Kate Martin,  Carmela Guaglianone and Emily Hanford

Education journalist Karin Chenoweth visited one of Steubenville’s elementary schools back in 2008 and marveled at the results, which she wrote about in her book “How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons from Unexpected Schools.”

“It was astonishing to me how amazing that elementary school was,” Chenoweth said in an interview. “They had a kid they were so proud of who had been measured with a very low IQ, and he was reading.”

What stood out to Chenoweth was not just the school’s success, but that it was happening in a place like Steubenville.

Once a bustling steel town, economic forces have left the city in decline.

Thousands of steelworkers in the Steubenville area had lost their jobs by the 1990s, and thousands more have since then. Weirton Steel, located across the Ohio River in West Virginia, which once employed 8,000 workers, closed just last year. These days, the median household income in the city is less than $42,000 per year. Nearly 80% of Steubenville students receive free or reduced lunches, and the state of Ohio considers almost every one of Steubenville’s students to be “economically disadvantaged.”

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Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending

Related: Act 10

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The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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“An emphasis on adult employment”

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