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Hundreds Of CCS Third-Graders Have Yet To Pass Reading Tests

Classes in the Columbus City Schools start later this month.   But more than 800 third-graders still haven’t passed the state reading test. Alison Holm reports.

Testing is still going on, but chief accountability office Michelle Kline says about 17% of the districts third grade students have not yet passed the reading test needed to advance. That’s double the number of students in the same situation at this time last year. And the problem is not unique to Columbus; in Cleveland almost half of third grade students may not advance to the fourth grade.

 

Kline and Columbus deputy superintendent John Stanford joined public school officials from Cleveland and Akron in July to meet with the State Board of Education to argue that the cutoff point for passage on one of the alternative tests had been set too high. Kline says of the 4,000 Columbus 3rd graders who passed the state reading test, 830 failed when they also took the MAP test, one of two alternatives being offered

 

More students are expected to pass before the school year starts, but Kline says the high number of returning third graders poses a tremendous challenge for the district.

A native of Chicago, naturalized citizen of Cincinnati and resident of Columbus, Alison attended Earlham College and the Ohio State University. She has equal passion for Midwest history, hockey and Slavic poetry.
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