Academic distress riles school board

State takeover looms

Frustrations erupted over a looming state takeover of Lorain City Schools by the Ohio Department of Education.

At a joint meeting of Lorain Academic Distress Commission and Lorain City School Board Sept. 28 at Lorain County Community College, 1005 N. Abbe Road, Elyria, members of both boards questioned the validity of holding the district accountable for results of ever-changing state tests.

“It seems like the Lorain City School District was set up to fail,” said Raul Ramos, a member of Lorain Academic Distress Commission.

“We’re doing this; we’re going to get out of this thing, and then you change the rules,” Ramos told representatives of ODE who attend LADC meetings.

“Everybody gets the same test,” said Clairie Huff-Franklin, director of academic distress commissions and academic reform at Ohio Department of Education.

“Everybody isn’t in this condition,” Ramos said. “Unless we get

out of this condition, we’re being set up.”

Lorain School Board President Tim Williams said academic distress increased the frustrations.

“We have angst not just in terms of guidance here, but because of what this means for us,” Williams said. “We had a meeting last year and it was a lot of smiles. You were saying, ‘We’re doing this; we’re doing this.’ I have no sense of confidence anybody knows what to do to fix this. This is ambiguous. Everyone was so confident, we’re doing this and this and this, only to find out, ‘Oh, our compass was broken.’’

Certain student groups responded differently to the tests, Williams said.

“The growth measures we created perhaps work better for certain groups than for other groups,” Williams said. “What we’re saying is we have some kids with cancer and some kids with lung disease, and we’re giving them the same medicine. ‘All kids can learn.’ Yeah, all kids can learn. How do you address the differences?

“It’s frustrating, because we spent a lot of energy, a lot of good work, and it’s not doing any good,” Williams said.

Tony Dimacchia, vice president of Lorain School Board, said something is wrong if 55 percent of school districts that received grades of A on value added on the report card last year, also received an F this year, as did Lorain.

“I’m troubled by that,” Dimacchia said. “To look at our evaluation as a school district, and to say, ‘You’re a failing school district,’ I don’t believe that. I know what goes on in our district every day.”

Value added is important for students, Dimacchia said. Yet in this district many students arrive from two to four years behind grade level, he said. And in a district with about 90 percent poverty, when many children go home they do not have resources that are taken for granted in other districts, he said.

Lorain Schools Superintendent Dr. Jeff Graham said studies prove students who live in poverty do not transition as well when rigor is added to tests.

The district needed grades of C in value added and performance index two years in a row to be released from academic distress and to be returned to local control.

Henry Patterson, vicechair of LADC, said even though the test was made more difficult on purpose by the state, the perception of the F affects the community adversely.

Also, if a student arrives in the district and tests two grade levels behind, then if that student grows 1.2 years’ worth in one year, Patterson said, he or she is still behind and cannot pass the standardized state test.

“The basic understanding is regardless of the test, value added isn’t about the test,” HuffFranklin said. “It’s where the students are in relations to other students.”