The vote Wednesday was 27-6, with some Democratic support. The GOP-controlled House passed the bill on mostly party lines two weeks ago.
House Bill 555 would replace the current grading system that labels schools with terms such as “excellent,” “effective” and “academic watch” with letter grades in six areas such as closing the achievement gap between white and minority students, graduation and literacy in early elementary grades.
The bill also creates a separate report card for dropout recovery schools and changes how charter school sponsors are evaluated and ranked starting in 2015-16.
Four of the six areas are the same as in the current report card, which would be presented as a “dashboard” displaying each area and its grade. Additional indicators would be added in future years and schools would receive an overall average grade in the 2014-15 school year — the same year the state transitions to tests for the tougher Common Core State Standards.
Educators asked lawmakers earlier this week to delay implementing the report card until after schools have adjusted to the Common Core.
Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, said calls for delaying the report card are “totally unnecessary.”
“Because schools will not receive a cumulative grade, we are actually removing pressure they perceive from receiving a cumulative grade,” Lehner said.
Test scores are expected to drop when the state transitions to the Common Core. Senators added a safeguard for schools during the first year of Common Core tests that exempts from penalties schools that drop in tandem with the statewide average.
The Senate also refined the “prepared for success” measure to include a combination of several factors including students who participate on the ACT and SAT, score above remediation on those tests and earn an industry credential.
Sen. Tom Sawyer, D-Akron, said not all students take those tests and the state needs to fund those costs.
“It’s clear the funding component might be more appropriate in the upcoming budget bill than try to do an appropriation in this measure,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer and other Democrats warned the new accountability system, coupled with the shift in the content taught in the classroom, might be too much to administer; they questioned whether the Ohio Department of Education has the staff or money to fulfill all its mandates.
Starting next year, third graders who are retained or were previously put on a reading improvement plan must be assigned a “high-performing” teacher with a reading certification, a masters degree with an emphasis in reading or has been rated as highly effective by the Department of Education. In 2014, teachers could meet the requirement by passing a test yet to be created.
Springfield City School District isn’t prepared for that requirement, according to Superintendent David Estrop, who said he was concerned about the timing though pleased lawmakers included several recommendations made by educators.
“We’d expressed to our legislators a desire to slow that down because we don’t have adequate numbers of staff,” Estrop said after Wednesday’s vote.
“Our point was, what’s the hurry?” he said. “Why the gallop toward this when you know in two years you’re going to turn the whole thing upside down anyway.”
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