Superintendent Slams State Report Card

North Olmsted City Schools Superintendent Mike Zalar was recently asked by his local newspaper for some comments regarding the release of the recent State Report Card.  Here is what he said:

“In my opinion, the release of the recent State Report Card by our state leaders constitutes nothing less than educational malpractice at the highest level.  In doing so, they disregarded the concerns expressed by local school districts regarding major flaws in the state accountability system.  The warnings from educators were ignored including concerns about implementing new standards, new performance metrics, and new changes in the testing format,  all at the same time.  The reliability and validity of last year’s testing process was significantly compromised by a number of critical factors including students “opting out” of the test entirely and numerous inconsistencies with the on-line testing format.  It was such a disastrous testing process that the state decided to throw out the PARCC assessment after only one administration of the test, even though they invested millions of taxpayer dollars in the system.  The results from last year’s testing process has been a complete waste of time and taxpayer money.  The data does not provide any reliable measure of student achievement and cannot be used for school improvement.  Districts have identified so many errors in the data that the state does not have the manpower to make the corrections.  Yet, regrettably,  they decided to publically publish the results of a failed test.  Is it any wonder that our citizens have lost their trust in government?”