Ohio lawmakers plan to revamp the state’s report card for public schools and school districts before the end of the year, despite concerns the change is too much, too soon.

The Ohio House of Representatives approved Thursday a bill creating the new report card on a mostly party-line vote, 59 to 27. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it has two weeks to be approved by the education committee there and a vote by the whole chamber.

Any bills not approved by the last day of this legislative session die and have to start over the legislative process next year. Lawmakers in both chambers are determined to pass the bill before the end of the year. The Ohio Department of Education promised a new report card in its request for flexibility on the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The current state report card graded school districts on 26 indicators and labeled schools with terms such as “excellent,” “effective” and “academic watch.” The bill’s supporters said these terms are vague and misleading. They said letter grades would be better understood.

The proposed report card would give schools and school districts a letter grade from “A” to “F” against 15 standards, beginning with the 2014-15 school year. Until then, schools will be graded on some of the standards and the results reported through a “dashboard” display showing performance on each standard.

Some of the 15 indicators will be the same as they are now: standardized state tests, value-added measurements of student growth and graduation rate. New indicators include college entrance exam scores, percentage of students who aren’t “college ready” and how many students in early grades can read.

The bill establishes a separate report card for dropout recovery schools and eliminates in 2014 those schools’ ability to avoid closure for poor performance with a waiver from the Ohio Department of Education.

The bill also modifies charter school sponsor rankings in 2015-16 to include how well the charter school sponsors operate.

Democrats overwhelmingly rejected the plan because it comes at a time when schools are already adjusting to a handful of reforms — tougher Common Core State Standards, teacher evaluations tied to student test scores and the requirement all third-graders read at grade level before moving to fourth grade.

Rep. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said the constant change and state funding cuts have created havoc for teachers and school administrators.

“With so many policy changes at once, we could be setting our students and districts for failure — or at least to receive as much,” Antonio said on the House floor.

Report card changes were first proposed in the spring in an education bill backed by Gov. John Kasich. Bill co-sponsor Rep. Gerald Stebelton, R-Lancaster, said the Kasich administration wouldn’t budge from the single letter grade during discussion outside of session.

Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, expects the Senate to make few changes because of those discussions. Lehner, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said delaying the overall letter grade will be helpful for educators as they shift to tougher standards.

“I’m pretty well convinced the dashboard is not going to serve us in the long term,” Lehner said. “Down the road it will be more helpful to see one grade.”

Rep. Jim Butler, R-Oakwood, co-sponsored and voted in favor of the bill. He said the bill is a “good first step,” but more work is needed on how to calculate the overall letter grade. Butler said student growth on achievement tests and success after high school should be the most important factors in the overall grade.

“We want students to be strong, good citizens of this country and we want them to have a high-paying job — that’s what matters,” Butler said.

Local education leaders weren’t thrilled with the new report card plan.

Carlisle Local Schools Superintendent Larry Hook said he doesn’t see a big difference between the current ratings and letter grades.

“I think it’s a lot of wasted time when there’s so many other things that we need to focus on.”

He added, “Everybody has spent so much time and effort in the whole report card already, I don’t necessarily buy the idea that people don’t understand it already.”

Keith Millard, Hamilton City Schools’ director of secondary programs, said any accountability measure has to provides information about student, school, and district achievement.

“While a final A-F rating provides framework for thinking about district performance, a single rating does not reflect the entire scope of quality experience that students encounter on a daily basis,” he said.

“It is still too early to tell exactly how this would impact us, but in general I would hope the new system uses a variety of indicators in order to obtain a more accurate representation of each school system,” said Middletown City Schools Superintendent Greg Rasmussen. “It does seem a bit unrealistic to be almost half way through the school year, four months from testing, and just now finding out the actual rating criteria.”

Greg Young, superintendent of Ross Local Schools, agreed.

“It would be nice to go into a year knowing what you’re going to be measured on,” he said. “They’re moving the bar after we’ve already started to jump.”