Ohio Senate passes bill to help students with academic interventions, including high-dosage tutoring
The Ohio Senate unanimously passed an academic intervention bill last month aimed to help students who score below proficient on state assessment tests.
Ohio Senate Bill 19 would allow a public school student who scored below proficient in a state assessment test in math or English language arts to receive academic intervention services at no cost.
The bill now heads to the Ohio House for consideration.
“Our educational system must be responsive to the needs of our students,” said Ohio Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware.
“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.”
A fifth of Ohio students scored limited proficiency in English and almost a third of Ohio students scored at limited proficiency in math during the 2022-23 school year during state achievement tests, said Brenner, who introduced S.B. 19 bill earlier this year.
“A disturbing number of Ohio children are in need of significant and prolonged academic intervention before it is too late to address their desperately needed learning loss,” he said.
“Once a student demonstrates proficiency on a state assessment, they would no longer be required to receive academic intervention services, though the school may continue providing such services to students, if they so choose.”
State achievement tests assess a student’s comprehension in various subjects, including math and English. A student is assessed at one of five proficiency levels — limited, basic, proficient, accomplished, and advanced.
“Generally speaking, a student will need to answer approximately a quarter of the test questions correctly in order to achieve a rating of basic,” Brenner said.
Ohio math and reading scores continue to be below pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest report from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The academic interventions in the bill must be evidence-based and could include high-dosage tutoring at least three days a week, additional instruction time, and an extended school calendar.
Ohio S.B. 19 also deals directly with math intervention.
The bill would require school districts or individual schools to come up with a math achievement improvement plan if 51% or less of the district or school’s students who took the third grade math achievement assessment scored at least a proficient score on the assessment.
Under the bill, schools would be required to develop math improvement and monitoring plans for each student that qualifies for math intervention services within 60 days after getting the student’s third grade assessment math results.
A math improvement and monitoring plan would identify the student’s “specific math deficiencies,” describe the additional instructional services they will receive, offer a chance for their parent or guardian to be involved, outline a monitoring process and offer high-dosage tutoring at least three days a week.
“Math is absolutely essential to our economy, to our national defense, to promoting peace throughout the world,” said Ohio Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster.
“Nothing happens without math. Business don’t transact. Machinery doesn’t work. Engineering, architectural designs don’t happen. Everything depends, ultimately, on the basis of good math.”
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