By JANET OKOBEN and SCOTT STEPHENS
From the Plain Dealer

PLAIN DEALER REPORTERS

Johnny can’t always read, but he sure can write.

The latest state report cards for Ohio’s more than 600 public school districts reveal a startling success rate in writing, especially for high school students.

In fact, only a handful of districts in the state failed to meet the report card’s ninth-grade writing standards. At the 12th-grade level, only nine districts fell short of the mark.

The report card standards are based primarily on student performance on the Ohio Proficiency Test. While Ohio schoolchildren continue to struggle with parts of the test - especially math, science and reading - they excel at writing, in some cases far outdistancing passage rates in other subjects.

Writing was the only subject in which some academically struggling districts managed to reach their targets on the 2001 report cards, which were based on test results from the 1999-2000 school year. After failing to reach any of the 27 standards on the 2000 report card, Cleveland met three this time. All were in writing.

Does the overwhelming success in writing mean Ohio is producing a new generation of Shakespeares, Hemingways and Faulkners? Not according to some college professors, who say too many incoming freshmen lack basic writing skills.

That view is bolstered by a recent study by the Ohio Board of Regents, which shows that nearly a quarter of beginning Ohio college students have to take remedial English classes. In community colleges, nearly half need remedial English.

"One of the curiosities, I guess, is how they are passing the writing test, and what are they asking of these students?" said Beverly Thornton, chairwoman of the English Department at Cuyahoga Community College’s Eastern Campus.

Not all college English professors are as skeptical of the scores.

Kent State University English Professor Nancy McCracken said writing skills had improved, in part because of programs in which college professors work with high school teachers and students on writing skills.

"I’ll give you an answer, and it’s a really positive one: Ohio has really invested in writing," she said.

Last year’s report cards showed similar results in the writing test. Fewer than 20 districts failed to meet the ninth-grade writing standards. Only 17 schools didn’t meet the 12th-grade standard. This year, the results were even better.

State education officials insist they are not worried by the high passage rates in writing and say the exam is a good and fair assessment of basic composition skills.

They attribute swings in the passage rates to yearly changes in the prompt - the topic students are asked to write about. Some years, the test requires students to write an essay about themselves. Other years, they are asked to write a poem.

"There really isn’t any concern that the test is too easy," said Ohio Department of Education spokeswoman LeeAnne Rogers. "You have to remember this measures minimum competency. We’re pleased that students are writing well and doing well on that section, and hope they will continue to improve on other sections."

The Education Department outlines specific skills students are required to master to pass any proficiency exam. On the writing tests, the department lists 13 skills for the ninth-grade test and 17 skills for the 12th-grade test. The skills include writing complete sentences, conveying a message clearly related to the prompt, providing supporting ideas or examples and spelling words correctly.

"Those are all the right things to be looking for," Thornton said. "But when we get these students, many of those things they cannot do. In my own mind, I question how they’re grading these tests."

State officials dismiss concerns about the grading of the essay portions of the exam. In Ohio, the ninth- and 12th-grade essays are assessed by graders at Measurement Inc., a Durham, N.C.-based firm that scores millions of essays for more than a dozen states.

Scorers at Measurement Inc. are temporary workers who are not required to have education backgrounds or teaching experience, only a college degree and two or three days of training. For $8.50 an hour, these out-of-state temps - often homemakers, retirees or people who work odd jobs when they are not grading exams - fill a role many parents and teachers have assumed was performed by educators.

In its bid to the state, the firm called on its graders to read an average of 30 to 35 essays an hour over a 6½-hour shift, not counting lunch and breaks. The company assures an accuracy rate of 80 percent.

But Thornton questions how the Ohio scores can be so high, while the quality of the writing she sees is so low.

"I’ve taught college English for 25 years, and I don’t see how someone who is not trained in how to teach writing can properly grade a test," she said.

The ability of non-teachers to score exams was the main reason Arizona stopped using temporary workers to grade tests in the mid-1990s, said Tom Haladyna, a University of Arizona-West education professor and a national expert on assessment.

"We were unhappy with the results," said Haladyna. "The reliability wasn’t what we liked. I would argue that teachers in the state ought to do the grading."

That is an argument Ohio test critics like Randy Hoover have made. The Youngstown State University education professor said writing scores are high because students are coached to create boilerplate writing samples graded by scorers who have little or no educational or teaching background.

"It [the high scores] has to be a function of grading, because when you look at scores in writing, and then in math and science, it’s so disproportionate," he said. "I don’t think you’ll find college English professors who think the writing has improved that much."

Ohio education officials have maintained that they trust the grading process and are satisfied with Measurement Inc.’s performance.

"Those who do the grading are all college graduates, and they are trained to grade the tests," said Martha Wise, outgoing president of the State Board of Education.

Wise said Ohio had been grading its tests the same way for a decade, and a boost in scores "would only mean that our students are doing well. There’s been a massive effort on the part of school districts to improve these scores."

Haladyna agreed that establishing standards can improve student writing ability, and noted that at least 30 states now test students in writing. But he warned that some states - Texas, for example - set standards so low that their passage rates were inflated.

"Texas had a problem with low standards, and that’s why they looked so good in [President-elect George W. Bush’s] advertisements," he said.

Setting standards that children can reach is not a bad thing, said Eva Baker of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles.

Texas’ 10-year assessment plan called for the standards on writing and other subjects to be raised as skills were mastered, she said.

"It doesn’t necessarily mean the test is easy," Baker said. "It could mean that teachers are teaching things kids need to know on their test, and that’s good."

Ohio’s high success rate in writing is difficult to compare to scores on other parts of the proficiency test, said Dale Whittington, director of research and evaluation for the Shaker Heights schools.

That is because the type of essay students are asked to write changes from test to test, giving students a better shot at eventually passing, she said.

For example, by the end of ninth grade, a student could have taken the ninth-grade writing exam three times, increasing the odds of getting a question the child could handle.

"At least one of those three times, the student could have been asked to come up with a descriptive or narrative piece, which most kids find easier to do than an expository, or persuasive, piece," Whittington said. "The state rotates different combinations of those in and out of the proficiency test. If it was always expository, you might get different results."

Whittington said the personal nature of the subjects students are asked to write about may appeal to youngsters who find themselves lost in subjects such as math and science.

"This is the only test that allows you to be personal," she said. "That, in and of itself, probably makes a difference."

In some districts, nothing seems to make a difference. The Eastern Local School District in Pike County was one of the few districts that couldn’t meet all of the high-school writing standards.

Stephen Kempf, an elementary school principal who serves as the district’s proficiency test coordinator, said Eastern was concentrating on improving its reading scores with the hope that scores in other subjects will also go up.

It could be working - the district reached four targets this year.

"Considering our score was a 1’ last year, we’ll take our little successes," he said.

E-mail: jokoben@plaind.com
Phone: 216-999-4535
E-mail: sstephens@plaind.com
Phone: 216-999-4827