement Assessments, according to preliminary report card data.

Half of those districts were in Montgomery County, two in Butler County and one each in Clark and Champaign counties.

These scores are drawing heavy scrutiny this year due to the recently state-approved third-grade reading guarantee, which mandates that students who do not demonstrate proficiency on the third-grade reading OAA in 2013-14 could be retained.

Although exceptions can be made for students, such as those with individualized education plans and those who have had less than two years of English as a second language, this law will put added emphasis on how students perform on this state test.

The Ohio Department of Education estimated that, based on the 2010-11 test scores, approximately 10,000 students across the state would be eligible for retention based on this criteria.

These numbers could include students from Dayton, Springfield, Middletown, Trotwood-Madison, Mad River, Jefferson Twp., New Miami and Triad Local, which did not meet the state required proficiency of 75 percent in third-grade reading on the 2011-12 OAAs.

ODE spokesman John Charlton explained, however, that a district’s failure to demonstrate proficiency as a whole will not necessarily translate to mass retention.

“I would caution people against comparing the percentage of students passing the OAA and the number of students who may be eligible to be retained according the third-grade reading guarantee,” Charlton said. “Even though the two measures are both based on scores achieved on the OAA, they use different benchmarks to make their determinations.”

For the state benchmark for the report card, 75 percent of students at or above proficiency is required for each district; for the third-grade reading guarantee, each student will have to score 392 out of 507 on his or her individual test to avoid potential retention.

Mad River Local Schools and Triad Local Schools each fell just shy of the state proficiency level, with 74 percent and 74.7 percent of its students, respectively, at or above that level. For both districts, not earning that state indicator was an anomaly.

Triad had scored 86.2 percent on the test in 2010-11 and 82.9 percent in 2009-10, while Mad River scored 77 percent or higher in the third-grade reading on each of the previous two report cards.

Elizabeth Wolfe-Eberly, curriculum supervisor for Mad River, said this year’s test results were disappointing but not unexpected.

“I think that we had known that our third-graders were coming to us with additional needs,” Wolfe-Eberly said. “We’ve been working very hard. From where the students came to us, they were able to show a great deal of growth.”

Five of the eight districts that failed to pass the third-grade reading test did not meet the proficiency level on any of the 2011-12 OAAs, which tested third- through eighth-graders on reading, math and science.

Springfield City Schools also was the only district in the Miami Valley’s nine-county region to not score at or above proficiency on the OAAs or the Ohio Graduation Tests, administered to students in 10th and 11th grade.

“Statistics show that if students can’t read by fourth grade than more likely to drop out of school,” Charlton said. “Reading is fundamental. If you’re going to pass math or science or social studies, you have to be able to read.”

Springfield Superintendent David Estrop said it was important to note that the districts that did not meet the third-grade reading indicator are largely districts of significant poverty.

“We know from extensive research that there is a correlation between socio-economic status and reading skills,” Estrop said. “Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised that school districts with high poverty rates are not passing.”

According to the ODE data for fiscal year 2011, more than half of the districts that failed to pass the third-grade reading OAA in 2011-12 had a poverty rate of more than 70 percent.

“We have been working on reading for some time, but the simple truth is that our children start behind and we have to work very hard to help them catch up,” Estrop said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing, and that may take us additional time.”

Dayton Public Schools Superintendent Lori Ward, whose district had a poverty rate of 92. 51 percent in fiscal year 2011, also expressed disappointment with her district’s failure to pass the OAAs. But she noted that Dayton also had seen improvements upon which it hoped to build.

“We implemented early literacy groups last year. Those groups are really about making sure children are reading in skill groups where they are so we can move them faster,” Ward said. “For instance, a first-grader may be in a third-grade reading group or a second-grader reading in a first-grade reading group.”

Educators agreed that identifying and addressing students in need were the keys to student growth and to the eventual implementation of the third-grade reading guarantee.

“Everyone wants to focus on that cut score and retaining students,” Charlton said. “The intent of the third-grade reading guarantee is not to retain students but to identify students who need help and to get them the appropriate intervention so they can pass the third-grade reading assessment and be promoted.”

Estrop said the guarantee may provide more of an assist than a threat to districts that have not met the state proficiency standard.

“That, in essence, is what is implied in the third-grade reading guarantee,” Estrop said. “It’s not to be used as a punishment, but it’s giving children the time they need to develop reading and vocabulary skills down the road.”

Staff writer Margo Rutledge Kissell contributed to this report.