State: Big city districts didn’t scrub student data this year
8/7/2014The Ohio Department of Education told Toledo, Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati school districts Wednesday that its analysis showed no evidence they had committed data “scrubbing” during the 2013-14 school year.
But the department also reminded the districts it had found evidence of such practices in prior years, meaning the districts’ state report cards have been and will be recalculated and individual employees could be disciplined.
In 2012, Ohio districts came under scrutiny for a form of data “scrubbing” that involved removing students from attendance and thus test-score rolls. That meant truant students’ test scores didn’t count toward district report-card grades.
The letter Wednesday served to inform districts that education officials had confirmed evidence each had “scrubbed” data during the 2012-13 school year, with new report cards pending.
The state had already recalculated 2010-11 school-year report cards in May for six districts, including TPS, and said it would also issue new report cards for the 2011-12 school year.
But in the letter, Richard Ross, state superintendent of public instruction, said there was no evidence of data “scrubbing” in the past school year.
Some employees may face individual scrutiny and school officials found to have manipulated data could lose their educator’s licenses.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.