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Canary in the community

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Schools are the canary in the community, penned an astute letter writer from one of the countless Ohio communities with school levies on the May 3 ballot. What a perfect analogy. Yet unlike the canary in a coal mine, closely monitored as a harbinger of coming crisis, the fiscal condition of public schools in the state is ignored by policy makers who are unwilling to give the crisis an urgent response.

But the near financial collapse of some districts may force Columbus to reconsider its indifference. Until Gov. John Kasich's proposed budget yanked life-support funding from schools and left educators in budget-induced shock, people liked to pretend that the gasping canary in their midst wasn't that sick.

They assumed the cornerstone of the community could take even more abuse, get by with less, and still make quantum leaps in academic excellence. What a perfect illusion. But it worked for Mr. Kasich and Republican lawmakers, who took teachers down a few notches and cut school funding to ludicrous levels.

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Time to get serious Governor

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It's a little strange to ask for input once you've already decided what it is you're going to do, but the Governor and his education Czar seem to be doing just that, according to a report in the Dispatch

Gov. John Kasich wants Ohio's teachers to help him establish guidelines for judging them in a merit-based pay system.

It was an invitation he issued today after he signed a bill that will welcome a new batch of teachers to the state through Teach for America.

Kasich asked Ohio's 115,000 public-school teachers to suggest how to judge their performance in the classroom; that's to be the sole determinant of how they will be paid, based on changes in collective-bargaining laws for the state's public employees.

An email will do.

If the Governor truly wants to collaborate on this, then he needs to have the merit pay provisions stripped out of the budget bill to give people time to design a real solution. The Governor and his Czar need to bring all the stakeholders together and not simply ask people to email ideas.

As a means to solving complex problems like teacher evaluation and merit pay, emailing isn't a serious suggestion. The process needs to be open and deliberative. you don't design a merit pay system using a suggestion box.

You can ask the Governor to create a serious framework for collaboration on this issue here.

How to fix our schools

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Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public school system, and Michelle Rhee, who resigned October 13 as Washington, D.C. chancellor, published a “manifesto” in the Washington Post claiming that the difficulty of removing incompetent teachers “has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.” The solution, they say, is to end the “glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher” and give superintendents like themselves the authority to pay higher salaries to teachers whose students do well academically. Otherwise, children will remain “stuck in failing schools” across the country.{i}

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