The latest Ohio school report cards are out, and at first glance, the news for Cleveland schools seems disappointing – a drop from 3 stars to 2.5 stars overall. But as the Today in Ohio podcast crew argues, that headline number is misleading at best and destructive at worst.
“The sad thing is, I think people are going to look at this overall and said, ‘Oh, they went from 3 to 2.5. They stink. Which isn’t fair because there’s a whole lot of good in what happened here,’” said Chris Quinn.
Cleveland schools didn’t actually lose ground in any of last year’s metrics. Instead, the Ohio Department of Education decided to add an entirely new category – college and military readiness – which counts for a whopping 12.5% of the overall grade. The addition tanked Cleveland’s overall rating despite significant academic improvements.
The podcast highlighted several impressive gains that are being overshadowed by the artificial drop in rating. Lisa Garvin noted that Cleveland Municipal School District CEO Dr. Warren Morgan was upbeat and told the Editorial Board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, “There’s a great deal to be proud of.”
Among the achievements? Cleveland schools earned four stars for progress, showing substantial improvement over three years. They maintained three stars in gap closing for math and English across different racial and economic groups. Perhaps most importantly, Dr. Morgan reported that Cleveland “improved proficiency in all tested subjects” and exceeded pre-pandemic rates in high School English Arts, US Government and Algebra 1.
But the overall rating dropped anyway. “Why do they keep changing the ratings every year? How do you ever do an apples-to-apples comparison if every year the scale changes?” Quinn asked.
The discussion also touched on Cleveland’s attendance challenges, which the district acknowledges and is working to address. However, as Quinn emphasized, the improvements in academic performance are what should be making headlines – not an arbitrary overall score that was manipulated by changing the rules mid-game.
Perhaps most remarkable is that Cleveland public schools are outperforming charter schools. That’s a significant achievement worth celebrating, not burying beneath misleading star ratings.
The artificial drop in ratings isn’t just a public relations problem – it has real consequences for how people perceive the district, potentially affecting everything from enrollment to property values to community support.
Listen to the discussion here.
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