How Ohio’s “Reading” Cut Score Got Set to Determine Who Will Repeat Third Grade
Thanks to Ohio’s Plunderbund blog, we now know how the decision was made to determine how Ohio’s Third Grade Guarantee will work. This is Governor John Kasich’s plan to require all children reading below grade level at the end of third grade to repeat third grade—to flunk. This year, the 2013-2014 school year, is the crucial first year of this program. It is estimated that 10,000 children will repeat third grade in Ohio next fall.
Most of us assume there is something scientific about how the passing score is set for a standardized test, but we see something very different in the audio recordings posted byPlunderbund of the September 11, 2012 regular business meeting of the Ohio State Board of Education at which the Board voted unanimously to set the reading test cut score at 292. Michael Sawyers, then acting State Superintendent, made a PowerPoint presentation in which he recommends a cut score of 392 (when, he estimates, 10,000 students would be retained in third grade) over a score of 390 (by which he estimates only 8,900 students would be retained).
In the audio clip from the second part of his presentation, you can hear Sawyers explain how children living in Ohio’s urban districts will be far more affected by the Third Grade Guarantee than children in other school districts. Ohio, he says, has 785 Local Education Agencies
