Ohio Department of Education Considers Trusting School Officials Less, Verifying More

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The Ohio Department of Education says it trusts school districts to submit accurate attendance data.

While the State Auditor reviews the attendance records of every school district in Ohio, the Department of Education is reconsidering its data collection techniques.

A letter sent by State Auditor Dave Yost to the Ohio Department of Education last week doesn’t exactly accuse officials of contributing to data fudging at Ohio schools, but does suggest that the department might be at fault through “a lack of oversight.”

Ohio Department of Education spokesman John Charlton says department officials are doing the “best job they can” to make sure the data districts report to the department is correct. But he admits there is a trust element involved:

“We trust that the superintendents and schools report timely and accurate data, we don’t allow school districts to manipulate data to make their attendance rates and test scores look better, so basically we’re trusting the superintendents and school districts to enter that data correctly,” he says. “If we can no longer trust them to enter data correctly we’re going to have to be more vigilant to verify that data.”