Yesterday we examined who will be affected by Race to the Top funds should Ohio win; specifically, what are the academic ratings of RttT-funded schools?
The Ohio Department of Education had previously provided numbers showing that a large number of disadvantaged students (those that are a racial minority, limited English proficient, or economically disadvantaged) would be funded, but we wanted to know ? are the kids who will benefit from the funding really in the worst-performing schools?
Yesterday's analysis showed that among district students, 71 percent of those whose schools will get RttT funds already attend a school rated A or B by the state, and that almost one in five Ohio students in the worst academic category (F) won't see a dime.
Today we're examining the question from another angle. Ohio's A-F grading system is far from perfect and suffers from widespread grade inflation, with an overwhelming number of schools rating A or B. So today we're looking at RttT participation according to a school's Performance Index score, a far more accurate measure of schools' true academic achievement. (Without going on too long of a tangent, PI scores are a weighted average of student performance in all tested subjects or grades. A score of 80 or higher [on a scale of 0-120] means that a school's students are, on average, meeting state proficiency standards. A score of 100 is the state's goal for all schools.)
The table below shows that of Buckeye State students in the lowest performing district and charter schools (those that score below 80 and therefore fall below proficiency), 16 percent won't get funds. Even worse, when the numbers are broken down to look only at the state's charter students, almost one third of kids in Ohio's worst-achieving charter schools won't get RttT funds.
On the flipside, among students in the best performing schools (100 or above), over half will get Race to the Top funds.
We're not arguing one way or another about whether students in high-performing schools should get funding. After all, many of Ohio's districts ? good, decent, and bad alike ? are facing dire cuts and signing on for funds was a smart move for just about any district in the state. But, as we noted yesterday, Race to the Top was billed as a program that would especially help turn around the state's lowest performing schools. If significant numbers of kids in those schools won't ever get the funds, that sheds light as to how bold and transformative the program will really be.
Flypaper readers, we'd love to know if there are similar patterns in other states or if similar analyses have been done that look at participation not only by student demographics, but school performance levels. Do you think it matters that significant percentages of kids in the state's worst-performing schools won't get funds? If this pattern is widespread and not just in Ohio, what does that mean for how we interpret the boldness of Race to the Top?
-Fordham Ohio team