CINCINNATI — New state report cards show Cincinnati Public Schools didn’t meet any of the state’s expectations.
These report cards are broken down into categories and then given a star rating. Three stars or higher means districts are meeting the state’s expectations — CPS scored two stars or less on all categories.
“It's trying to drive that idea of continuous improvement,” said Dr. Chris Woolard, chief program officer of the Ohio Department of Education.
“You can look and celebrate the things that you're doing well in the areas of strength, and also identify the areas of challenge and so that you can put plans in place to identify those areas where you need to grow.”
The categories are:
- Achievement — Student performance on state tests
- Progress — Student growth
- Gap closing — Growth of vulnerable groups of students
- Early literacy — Reading proficiency among kindergarten through 3rd grade students
- Graduation — District’s graduation rate
CPS scored two stars on achievement, progress, gap closing and literacy. Graduation received one star.
"I think it's important that we have a clear picture of where we're making progress and where we need to focus next, and the report card is one important way to do that,” said Ben Lindy, CPS Board of Education president.
CPS is not alone. Student performance on tests statewide were greatly impacted by the pandemic.
“The state report cards are an important piece of the puzzle, but they're not the only piece,” Woolard said. “There's also a lot of information that districts have that we don't have that tells us a full picture about what's happening at a school level. And I think it's important to point that out.”
The 2021-2022 report card data did show some positive signs of improvement.
“We actually saw pretty big levels and pretty big increases at a state level,” Woolard said. “From this year, compared to last year, however, we're not back to where we were before the pandemic and we're not where we want to be.”
Woolard said the biggest concern from test scores statewide is literacy, and there will be a big focus on reading going forward.
“At the end of the day, we want everybody achieving and we want this data to drive improvement. So that next year, we're having this conversation, hopefully we're in a better spot than we are now,” Woolard said.
Cincinnati Public Schools as a whole did not meet expectations; however some CPS schools did score 3 stars or higher.
Watch Live:
