Middletown schools spend more, rank low

A recent state report, "Performance Index Ranking for Districts" puts the Middletown School District at the bottom of the list.

According to the ODE, the report "provides parents and taxpayers a new way to evaluate how local schools are performing while allowing educators to compare their performance with peers." The list is based on the Performance Index (PI) score. The Middletown district ranks 572 out of 611 eligible districts.
The report also indicates that MCSD spends the most per student, $10,843, more than any other Butler County traditional school district. 

The report can be seen at: http://education.ohio.gov/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=1&ContentID=114398&Content=115380

I had heard the superintendent sent an email out to school employees letting them know that ODE rated the district at the bottom. I guess the district didn't call the journal to report this information as they did when Battelle For Kids...whoever that is....rated the district at the top 3% when they crunched the numbers adding in the "value added" part.

As Lewis Black says in his stand-up comedy routines, "something is ASKEW"

From the Journal.......

The Ross Local School District has the area’s best ranking on student performance — No. 62 out of 611 districts statewide — while Middletown is the county’s lowest at No. 590 and spends $10,843 per pupil which is more than the state average of $10,144.

WHICH PROVES THAT MONEY GIVEN TO THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS DOESN'T EQUATE TO A GOOD EDUCATION. THEREFORE, STOP TELLING US AT LEVY TIME THAT MORE MONEY IS NEEDED TO ENSURE PROGRESS. IT JUST AIN'T SO EDUCATION PEOPLE. AS A MATTER OF FACT, STOP ASKING FOR MORE MONEY AT ALL UNTIL YOU STRAIGHTEN UP THIS CLUSTER THAT HAS BEEN OCCURING FOR DECADES. THE PACE OF SO-CALLED "IMPROVEMENT" IS CLOSE TO BEING NON-MEASUREABLE. THE FACT IS, THE MIDDLETOWN SCHOOLS ARE AND HAVE BEEN CLOSE TO THE BOTTOM FOR MANY YEARS, THROUGH MANY SUPERINTENDENTS, THROUGH MANY "CHANGES", THROUGH MANY SCHOOL BOARDS AND THROUGH MANY LEVY PASSAGES AND WE ARE NO CLOSER TO MAKING REAL MEASURABLE PROGRESS THAN WE WERE DECADES AGO. STOP THE BS AT LEVY TIME.


“We know we’ve got to get better,” second-year Middletown Superintendent Greg Rasmussen said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, and evidence supports that we’re doing a heck of a job in a lot of ways. We need to keep doing it and keep improving

GEE, YA THINK?

Hamilton City Schools ranked No. 538 for PI with a per pupil spending of $9,191 (No. 379).

HAMILTON, A SIMILAR TYPE COMMUNITY WITH SIMILAR DEMOGRAHICS, WITH A BETTER STATE RANKING, DONE ON LOWER PER STUDENT COSTS. WHY IS MIDDLETOWN LAGGING BEHIND?

The Lakota Local School District also was in the top 100 as far as performance, coming in at No. 64, and spends $9,387 per pupil (No. 342).

LAKOTA.....WEST CHESTER, A RICH, UPSCALE COMMUNITY WITH HIGH ROLLER INCOMES SPENDS LESS PER STUDENT WHEN THEY COULD TAX THE PEOPLE MORE, RECEIVING MORE PER STUDENT TO MATCH MIDDLETOWN'S $10,000+ COST PER STUDENT. THEY DON'T SPEND AS MUCH ON STUDENTS AS MIDDLETOWN WHEN THEY COULD.....AND GET BETTER RESULTS. AGAIN, MORE MONEY DOESN'T MEAN BETTER RESULTS.

The Fairfield City School District was about right in the middle with a No. 316 PI ranking, but in terms of spending per pupil, it was No. 501 ($8,606).

FAIRFIELD.....BETTER RESULTS AND $2000 LESS PER PUPIL. WHY NOT SEE WHAT FAIRFIELD, ROSS, LAKOTA AND HAMILTON SCHOOLS ARE DOING THAT MIDDLETOWN IS NOT AND MAKE SOME CHANGES.......EMULATING SUCCESSFUL DISTRICTS. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE. YOU"VE BEEN STUCK IN THE SAME PLACE FOR YEARS WHILE CONSTANTLY TELLING THE VOTING PUBLIC THAT PROGRESS IS BEING MADE. IF SO, IT IS TOO LITTLE OVER TOO LONG OF A PERIOD OF TIME AND IT HAS COST TOO MUCH WITH LEVY PASSAGES AND NEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS BUILT, YIELDING MINUTE PROGRESS.   

The facts support this group's general assessment of Middletown City School...that the district spends more per pupil than other districts and the academic achievement is below most other schools.  However, some of the information presented is incorrect and I'd like to provide the correct information.

Chris Fiora wrote: I forgot to also mention that MCSD now has 5 schools rated effective and 1 school rated excellent.  This is the best Middletown has ever done and shows, to me, that the district is on the right track.

Mr. Fiora, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I believe we can apply the same type of analogy when it comes to evaluating your school system achievements to date. You see it as an achievement to be noted. I see it as a "what took you and other school boards/supers so long to achieve the bottom tier-beginning phases of that achievement? What were the present/past school boards and present/past supers doing all this time to have such a minimal success rate in such a long period of time?

"THIS is the best Middletown has ever done" - Chris Fiora

If this is the best Middletown has ever done, then this is also an indictment on the apparent lack of urgency by past and present school personnel to identify the issues, initiate corrective actions to those issues, and achieve a result that would have kept Middletown schools off the bottom of the totem pole in performance all these years. The proficiency results have been essentially the same all along. The exception being the indicators doubling from 5 to 10 recently which is sound, meaningful, notable progress. Apparently, the focus of past and present boards has been to achieve results in a "baby steps" fashion, even before this community's schools were hit with the Section 8/low income influx, now another roadblock to greater achievement. We are getting overly excited about minimal gain here, aren't we?