Ohio unveils plans to boost achievement

A new statewide plan to improve student achievement sets a number of goals for reducing chronic absenteeism, increasing the graduation rate and providing more help to children in military families, those who are homeless and others facing similar challenges.

Ohio’s draft proposal, unveiled Thursday and needed to comply with requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, must be submitted to federal regulators by April 3. If approved, it will be implemented in the 2017-2018 school year.

Passed by Congress in 2015, ESSA eliminated many of the requirements of the old No Child Left Behind program and allows states to set their own plans for holding schools and districts responsible for student achievement and boosting performance of struggling kids.

Chris Woolard, senior executive director for accountability and continuous improvement at the Ohio Department of Education, said the state’s plan was crafted after a year of input from more than 15,000 educators, parents and others about how to improve the state’s educational system.

The focus, Woolard said, remains on low-performing schools and students. As required, Ohio will continue to issue annual report cards for schools and districts to monitor progress, and, despite greater flexibility on student testing, maintains the current requirements for now.

Woolard said while many stakeholders suggested less testing, they also urged the department to resist more changes, noting that Ohio has altered the majority of its tests twice in the last three years.

Long-term goals set under the plan include reducing the statewide rate of chronic absenteeism to 5 percent or less by 2027. Currently, about 14 percent of Ohio students miss 18 days or more of school. Not surprising, students who miss more school tend to perform poorer than their betterattending peers.

The plan calls for a 95 percent graduation rate by 2027, up from the current rate is 83 percent.

To help schools improve, the plan calls for additional financial aid and other supports for struggling rural schools and development of a proposal for improving charter schools serving high school dropouts.

It also includes several initiatives for students facing unique challenges like military kids who tend to move often. The Department of Education will partner with the WrightPatterson Air Force Base and the Ohio National Guard to help local educators recognize challenges students face and provide appropriate supports. Districts will also report which students come from military families so their academic growth can be monitored.