The Ohio Department of Education released its draft overview for a new education plan Thursday.
The draft details Ohio’s plan under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act—or ESSA.
ODE plans to bring the graduation rate from about 80 percent to 93 percent in 10 years.
The plan doesn’t scale back student testing, but schools will have to report the achievement of certain vulnerable populations.
“We want to look at how all the students in your school are doing, but we also want to make sure that --like for example-- all the students with disabilities, all the students who are on IEPs are doing in your school, or all the students who are economically disadvantaged. And we're going to show some data on that group,” says Chris Woolard, Senior Executive Director for Accountability and Continuous Improvement for the Ohio Department of Education.
He says the plan is the culmination of conversations with more than 15 thousand Ohioans.
“We really did work hard to go out and talk to stakeholders, and we structured this summary as such, to say ‘here's what's required. here's what we heard and based on that here’s what we’re proposing,” says Woolard.
Every state must submit a plan for how it will align with the new federal education law by April.
The Ohio draft is open for public comment until March 6th.