Ohio High School Academic Results
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2013
Top Academic Ohio High Schools Report Released
The report was released late last night to the principals whose schools are included in the report. The five schools named as 2012 champions are: St Charles Preparatory, Seven Hills, Columbus School For Girls, Hathaway Brown, Ursuline Academy, Walnut Hills, and Maumee Valley Country Day.
The genders of the schools vary. Seven Hills, Walnut Hills, and Maumee Valley Country Day are coed. St. Charles is an all-boys school, and Columbus School for Girls, Hathaway Brown, and Ursuline Academy are all-girls schools.
Walnut Hills is a Cincinnati Public School, and it remains the model for how large metro school districts can provide an extremely high-performing school for its residents. As the Columbus City School district implodes with its growing data scandal, hopefully it will look closely at how Walnut Hills has excelled. Columbus is the only large metro school district without a school included in this report.
The plan was to release this report in November 2012 and use the publicity associated with it to promote the tool that Gerber Analytics created to assist students pass the Mathematics subject test. With the help of students from Olentangy Liberty, St. Charles Preparatory, and Columbus School for Girls to identify videos, this tool links Khan Academy videos with OGT Mathematics questions. (See below here and here.)
FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2013
Finally - the 2011-2012 Data
The individual school reports now contain the 2012 data for both public and private schools. The raw data became available on April 16, and after processing, the school reports with the new data were released on April 23.
New for this year is a league comparative view of each school's
Ohio rankings for each subject test. This allows education enthusiasts to see the relative strengths of each high school. Also provided are the rankings for the previous year.
In the example provided, Ursuline Academy is ranked fourth overall in the state in its Performance Index Score, and it is ranked first in the Greater Girls Cincinnati League. Ursuline Academy's strengths are in Reading (3rd in the state) and Writing (2nd). Reading (1st) and Writing (1st) were also its strengths last year. Click to go to Ursuline Academy's results.
The creation of the top academic report is still in progress.
FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013
High School Basketball and Academics
I closely follow high school basketball as well as high school education results. In addition to having great basketball teams, the four teams already in the OHSAA Basketball Finals have something else in common -- they are all great education schools. 
The four schools are Watterson versus Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary in Division II, and Ottawa-Glandorf versus Versailles in Division III, and their academic results are available via the above links.
It is fascinating how frequently the schools that excel in sports also excel in the classroom. What is even more fascinating is that the academic results for St. Vincent-St. Mary were accessed more than any other high school after the private school results were released last week. During a week when basketball had to have taken top billing, the St. Vincent-St. Mary community still had the interest to see how their school performed academically.
Congratulations to these teams on making the finals.
[Update: Watterson and Ottawa-Glandorf won their respective championships.]
Please note that the public school data for the 2011-12 school year is still not available for the public schools because of the data-rigging scandal.
SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2013
Private School Results Available
The private school results for the 2011-12 school year are now available. Click on "Find School by Name" above to retrieve the school information.
With the release of this information, readers will note numerous changes with the school reports this year. The improvements include:
- Five years of data are now shown (rather than three).
- The Adobe pdf reports have been replaced with web pages. This provides much faster access and easier comparisons between schools
- All schools in Ohio are ranked in each subject. Currently, the data from the 2010-11 school year is used in these comparisons.
- Other high schools in the same county are listed in the right navigation bar.
As soon as the ODE provides access to the detailed 2011-12 data, the public school data will be added. After the public school data is included, all of the comparisons will be updated with the new information.
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013
Khan Academy Videos and the OGT
The Ohio Graduation Tests are next week for many schools. To help students who are at risk of not passing the Mathematics portion of the test, some schools are utilizing a new tool that was created which links OGT Math questions to the highly regarded, Khan Academy videos.
Click here to access this tool.
This was a collaborative effort of high school student volunteers from St. Charles Preparatory, Olentangy Liberty, and Columbus School for Girls.
If, while using this tool, you identify other videos (Khan Academy or others), that better answers a concept, please forward this information via Feedback.
If you have any student success stories associated with this tool, please click to submit a Feedback.
