MCSD Top 3% Academic Growth

Ms. Andrew:

[QUOTE=Marcia Andrew] The Middletown City School District had the 12th highest gains across the state in yearly student academic growth for the 2010-2011 school year, according to data just released by Battelle for Kids.  The data released was the "Value Added" component of the Ohio state report card, which measures student annual growth on the state standardized tests.  Middletown City Schools ranked 12th out of 609 districts on the amount of academic growth achieved by its students last year. That puts it in the top 3% of public school districts in Ohio on this measure.




Feb. 9th, 2012 Journal article......

Kasich pushing plan as model in education overhaul

COLUMBUS — Gov. John Kasich loves Cleveland’s ambitious plan to overhaul the city’s failing public schools by resetting collective bargaining agreements, championing high-performing charter schools, expanding preschool to all 4-year-olds, and increasing the hours students spend in classes.............

Graduation rates at Middletown were 82 percent — the highest in 10 years — but still the lowest in Butler County, according to 2009-2010 statistics from the Ohio Department of Education.

In Hamilton, the graduation rate was 92 percent during the same time, according to the ODE. The Hamilton graduation rate has skyrocketed from 67 percent during the 1998-99 school year.

HAMILTON AND MIDDLETOWN, WHILE BEING SIMILAR IN DEMOGRAPHICS.....HAMILTON SEEMS TO BE DOING MUCH BETTER BY THE NUMBERS. WONDER WHY?

Rasmussen said students who come from impoverished homes are two grade levels behind students from suburban students. That means, urban districts, “must be twice as good to catch up,” he said.

ARE THE MIDDLETOWN EDUCATORS "TWICE AS GOOD", AS RASMUSSEN NOTES, TO CATCH UP? HAVEN'T SEEN ANY INDICATIONS AS YET, HAVE WE?

He was proud that Middletown ranked 12th in the state last year based on the “growth rate” of its students, measuring them from the first to the last day of school.

ONE WAY OF STATING SUCCESS IS TO TELL THE PUBLIC THAT YOU HAVE IMPROVED WITHIN THE BOTTOM TIER OF THE OHIO SCHOOLS. EXAMPLE....WE ARE NOW 12TH IN THE STATE (WHAT RASMUSSEN STATED ABOVE), FROM THE GROUP THAT IS THE BOTTOM TIER IN THE STATE (WHAT HE DIDN'T STATE ABOVE) IT IS A TECHNIQUE THAT SKEWS AND HIDES THE REAL STORY HERE AND USED AS CONCEALMENT FROM REALITY IMO.

While Rasmussen said graduation rates are one way to rank a district’s academic success, he doesn’t want the system to forget about the “bench marks along the way, measures along the way.”

AND THOSE WOULD BE? NOT SAYING THE MIDDLETOWN EDUCATORS INTENTIONALLY SET THE BAR LOW ON BENCHMARKS, BUT IF THEY DID SET 'EM LOW, THEY WERE BOUND TO MEET THEM, RIGHT? INTERNAL BENCHMARKS ARE NOT MEASURED IN THE OVERALL SCHEME OF THINGS IN THE ACTUAL RANKINGS ARE THEY? IS THIS "DEFLECTION TALK" FROM RASMUSSEN?

In November the Ohio Department of Education released a ranking list. It ranks the school districts by their Performance Index Score and Middletown City Schools ranked 672 out of 718 traditional schools in Ohio.
Batille For Kids is located in Columbus and is an organization that provides school districts with solutions to implement improvement. In other words, the school districts hire them.