A few weeks ago, we reported on strong gains among charter schools sponsored by Central Michigan University, with data drawn from Standard & Poor's school evaluation services website (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=150#1837.) Now, we're pleased to note that S&P will bring the service to our home state of Ohio. By late fall, dozens of statistics will be available on each of the Buckeye State's 614 school districts, and eventually each school will have a "return on resources" analysis, showing how well students are doing compared to what districts spend. We've grumped in the past about some of the shortcomings of the S&P schools unit (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=41#606), but they've addressed many of our concerns by making school-level data available, a feature of the planned Ohio website. Kentucky is next for this service; we say, let's have more of it.
"School ratings: click and compare," by Michael D. Clark and Karen Gutierrez, Cincinnati Inquirer, June 27, 2004