There is no fee for this service.
On another topic, the Ohio Department of Education still does not have a date on when to expect their full compliment of data for the 2011-2012 tests. Until access is granted, the school reports cannot be created.
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2013
The Re-Waiting Re-Continues
The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released their State and Local Report Cards as of February 27, but the ODE has not updated the detailed data in their databases. I am awaiting a reply from the ODE on when this information for the 2011-2012 school year will be available.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2013
The Waiting Continues
The wait continues for the report card data for the public schools for the March 2012 tests. At some point (and it may already be past this point), more harm is being done by not releasing this data. Yes, it needs to be accurate, but it must also be timely. Delivering 100% accurate data months after it is needed, makes this data far less actionable. Is this data now 95% accurate? 80%? It is doubtful that anyone knows, but the fines and potential prison sentences imposed on school officials need to coincide with the accuracy level. This way, if the school has attempted to fool its community with inaccurate results, the community will have some solace that school officials will be punished accordingly.
The Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Auditor of State need to move forward and release the March 2012 test results.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2012
Where is the Top Academic Ohio High Schools Report?
The Top Academic Ohio High Schools Report is typically released in mid-to-late November. The data scrubbing incidences in several school systems will almost certainly delay this as I await the data.
In the meantime, please review my latest project. With the help of several students, I have linked Khan Academy videos with almost every math question on the Ohio Graduation Test. The thought behind this project is to provide students (as well as their parents) with another resource to assist students with difficult math concepts. A student can take the test and check his answers. If he does not answer a question successfully or if he is a bit unsure of the concept, he can refer to the video(s). In some cases, the Khan web site provides additional questions related to specific videos to better hone the student's skills.
Please note that this is a collaborative effort and I hope to "fine-tune" these Khan Academy video / math question links by incorporating feedback from others.
Please click here to access the Ohio Graduation Test and Khan Academy videos.
I know of at least one school that plans to incorporate this project into their efforts to assist their students with passing the OGT Mathematics subject test. Please contact me via Feedback if your school is also interested.
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2012
Data-Rigging Scandal Begins
The Columbus Dispatch recently identified puzzling attendance figures within the Columbus City School District. The initial article is here. I was sufficiently fascinated about this issue to perform my own analysis. Rather than just look at the high schools within the Columbus City School District, I also included the other major school districts in the state. The entire report is here.
The scatter graphs in the report clearly show a strong positive correlation with attendance and academic performance for the Toledo and Cleveland metro high schools. Meanwhile, the scatter graphs for Columbus and Cincinnati should raise additional questions.
Why are not the scatter graphs for Columbus and Cincinnati more like the scatter graphs for Toledo and Cleveland?
SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012
There is No Wrath in This Khan
If you have read my analyses, then you know that I love what Khan Academy is doing. I first promoted this web site in 2010's The Top Academic Ohio High School document and it was featured in a CBS 60 Minutes report on March 11. To watch the 60 minutes report, just click on the above link.
The founder of the academy, Salman Khan, originally focused on mathematics but he now has over 3,000 video lessons on physics, biology, economics, astronomy, medicine, and history. His site teaches over 4 million pupils a month.
Khan is also creating a new school concept where students watch videos at home at night to understand the concepts. Then, they go to school to prove they understand the material by performing online modules. If a teacher sees that they do not understand the concept, the teacher provides them with help. There is less lecturing and more interaction, and the teachers are seen more as coaches or mentors.
[April 3 Update: This excellent article from Wired magazine (August 2011) provides additional details and insight about Khan Academy. Click here to read.
For a good example of a Khan Academy video, click here to better understand the relationship between the price of crude oil and gas prices. Khan also breaks down the various cost components of a gallon of gasoline. The video takes just a bit more than 12 minutes to view.]
Check this out and ask yourself why isn't every concept covered on the Ohio Graduation test (especially in Science and Mathematics) not linked to a Khan video lesson?
