There is has quite a debate on the local Nextdoor.com app regarding the performance of the Lake County public schools.  We decided to put some effort into providing the information published on the State of Ohio’s Report Card website.  If anyone wants to double-check our work here is the link to their website.  Simply type in the school district and a treasure trove of statistics are available for you to review.

https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/district/overview/045104

There are 7 Categories that make up the grading system:

1. The Achievement Component represents whether student performance on state tests met established thresholds and how well students performed on tests overall. A new indicator measures chronic absenteeism.
2. The Progress Component looks closely at the growth that all students are making based on their past performances.
3. The Gap Closing Component shows how well schools are meeting the performance expectations for our most vulnerable students in English language arts, math, graduation and English language proficiency.
4. The Graduation Rate Component looks at the percent of students who are successfully finishing high school with a diploma in four or five years.
5. This At-Risk Component looks at how successful the school is at improving at-risk K-3 readers.
6. Whether training in a technical field or preparing for work or college, the Prepared for Success Component looks at how well prepared Ohio’s students are for all future opportunities.
7. Overall grade for the District.

Here is a summary of all nine school districts in Lake County:   lake county school districts fy2018 report cards

We can debate the worthiness of the entire reporting system.  However, it is all we have, and the citizens did not calculate the scores, we just “paid the bill.”

Please note that the overall average grade for all nine school districts was 1.89 (a solid D)

Another disturbing statistic is that we are great for the most part, except Fairport and Painesville at graduating the children, but look at the “Prepared for Success”  grades.  Kirtland was the only one that earned a “C”.  Congratulations to their Superintendent Mr. Bill Wade, and we are sure he would like to see it even higher.

We will say it again ——-  something is wrong!  Either the grades are totally misleading because of an inept grading system, or we are simply not getting the job done in the schools.

We hope this creates some discussion on a very important issue for our society.   Lake County is not alone in these abysmal scores.   We are not being judgmental, just stating the facts.

Categories: Education

Tags: FT