Ohio Senate bill was introduced to help struggling students

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed an academic intervention bill last week that is intended to help students who score below proficient in a state assessment test in math or English language arts receive academic intervention services at no cost.

Senate Bill 19 is now headed to the Ohio House for consideration.

“Our educational system must be responsive to the needs of our students,” state Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, said, according to the Ohio Capitol Journal. “If we are unable to say that our students who need the most help are in fact receiving assistance from their school, we are putting the interest of the adults ahead of the needs of the children.”

The bill would also require school districts or individual schools to develop a math achievement improvement plan if 51% or fewer of the district’s or school’s students who took the third-grade math achievement assessment scored at least proficient.

Ohio schools would also be required to develop math improvement and monitoring plans for each student who qualifies for math intervention services within 60 days after getting the student’s third-grade assessment math results.

“Math is absolutely essential to our economy, to our national defense, to promoting peace throughout the world,” Ohio State Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster, said. “Nothing happens without math. Businesses don’t transact. Machinery doesn’t work. Engineering and architectural designs don’t happen. Everything depends, ultimately, on the basis of good math.”

The recent news came after Ohio education officials previously proposed a new statewide plan to improve students’ math performance.

The 47-page document, Ohio’s Plan for K-12 Mathematics, urged schools to adopt new instructional materials and teaching strategies, and to invest in ongoing professional development for educators.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and First Lady Fran DeWine also previously visited two Ohio schools – Cherry Hill Primary School and Willowville Elementary School – to celebrate the students’ great strides in reading as part of the Governor’s Literacy Leaders Tour.

“We see time and again that as teachers and students become more comfortable using the Science of Reading in the classroom, it results in a very positive learning experience,” Gov. DeWine said. “Kids are excited to read and achieve their goals, and their schools are seeing amazing results. The schools we visited today are additional examples of how we’re setting up students for success in school and throughout life.”

After the COVID-19 disruptions, Ohio students’ math performance became very concerning, with only 53.5% proficient on state math tests in the 2023-24 school year.

It was also revealed that “fewer than 30% of eighth graders scored proficient on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress,” “math scores trail English language arts performance and have been slower to rebound across all grade levels” and “middle school math and high school geometry have seen some of the steepest drops.”