Twelve central Ohio schools are among the worst 5 percent statewide.
Their academic struggles mean they are eligible to receive federal money to help them transform or start over. A list of these schools was released today by the Ohio Department of Education.
Six Columbus City Schools buildings are on the list of the worst-off, as are four in Cleveland and 16 in Cincinnati. Several charter schools - six of them in central Ohio - also made the "top" rung on the list.
"No one is going to like the fact that they're on this list," said Mark Real, who heads the Columbus-based nonprofit KidsOhio, which studies education issues. He's been monitoring stimulus-related spending and improvement programs. "But this is not just a 'label and leave it' approach. These schools are in for some pretty intensive care."
These schools all have a large number of poor students and have been mired in academic difficulties for several years.
The state and federal education departments have several ways of labeling struggling schools. But this list is different - it's tied to money.
The federal stimulus package for schools includes some competitive grants, including millions to improve the lowest-achieving schools. The state had to create the list released yesterday to qualify for the federal education grants it's seeking.
The Ohio Department of Education will submit its School Improvement Grant application by the end of the week, spokesman Scott Blake said. The state doesn't know how much money will be made available to districts, he said.
The worst-off schools will take priority when money is awarded.
"They're likely to get help, provided that they apply," Blake said.
Columbus City Schools spokeswoman Kim Norris said the district will apply.
To land on the list, the schools had to have a high percentage of students from poor families. Then the state looked at schools' current reading and math scores and measured how much they have improved those scores during the past five years. In high schools, officials looked at whether the graduation rate was lower than 60 percent.
The list of roughly 800 Ohio schools was split into three tiers.
Tier one includes the schools most severely in need, which already are being tracked because of multiple years of failure. Fifty-five schools are ranked in the first tier. Some of them already have been overhauled, such as Columbus' Champion Middle School. All are in the bottom 5 percent in achievement.
Tier two schools also are in the bottom 5 percent in academic achievement but haven't necessarily had multiple years of failure. Schools in the third tier have struggled for years but aren't the worst-off academically.
