CLEVELAND -- A new report card from the Ohio Board of Education shows that 44 area school districts received an excellent or an excellent with distinction rating.

Those districts include Rocky River, Solon, Hudson, Brecksville, Green, Medina, Mentor and Brunswick.

Only 20 percent of the schools in northeast Ohio received a continuous improvement or academic watch rankings. Unfortunately, those include some of the area's largest districts.

Akron, with its 25,000 students, remains in continuous improvement, and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District dropped from continuous improvement to academic watch, joining Lorain, East Cleveland and Warrensville Heights.

Something new this year is how students are tested and schools are ranked.

Before this year, report cards were based on test scores only. Now, Ohio joins a handful of other states in a pilot program through the Department of Education. Third through eighth-graders are still tested, but the third-grade tests don't count.

Instead, it becomes a baseline for next year and schools are ranked on how much the scores improved, not just how many answers students got right.

"I will never be able to dunk a basketball at my height, but I might be able to jump higher and be more physically fit, and that's what we're measuring progress in -- jumping as opposed to everyone having to hit the same target and the same time," said Lakewood Schools Superintendent David Estrop.

Lakewood received an equivalent of a "B" grade with its effective ranking.

For more information on the rankings of all area school district, go to Ohio Department of Education.