Seven Ohio school districts—including Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo—improperly reported student attendance data, which may have led to inflated school report cards, a state investigation has found.
The Ohio Department of Education announced that employees in the districts “scrubbed” attendance data and test results for more than 4,000 students in the 2010-11 school year. All licensed employees in those districts will be investigated by the state’s board of professional conduct, which issues, and revokes, educator licenses.
According to the education department, Cleveland improperly withdrew more than 3,500 students, or about 8 percent of its enrollment in the 2010-11 school year. Cincinnati removed 130 students, a tiny percentage of its students, while Toledo removed 425 students that should not have been, about 2 percent of its enrollment.
The fourother districts found to have reported bad data are Canton, Campbell, Northridge, and Winton Woods.
The Columbus district has been investigated separately for its inaccurate reporting of student data—both by Ohio’s state auditor and the FBI—but those reports have not yet been released, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
School report cards for the six districts will be recalculated for the 2010-11 school year, the education department said.