Beta site for videos.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012
Find Out About New Updates Via Email
The timing of the research is normally in the late fall and early winter timeframes. This is also when the site receives peak usage as newspaper articles are written (such as the one in the Cincinnati Enquirer). Rather than stopping by this web site to see if any new research has been produced, a new feature has been added to allow you to provide your name and email address. You will then be alerted to any new findings. Please also feel free to leave a few remarks on how you use the data. Please click here to continue.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2011
Analysis of Large Metro School Districts Now Available
The Analysis of the Public School Districts in Ohio's Four Largest Cities - 2011 is 
now available. The report compares the large urban districts in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and Toledo. As with the Top Academic Ohio High School report, many of the schools in these cities showed nice improvement from 2010.
You will need to read the report to see which city performed the best, but it will not be a surprise.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011
The Cincinnati Enquirer Summarizes the Top Academic Schools Document
The schools in southwest Ohio received 
additional recognition from the Cincinnati Enquirer today. The Cincinnati Enquirer provided a summary of the Top Academic Ohio High School document. If you get the Enquirer, it is below the fold on the first page of the Local section.
To read Jessica Brown's entire article, click on this link or on the image to the right. This is the third year that the Enquirer has provided a summary of the report.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011
2011 Academic Champions
Ohio High School Academic Champions - 2011 |
|
| St Charles Preparatory | |
| St Joseph Central | |
| Hathaway Brown | |
| Seven Hills | |
| Ursuline Academy | |
| Columbus School for Girls | |
| Columbus Academy | |
| Walnut Hills | |
| Solon | |
The school names are linked to the school's web site, and the "G.A. Info" links take readers to more information on the Gerber Analytics web site.
To view the report that contains the entire list of 84 schools, please click here.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2011
2011 Data Now Available
The 2011 data is now available. If you have any questions, please submit a Feedback message.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2011
Processing Underway -- Results Better than Last Year
Processing of the 2011 data is underway. The results are better this year. Approximately 84 schools will make my list of Top Academic Ohio High Schools versus 63 in 2010 by achieving the 91% passing rate on all five subject tests.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2011
Khan Academy Introduced
This excellent article from the Washington Post provides more information about the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy web site provides educational videos to supplement what students are learning in class. Perhaps there is already an effort underway, but why aren't the various Ohio Graduation Test topics linked to this site?
Every student now has access to the Internet, let's use all of the tools available to allow them to excel on the OGT.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2011
Decline in Academic Performance Explained
Before the summer comes to a close, please consider reading, Saving Schools -- from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning, written by Paul E. Peterson. As you likely already know, I am not an education professional so I found this book to be extremely enlightening. It has finally helped me understand why public secondary education has been in the decline while education costs have risen dramatically.
Mr. Peterson has written a number of books about Ohio schools. The book above includes mention of the Shaker Heights school district.
The Columbus Metropolitan Library owns 16 copies of this book, or you may purchase it online via the Amazon link.
FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2011
Pass All Five Tests % - Highlighted by The Columbus Dispatch
Congratulations to the central Ohio high schools on their performance on the most recent Ohio Graduation Test. It was reported in The Columbus Dispatch that 45 of the 49 central Ohio schools improved on their performance of getting a higher percentage of their students to pass all five portions of the test on their first try. For the entire article, please click here.
This "Pass All Five Tests" percentage is a statistic that I closely watch and the statistic for 2010 versus 2009 was weaker for most schools. I had hoped that last year's results were an anomaly and it is great to see a rebound.
For a school to be included on my Top Academic Ohio High Schools report, it must have a "Pass All Five" percentage of 91% or higher. Based on The Dispatch article, it appears that central Ohio's Bexley, New Albany, and Grandview Heights will be included in the report next year. Neither New Albany nor Grandview Heights have been included in my report in the past.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011
2010 Analysis of the Metro High Schools Released
The Analysis of the Public School Districts in Ohio's Four Largest Cities is now available. In this analysis, the academic performance of the Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo districts are compared using the March 2010 data. This is the second year for this document.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2011
Science is Difficult - Writing is Easy
The state requirement for schools is to have 75% of its students pass each subject test. Which subject is the hardest for schools to achieve 75% proficiency? It is Science. Which subject have the schools shown the most improvement? Social Studies. The easiest subject for the schools to obtain proficiency is Writing. The percentages below for the various subjects represent the percentage of schools that met the state requirement of 75% proficiency. The breakdowns are in the table below.
