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Donte Compton, left, and Michael Ricks, students at the Cleveland School of Architecture and Design, put finishing touches on their architectural model during a workshop three years ago. Their school, part of the Cleveland school district's John Hay campus, scores as well, or better, than private voucher schools in the city on state tests.

(Gus Chan/The Plain Dealer )

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio's school voucher and testing system does not give a good comparison between public high schools and the private high schools that take the vouchers.

The private schools don't want to take the same tests, and usually don't.

The state is also not reporting results the same way for private high schools schools as public ones.

And since most voucher high schools have selective admissions with special tests and interviews that most public schools don't have, test scores are often skewed.

While private schools that cherry-pick their students often have better looking test scores, so do public magnet schools with competitive admissions. In Cleveland, those schools even scored better than schools like St. Ignatius.

Old tests gave a comparison

The old Ohio Graduation Tests used to offer some comparison, since public school students and voucher students had to pass them in order to receive diplomas.

In 2013-14, the last OGT scores formally studied by the state showed private voucher high schools scoring much higher than standard, non-competitive public schools - all schools the state classified as failing schools - that students would have been assigned to without a voucher.

- In Cleveland, proficiency rates were 20 points higher at voucher high schools in English and 18 points higher in math.

- That gap was more than 25 points in each subject statewide.

Those gaps, though, don't take into account how selectively a private school selects its students or how much a school truly helped a student learn. The state doesn't even track that.

A tough admissions process is important for a lot of parents who pick private schools so that students don't have to deal with low-performers or those with behavior problems.

But comparing scores of selective schools to neighborhood schools that accept anyone won't tell you which school is doing a better job.

Those same 2013-14 OGT results show that while the Cleveland school district's scores were low, all three competitive-admissions schools at the district's John Hay campus in University Circle scored as well or better than schools like St. Ignatius and St. Joseph Academy.

Cleveland's Early College High School, the School of Architecture and Design and the School of Science and Medicine all had at least 97.8 percent of their students score as proficient on the reading and math OGT that year.

While St. Ignatius, Benedictine and St. Joseph high schools all scored as well as those district schools in reading, all three private schools had worse math results - still strong, but below that of the district magnets.

St. Edward High School in Lakewood was not included in the voucher program yet, so no comparison is available.

Other voucher high schools that have admissions criteria, but are not as competitive, like St. Martin de Porres and Cleveland Central Catholic had scores well below those at the district's selective schools.

See detailed results below.

Testing changes blur comparisons today

Even these flawed and incomplete comparisons are not available now, once the state dropped the OGT starting with this year's 11th graders and shifted to new Common Core-based End-Of Course exams (EOCs) with this year's 11th graders.

That scrambled the test landscape, leaving gaps in scores and a mismatch of public school and voucher school tests,

Private schools - both voucher schools and much-pricier private schools who do not participate in the voucher program - objected to forcing students to take so many tests that were not part of the schools' mission and course structure.

The Catholic Conference of Ohio, an association of all bishops in Ohio, was among those who opposed having to take the new tests, so the legislature voted to allow voucher students to take alternative tests for each subject instead. Students could also graduate just with strong SAT or ACT scores.

Some private schools don't give tests they don't have to

When the state delayed in naming alternative tests, many schools used that as a chance to skip testing altogether. They had students skip the EOCs and either take no standardized tests at all or just whichever ones the schools already used.

St. Ignatius High School spokesperson Lisa Metro said students were not required to take state tests last year, so no 9th or 10th graders took any state tests. Now that alternative tests are in place, 10th graders this year are taking the Iowa standardized tests while juniors will just take the SATs.

St. Edward High School in Lakewood did much the same thing, giving no state EOC exams and planning to have students just take the SAT.

As a result, the state has no scores to report for either school for the 2015-16 school year.

Other schools like Cleveland Central Catholic High School and St. Joseph Academy had students take the state EOC's anyway, to make extra sure students would meet all state graduation requirements.

"I did not want our students to be in the position of scrambling," said Sister Allison Marie Gusdanovic, principal of Cleveland Central Catholic.

"Vouchers are important to us and our families, so we're dotting all the I's and crossing the T's," said St. Joseph President Mary Ann Corrigan-Davis.

For last school year, the state is reporting only results from voucher schools that used state End-Of-Course exams, so some have scores and many do not. In addition, the state is reporting results by grade, but not by each exam, so it often combines multiple tests (like Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry) into a single score for a grade.

And public and private schools schools are giving those exams at different times. While some have 9th grade results to report, others report only for 10th.

Others may just stick with the ACT or SAT and report only those.

A state panel is reviewing Ohio's graduation requirements now and will have a recommendation to the state school board next month. It is unclear if any changes would affect voucher and other private schools.

How the Cleveland school district's competitive admissions high schools scored against voucher high schools:

The three Cleveland school district schools with competitive admissions scored just as well on their 10th grade state tests as students at St. Ignatius and other selective and private voucher schools. Data is from 2013-14, the last year with a detailed comparison from the state.

Scores are from the old Ohio Graduation Tests, which were given to 10th graders. Though students that scored low had to re-take them, but strong scores meant students were done with any state tests.