New state data reveal same historic disparity in performance between local public school districts and the state’s charter schools

Overview

The Ohio Department of Education recently released the preliminary proficiency test results for school districts and charter schools. And while the data do not bear the letter grades of the State Report Card, they do give an indication of where the state’s performance is headed. The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project (OCSAP) has analyzed this initial dataset for this brief, understanding that the results are preliminary and could change before the final report cards are issued early next year.

In comparing school district and charter school performance, the results mirror much of what’s been true since the state’s charter school program began – districts substantially outperform charters overall. And while, according to the preliminary data, charters overall generally outperform the state’s urban districts[1], in many urban districts they don’t. For example, Akron outperforms charters in all English Language Arts categories and 7 of 8 categories in math. Cincinnati outperforms charters in 16 of 21 comparable areas. It is important to remember whenever one compares Ohio’s overall charter school performance with urban districts that about half of Ohio’s charter school students do not come from the state’s urban districts. Yet urban districts are more than holding their own with their charter counterparts.

Statewide Results

Ohio’s school districts – all of whom lost students and state funding to charter schools last year – substantially outperformed the state’s charter schools on the 24 state tests last year. The tests were administered in various grades over four broad topics: English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies. On average, districts outperformed charter schools in each broad subject area by between 20 and 30 percent[2] on average, as can be seen in Figure 1.

The biggest difference in any subject was in Integrated Math II where the average Performance Index score in charters was barely above the 30 minimum while the average district Performance Index was 102.8 – not far from the maximum score of 120.

Charters did not outperform districts overall in any of the 24 tested subject areas. The closest they came was in Geometry, but districts still outperformed charters by more than 19% in that category. It is important to remember when making statewide performance comparisons that about half of charter school students come from districts outside the state’s urban districts.

Figure 1 – Average Performance Index Score by Test and School Type

And while there are high-performing charters, high-performing districts outperform even them. The OCSAP analyzed the top 25 scores of each charter and district in each broad category, regardless of which grade level test those scores occurred. In each case, the average high district score was much higher than the average high charter school score.

Figure 2 – Highest Performing Districts and Charters by Subject Area

Likewise, the average of the 25 lowest-performing districts were much better than the average of the 25 lowest-performing charter schools. In fact, the disparity was so great in English Language Arts that nearly 20 percent of all charter tests in that subject area were lower than the lowest performing urban district in any category.

Figure 3 – Lowest Performing District and Charter Schools by Subject Area

Urban Performance

While the OCSAP has repeatedly stated that it is unfair to compare all charter school performance with that of the major urban Ohio districts because barely more than half of all charter students come from there, when comparing the two, urbans are in several areas holding their own against the schools that were meant to be their replacement.

Even though charters do outperform urbans, on average, the difference is far smaller than charters and districts overall. For example, the average Performance Index score of urban districts for 4^th Grade reading is a 75.67. The average charter is 75.97 – a negligible difference. Urbans outperform charters in 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th Grade math.

However, there are urban districts that do outperform charters substantially. For example, Cincinnati outperformed charters on 16 of 21 comparison areas and Akron outperformed them on 13 of 21, including all English Language Arts categories and 7 of 8 math categories. On the other side, Cleveland only outperformed charters in 1 category while Dayton didn’t outperform them in any. Again, though, these comparisons are between all charters, which take about half of their students from outside Ohio’s urban districts, and the individual urban districts that take nearly all their students from the local districts.

To further understand the student population issue when comparing performance, look no further than the students at Columbus Preparatory Academy. In nearly every category in which they were tested, they had the highest Performance Index score among all Ohio charter schools. However, the Academy takes only half of its students from Columbus.

Summary

Ohio’s charter schools have long struggled to keep pace with the performance of their public school competitors. The data released recently confirm that trend has continued. And while the state’s charters may seem to be doing somewhat better than the state’s urban districts, when the charters’ statewide population is taken into consideration, it’s clear that even in the state’s urban districts, local public schools are holding their own and in many cases surpassing charter school performance.

[1] For purposes of this analysis, urban district refers to the so-called Big 8 of Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown.

[2] For this analysis, the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project used a Performance Index (PI) calculation to determine a school or district’s performance in a particular topic. The state uses Performance Index to determine funding and overall performance of its schools for purposes of awards and other determinations. The PI is determined by the percentage of students that tested Advanced, Accelerated, Proficient, Basic and Limited. That percentage is then given a weight. Proficient is 1, Accelerated is 1.1 and Advanced is 1.2. Basic is .6 and Limited is .3, If every student is Advanced, that’s a perfect 120 PI score. If every student tests Limited, that’s the minimum score of 30. The state released the percentage of students that scored in each proficiency level with their recent data release. So the OCSAP used the state’s PI calculation to turn each district and charter’s proficiency data into a single score. It is these calculations that are being referenced when this analysis compares performance. This is not, importantly, the single performance index score each school, district and charter receives on the state’s Report Card, which is set to be released in January. This calculation is done solely for this comparative analysis.