PERCENTAGE OF SCHOOLS OBTAINING 75% PROFICIENCY RATES BY SUBJECT |
|||||
Year |
Math |
Reading |
Science |
Social Studies |
Writing |
2010 |
75.8% | 82.0% | 61.9% | 74.2% | 84.0% |
2007 |
75.6% | 85.5% | 58.0% | 66.8% | 87.7% |
Differ-ence |
0.2% | -3.5% | 3.9% | 7.4% | -3.7% |
As stated in my other documents, 2010 was a poor academic year, and hopefully it is not the start of a trend.
While any decreases are disturbing, it was my understanding that schools were doing a better job of identifying the students who were having problems with specific subject areas. The second table is a bit harder to understand but it represents the schools that had 75% proficiency rates on all five tests. In other words, if a school had 80% of its students pass Mathematics, Reading, Social Studies, and Writing, but only 70% of its students were proficient in Science, then it would not be included in this group.
PROFICIENCY ON ALL FIVE TESTS |
|
| Year | >=75% on All Five Tests |
| 2010 | 33.7% |
| 2007 | 33.4% |
| Differ-ence | -0.3% |
I will be doing more analysis with Social Studies in the near future. It was my perception while crunching through the numbers over the past four years that the better schools quickly showed improvement with Social Studies as they fine-tuned their curriculum. I am still curious why Social Studies lags Reading. If a student can read, why can't the student do well in Social Studies?
Please note that I had posted this analysis briefly yesterday, but I thought it was confusing. I had also used the majority of the schools' students passing (>50%) as a threshold rather than 75%.
I have been extremely busy with development on my tennis site (which is going state-wide), but I have devoted more time to the OGT project during the past week. Look for more OGT analysis in the coming weeks.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2011
Mother Tries to Help Children
One mother in Ohio's Akron area is in the news for illegally placing her children in the Copley-Fairlawn school district. Copley High School, which is in a northwest suburb of Akron, is a very good school. It is not clear to which school the children should attend (or their ages) but Akron Early College is an excellent charter high school in the area.
Click on the academic performance map to view the performance of the schools in that area.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2010
Schools with Largest Performance Increases
Objectives of this web site are to recognize Ohio's top schools, the league champions, and the schools that are showing the most improvement. Today's entry is to highlight the schools with the greatest improvement in their Performance Index Scores.
The ten schools that had the most significant percentage increases in their Performance Index Scores (PIS) are in the table below. Please note that only slightly more than 20% of all Ohio schools had improvement in their tenth grade scores in 2010. The schools are sorted by their PIS percentage change.
The school names are linked to the Ohio Department of Education's Interactive Local Report Card reports. Gerber Analytics reports are also available for two of the schools -- Columbus South and Southern.
Congratulations to these schools.
| School | Gerber Analytics Report? |
County |
Metro Area |
# Test Takers |
PIS 2010 |
PIS 2009 |
PIS % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maritime Academy of Toledo | - |
Lucas | Toledo |
25 |
94.8 |
75.1 |
26.2% |
| Life Skills Center - Youngstown | - |
Mahoning | Youngstown |
22 |
75.9 |
62.4 |
21.7% |
| New Day Academy Boarding & Day School | - |
Cuyahoga | Cleveland |
16 |
94.1 |
78.6 |
19.8% |
| Life Skills of Northeast Ohio | - |
Cuyahoga | Cleveland |
20 |
67.1 |
56.8 |
18.1% |
| Premier Academy Of Ohio | - |
Franklin | Columbus |
43 |
89.3 |
77.5 |
15.3% |
| Summit Academy Secondary- Akron | - |
Summit | Cleveland |
15 |
88.5 |
78.8 |
12.3% |
| Focus Learning Academy of Southeastern Columbus | - |
Franklin | Columbus |
19 |
83.5 |
74.7 |
11.8% |
| Life Skills Center - Summit County | - |
Summit | Cleveland |
25 |
80.4 |
72.3 |
11.2% |
| South | Franklin | Columbus |
93 |
92.3 |
83.1 |
11.1% |
|
| Southern | Meigs | 47 |
98.4 |
88.9 |
10.7% |
WEDNESDAY, DECMEBER 5, 2010
Welcome to Cincinnati Readers
Welcome Cincinnati Enquirer readers. The Top Academic Ohio High School report mentioned in the Enquirer article is available here.
