Gap Closing: Changing opinions and realities

• The state wants to ensure students succeed regardless of race, economic status or disability.
• The demographic makeup of a district can change the ways in which it attacks achievement gaps.
• Zanesville, which has the lowest Gap Closing score in the county, is looking to change its culture.

ZANESVILLE - Open up the Zanesville City Schools website and you are greeted with the phrase “#RethinkZanesville” in bold lettering across the homepage. A stream of posts on Twitter and Facebook are tagged with the slogan aimed at the community, but starting in the schools.

On the Ohio Report Card, Zanesville’s scores are consistently at the bottom of the pile in the county. Tri-Valley is usually on top, while East Muskingum, Franklin, Maysville and West Muskingum fall somewhere in between.

Zanesville High School Principal Garry Young thinks Zanesville’s low scores contribute to a poor reputation for the district.

“We’re doing some things to specifically work on test scores,” he said, “but we’re really trying to overhaul that opinion, that culture.”

For the entirety of the Grading Muskingum County series, the Times Recorder has compared the six public school districts in Muskingum County to one another. But the Gap Closing component of the Ohio Report Card gives us a better chance to observe more of the demographic complexities of each district and why some of the in-county comparisons may not be entirely fair.

How Ohio measures Muskingum County schools

Data within Muskingum County shows Zanesville far behind other school districts. But when compared to school districts with a similar demographic makeup like Chillicothe or Steubenville, Zanesville is not nearly as far behind.

“Schools are a reflection of the communities they serve,” said Superintendent Dr. Doug Baker. “I’ve been in high-wealth districts and low-wealth districts. Parents want the same things for their kids.”

Of all six components on the Ohio Report Card, Gap Closing is perhaps the most nuanced. Gap Closing is a grade used to determine how schools are working to close achievement gaps.

An achievement gap is defined as any educational disparity between different groups of people. That can be in terms of race, economic status, gender, disability or something else along those lines.

Generally speaking, on average white students score better on standardized assessments than do black or Latino students. Students from high-income backgrounds score better than those from low-income backgrounds. The list goes on.

Achievement: Developing a 'culture of learning'

The Gap Closing component is based on the idea that a student’s education should not be in any way affected by race, income, disability, etc. But achievement gaps still exist and some of them are wide, which begs the question of why some students are earning better results than others.

According to the last census, Muskingum County is 92.6 percent white, 4 percent black, 2.7 percent multiracial, and 1 percent Latino. The county has 18.1 percent of people at or below the federal poverty level.

School district demographics in Muskingum County, though, do not match.

Those differences can lead to stacked comparisons within the county. The economic and social conditions of the school districts in Muskingum County are dissimilar across the board, but the contrast of Zanesville to the rest of the county is striking.

Zanesville’s student population is much more racially diverse than its neighbors.

A July report on the popular public radio show and podcast This American Life highlighted why that matters when it comes to school achievement. The report cites data from the U.S. Department of Education indicating schools with high percentages of black and Latino students typically also have higher rates of poverty, which leads to a number of other challenges in the classroom.

"If you're surrounded by a bunch of kids who are all behind, you stay behind," reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones said in the report. "But if you're in a classroom that has some kids behind and some kids advance, the kids who are behind tend to catch up. These kids in these classes in schools with concentrated poverty don't have that."

And Zanesville's poverty rate is what makes improvement much more difficult.

While all six school districts in Muskingum County have high poverty rates, Zanesville’s is substantially higher. (The district with the lowest rate in the county is East Muskingum at 35.8 percent.) Close to 80 percent of the students attending Zanesville are classified by the state as economically disadvantaged.

Young knows many students at the high school work part-time jobs in addition to school to contribute to their families, which ultimately affects school work.

"We have to be understanding that they might not have the time at home to work on stuff while other kids do," he said. "We want school to be the number one priority, but the reality is sometimes school isn't the number one priority."

Zanesville has the lowest gap-closing score in the county at least partly because of how many more gaps it has to close. But when stacked up against other school districts of a similar demography, the scores are much more comparable.

Young, though, thinks Zanesville can, will and should boost its Report Card scores and alter its reputation as a low-achiever in the county.

"I think people are going to see Zanesville is going to improve in the next few years," he said. "I'd love to wake up in the morning and see those scores be 100 percent A's across the board, but I understand it's going to take time."

With that time, the Zanesville district is initiating a number of programs to close achievement gaps and lift kids at the bottom closer to the top.

The two most heavily emphasized subjects by the state are reading and math, which are used to calculate the Gap Closing measure along with graduation rate. Zanesville has initiated programs throughout the district in an effort to increase reading and math scores.

One of the common struggles for many students on state reading tests is vocabulary and having the lingual knowledge to perform well. Zanesville utilizes Vocabulary.com to turn learning new words into a game. Students compete against one another as well as other districts around the state.

Annette Porter teaches senior English and composition at Zanesville High School and has done so for several years. She said adjusting her teaching methods, especially so dramatically in recent years with the injection of technology, is a challenging process, but ultimately worth it if it works for students.

"If it helps them achieve a goal, so be it," Porter said. "I had to make education relevant to them. I think that's a great change."

Progress: Building on past success

In math classes, teachers like Sabrina Penrose start some periods with what are called "number talks."

Students are given four related math problems that get progressively harder. No pencil or paper. No calculators. Once they find an answer, they must discuss the methods they used to solve each problem. It teaches them mental math skills and how to explain their processes, allowing them to complete math problems more efficiently.

These are examples of basic improvements Zanesville is utilizing to bump up test scores. However, the district as a whole is overhauling its curriculum. The high school changed its grading policy this year and next year will reintroduce Advanced Placement courses. All of this is in an effort to shift its culture; to rethink Zanesville.

But for the superintendent, one criterion for district-wide improvement stands above all.

“If I could get community support behind anything, it would be attendance,” Baker said.

Making sure students get to school every day is one of the easiest and most critical portions of improving the district, according to Baker. His reason is simply students cannot expect to yield tremendous results, or any results, for that matter, from not going to school. On the latest Report Card, Zanesville had a 16.3 percent chronic absenteeism rate.

Baker wants parents, regardless of their income status, race or personal educational histories, to instill the value of education - specifically public education-  in their children at an early age.

And in order for the school to progress from there, it takes consistency. Baker, who is in his first as superintendent of ZCS, said in his short time so far, he has not met anyone on staff or in the community that has been unwilling to help.

He said the staff at Zanesville, despite poor Report Card grades, are always eager to improve.

“No one rests. It’s always a work in progress,” Baker said. “No matter where you stand on your Report Card, it’s always a work in progress.”

For those working within the school district and those on the outside, Baker said it is important to “know the rules of the game, have a stake in the action, (and) know the score.”

That means people must know the framework within which Zanesville operates. They need to know where the district stands. And most importantly, he said, they need to be involved.

bparks2@gannett.com

740-450-6758

Twitter: @Bradley_W_Parks

Next week in the Grading Muskingum County series

The Times Recorder will examine the Prepared for Success component. We spoke with alumni of local school districts who are now in college and how their education prepared them for the next step.