COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Six Ohio school districts that were found to have altered student data to improve
their performance ratings were issued new state report cards on Tuesday.
The Ohio Department of Education released the report cards for all 143 schools in the six districts,
which include Cincinnati, Cleveland and Toledo.
The state changed grades for 20 schools for the 2010-2011 school year. Grades at 10 Cleveland schools
dropped, according to The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1ih3QPm ). The only two that rose were in
Cincinnati.
According to a news release from the state, the most significant change was the lowering of the 2011
rating for the Northridge Local School District near Dayton in southwest Ohio. The district went from
"Excellent" to "Continuous Improvement," a drop of two levels under the rating
system in place at that time.
The inflated rating had allowed the district to receive nearly $28,000 in state bonus money for excellent
academic performance. The department is demanding the district return the money.
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"Actions that mislead the public about the performance of our education system are
unacceptable," state Superintendent Richard Ross said in a statement. "Local communities
should have confidence that schools are giving a full and honest accounting of how they are educating
our children. By recalculating the report cards, we are taking an important step to restore that
trust."
In addition to recalculating the report cards, the Education Department is conducting a separate
investigation to determine if any personnel participated in conduct unbecoming to the teaching
profession by contributing to the submission of inaccurate data.
State Auditor Dave Yost found that a handful of districts statewide "scrubbed" kids who hadn’t
left from the rolls so their grades wouldn’t hurt overall performance ratings.
Those students were added back in and the real grades and academic data were figured for those districts.

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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
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