For those interested in education and high school tennis, please contact me via a Feedback message if you would like for your team to be included within the tennis portion of Gerber Analytics. The plan is to slowly roll out the tennis results state-wide. Click on the following links to obtain the tennis reports for the Upper Arlington boys and girls teams.
WEDNESDAY, DECMEBER 1, 2010
Explanation of the Sports League Academic Reports
While the Top Academic Ohio High School report is beneficial as a one-year snapshot, the sports league reports may be more insightful because they provide a three-year history of each school relative to the other schools in the league. Here are the links to Miami Trace of the South Central Ohio League (my alma mater) and Liberty Benton of the Blanchard Valley Conference (my parent's alma mater). From these reports, it is easier to see which schools in the leagues may have better approaches to teaching the various subjects.
Looking first at the South Central Ohio League (SCOL), Clinton Massie won the league this year and last with rather dominant performances. However, the most interesting school in the SCOL is Greenfield McClain. McClain had the worst results in the league with their "% of Students Who Passed All Five Tests" in 2008, but they have steadily improved over the last three years. In Social Studies, McClain has shown substantial improvement and they are now second in the league in Social Studies.
Liberty Benton beat last year's champion, Van Buren, to win the Blanchard Valley Conference in this tightly contested league. The interesting school in this league is Arcadia. Arcadia was fourth in the league with their Performance Index Score but first in the league with Mathematics. Their Mathematics performance was very strong (and improving) relative to their other subjects and in comparison to the other schools in the league.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2010
NYT Article and Cincinnati's Interest in Education
The following article from the NYT will interest many reading this blog. It is titled, "Growing up digital, wired for distraction". It covers a few of the issues included in the Top Academic Ohio High School report
As stated in the past, Cincinnati is the area of the state that appears to be the most focused on high school education. The Google usage map to the right reflects the number of Gerber Analytics site visitors. It was not surprising to see from where most of the visits originated -- Cincinnati.
After just one full school day of activity since the Top Academic Ohio High School report was released, this site has been accessed by people in 22 different states. Links from Facebook appeared to be the biggest driver of visitors.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010
2010 Top Academic Schools Document Re-Released
Changes were made to the School Report pages over the long weekend. For those exceptional schools that are on the Top Academic Ohio High School report, it is now easier to see how frequently these schools appeared on the yearly list. For example, Seven Hills has been on the list all four years. These links point to a "list only" document -- not to the long version of the report.
The Top Academic Ohio High Schools document was modified over the weekend in an effort for this author to hopefully achieve a "basic" score in writing. For those who have already suffered through this document, none of the numbers changed.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2010
2010 Top Academic Schools Document Released
The Top Academic Ohio High Schools for 2010 is now available.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010
Web Site Goals
The goal for the sports league academic reports is to encourage communities to look at academics differently. While the Ohio Graduation Test is just one piece of the puzzle on how to measure schools, communities should be aware of how their tenth graders performed on the various subject tests (mathematics, reading, science, social studies, and writing) versus the other teams in their league. Schools should also be aware of their strengths and weaknesses in academics just as much as they are aware of their basketball teams' foul shooting percentages.
Every school in Ohio can do better. It all starts with knowing where a school stands versus its peers, and what its goals should be for next year. Can you beat your rival school in Social Studies next year? Can you be first in the league in three years? Hopefully, these reports will provide readers with guidance on what their goals should be.
These reports have been custom-created to make it easy to quickly navigate throughout the document. For best results, follow the directions in "red".