Ohio's school report cards for 2025-26 are out today. How to read them

Districts across Ohio will be graded on their ability to educate students in a five-star scale in the newest round of report cards, releasing Tuesday, Sept. 15.

The report cards, available online at the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce's website, use student performance data from the 2025-26 academic year.

Columbus City Schools said that the district was projected to earn 2.5 stars, a gain from a string of two-star ratings the district has faced for years. This was before the state's official report cards were slated to be released later today on the education department's website.

After the state did away with the A-F letter grades used to grade districts in 2021, the five-star scale model was adopted, assigning an overall star rating and individual ratings for six components: gap closing, achievement, progress, graduation, early literacy and college, career, workforce and military readiness.

Previously called "prepared for success," which looked at career or college readiness, the newly named college, career, workforce and military readiness measure was tracked in 2024 and first included in the report cards released in 2025.

In the five-star scale, 3 stars signifies the district is meeting state standards. Anything less means it needs support to meet state standards and anything greater means it has exceeded standards.

The report cards have for years struck debate among school officials and experts, with some claiming the revamped ratings, namely the college, career or military service readiness component, more equitably illustrate student growth.

But some urban districts that consistently score below 3 stars have criticized the ratings, saying they unfairly pit them against affluent suburban districts, demonstrating that academic success is strongly correlated with an area's average household income.

The state education department stated that the report cards are an important tool for parents and taxpayers.

"Public education is a public investment. The report cards provide public accountability," the department's Deputy Chief of Communications Chad Eberly said.

This year's ratings have minor changes in the graduation and college, career, workforce and military readiness components. The state is anticipating "slight increases in performance" in these two categories as a result of the changes, Eberly stated.

Spelled out in detail in the analysis of the state bill behind the shifts, students now have more options to show post-secondary readiness under the college and career component. Instead of requiring students earn a certain score on a national assessment, like the SAT or ACT, students can now meet the same condition with scores of accomplished or advanced on the English Language Arts II, Algebra I and Geometry end-of-course exams.

In addition, students were previously required to demonstrate readiness by earning 12 college credits through a program like the College Credit Plus Program. Now, students can rack up college credits by earning a score of 3 or better on an AP exam or 4 or better on an IB exam.

Requirements for graduation have loosened, too. Calculations for the four-year and five-year graduation rates will now include students with an Individualized Education Program who are 22 years old and younger who have satisfied the conditions for a high school diploma but have opted not to receive a diploma.

How does the state define success or failure? Let's start with what those components mean:

Achievement – This tracks student performance on state tests and whether they met state thresholds, for grades 3-12.

Progress – This shows the improvement or decline in student performance by comparing state test scores for the 2025-26 school year to the state test scores from the previous two school years (2024-25 and 2023-24).

Graduation – This measures the percentage of students who graduated within four and five years of entering high school.

Gap closing – This determines whether students of different races, income levels and abilities are meeting their respective performance goals. Factors like chronic absenteeism, gifted services and support for English learners are all considered in this category.

Early literacy – This measures student performance on third grade reading tests, the percentage of students promoted from third to fourth grade and how well districts support struggling readers.

College, career, workforce and military readiness – This uses metrics like state tests, AP exams, military enlistment, honors diplomas and technical assessments to determine the readiness of a graduating class to enter post-secondary education, the workforce or the armed forces.

The six components are not weighted equally toward a district's overall rating. Rather, they're broken down as follows:

College, Career, Workforce, Military Readiness: 12.5%.

The state uses a rating system of 1 to 5 stars to show how well districts performed in each component and whether they are meeting state standards. A rating of 3 stars means the district met the standard for that component. Ratings higher than 3 stars mean the district exceeded the standard, while ratings lower than 3 stars mean it fell short.

The star rating in each component is based on a formula that measures performance. In the graduation component, for example, a weighted graduation rate of 96.5% or greater earned districts a 5-star rating. A rating between 90% and 93.5% met state standards and earned a 3-star rating, while anything below that failed to meet the standard.

A full description of the components, the rating system and the formulas used to measure performance can be found online at reportcard.education.ohio.gov.

Dispatch reporter Cole Behrens contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio's school report cards for 2025-26 are out today. How to read them