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Voters First - Issue 2 - ballot language

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The Ohio ballot board, in a partisan split decision chose the following as the language that will appear as Issue 2 (Voters First) on the November 6th ballot.

Proposed Constitutional Amendment
Proposed by Initiative Petition
To add and repeal language in Section l,3,4,6,7,9 and 13 of Article XI, repeal Sections 8 and 14 of Article XI, and add a new Section 16 to Article XI of the Constitution of the State of Ohio

A majority yes vote is necessary for the amendment to pass.

The proposed amendment would:

1. Remove the authority of elected representatives and grant new authority to appointed officials to establish congressional and state legislative district lines.

2. Create a state funded commission of appointed individuals from a limited pool of applicants to replace the aforementioned. The Commission will consist of 12 members as follows: four affiliated with the largest political party, four affiliated with the second largest political party and four not affiliated with either of the two largest political parties. Affirmative votes of 7 of 12 members are needed to select a plan.

3. Require new legislative and congressional districts be immediately established by the Commission to replace the most recent districts adopted by elected representatives, which districts shall not be challenged except by court order until the next federal decennial census and apportionment. In the event the Commission is not able to determine a plan by October 1, the Ohio Supreme Court would need to adopt a plan from all the plans submitted to the Commission.

4. Change the standards and requirements in the Constitution for drawing legislative and congressional districts.

5. Mandate the General Assembly to appropriate all funds as determined by the Commission including, but not be limited to, compensating:
1. Staff
2. Consultants
3. Legal counsel
4. Commision members

If approved, the amendment will be effective thirty days after the election.

SHALL THE AMENDMENT BE APPROVED
YES
NO

Voters first has filed a lawsuit, claiming the ballot language is incomplete

The wording, for example, omits any references to requirements that the commission draw fair districts that reflect the political preferences of Ohio voters.

The ballot language "does not properly identify the substance of the proposal to be voted upon" and was written "to mislead, deceive or defraud the voters," the lawsuit says.

A summary of the initiative can be read, here.

Double down on failure

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No Child Left Behind introduced the idea of high stakes education. Few today doubt it's failure.

More Americans think the No Child Left Behind Act, which has governed federal education grants to public schools for a decade, has made education worse rather than better, by 29% to 16%. Thirty-eight percent say NCLB hasn't made much of a difference, while 17% are not familiar enough with the law to rate it.

That rejection is across all demographic groups.

People know failure when they see it. But, rather than re-evaluate the consequences of pushing for ever higher stakes, corporate education reformers have doubled down.

We haven't even begun most efforts, but we've already lost the State Superintendent to scandal, have delayed critical school report cards because of an invesitgation into erasures, have an evaluation system few are going to be able to figure out - let alone implement, a voucher privatization scheme few parents have been interest in, and all in an environment of massive and reackless budget cuts, and appointments of college quarterbacks with no education background to the State Board of Education.

Kasich pushes public ed to precipice

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Already faced with having to deal with massive budget cuts created by the Governor's raid on school funding to balance his own budget, he has now asked all departments, including the Department of Education to provide budget scenarios that include a further 10% cut

State agency heads will be lucky if they get to keep current funding levels when Gov. John Kasich rolls out the next state budget in the spring.

That's the tone being set by a budget guidance document released Monday by Kasich's administration that asks state agencies to plan a pair of scenarios for the 2014-15 budget -- one where they see no growth in funding and a second in which agencies are hit with a 10 percent cut in general revenue funds.

The Governor's own Office of Budget and Management ran the number to discern the impact. It would be ironic if the Governor killed his own education policies via his own fiscal policy.

In areas of academic improvement, the results are dire

  • A 10% cut could jeopardize Ohio's ESEA flexibility waiver by reducing services by up to 4,000 hours and not providing the additional support to priority and focus schools required. The 16 fiscal agents (ESCs) that deliver the Ohio Improvement Process for districts in school improvement already do not have the capacity to support all districts in need of support.
  • A 10% cut to Ohio's Alternative Education Grant programs could result in as many as 29 programs closing resulting in increased drop-out rates and decreased graduation rates. Students who drop out often result in long term costs to the state through various social service and remediation programs. This funding has experienced a reduction of funding of a little over 40% to what was originally budgeted for in FY09

On Curriculum and assessment, the cuts would end the efforts to increase academic rigor and hinder the newly legislated (and already unfunded) 3rd grade reading guarantee.

  • A 10% cut to funding for Content Standards and Model Curricula would jeopardize ODE's ability to manage all work required in statute in this area, such as embedding career connections into Ohio's model curricula. Additional cuts could also jeopardize Ohio's ESEA flexibility waiver by significantly hindering ODE's ability to provide technical assistance to districts in implementing the new academic content standards that begin in the 2013-14 school year. Reductions will jeopardize planned professional development supporting best practices instructional strategies, infusing technology into instruction, and supporting instruction for diverse learners in implementing the new State Learning Standards. This set-aside has experienced a cut of over 28% to amounts originally budgeted for in FY09.
  • A 10% cut to Assessment Contracts and & Administration would result in statutory noncompliance for Ohio's student assessment system and would jeopardize Ohio's ESEA flexibility waiver because the funding would not allow the new generation of assessments being developed through the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and state-developed assessments for science and social studies to begin in the 2014-15 school year.
  • A 10% cut to funding for the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment could hinder the release and administration of this literacy assessment which is critical to successful early childhood learning and the implementation of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee included in SB 316.

Cuts would also jeopardize district data collection and analysis, something ODE is already struggling to grapple with as the attendance scrubbing controversy drags on. While we can't currently publish school report cards, these cuts would also risk further future delays putting federal monies at risk.

Under educator quality efforts:

  • A 10% cut in funds for Educator Standards and Prep would mean new work required under statute, particularly for teachers and principals, could not be properly managed. Such work includes the implementation of the new teacher and principal evaluation systems required by statute and using evaluation systems to inform decisions including professional development, promotion, retention, placement, tenure and removal of ineffective educators.
  • 10% cut to Teacher and Principal Evaluation/Student Growth, could put in jeopardy the continued implementation of the teacher and principal evaluation systems which are included as a part of Ohio's ESEA flexibility waiver. Also, the incorporation of student growth as a metric in these systems, mandated by state law, could be put in jeopardy. LEA requests for support in implementation have been overwhelming and the need for support will continue to grow.

    • It would be ironic if the Governor killed his own education policies via his own fiscal policy.

Here's the full analysis

Impact of a further 10% cut to Ohio's education budget

Poll: Americans feel good about teachers

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The 44th Annual PDK/Gallup Poll on public schools has some interesting findings. The very first question the poll asks

Going back 10 years to 2002, we combined the responses that include discipline concerns, such as fighting, gang violence, and drugs. In 2002, these were the biggest problems identified by 39% of Americans. Today, just 10 years later, only 14% of Americans mentioned concerns about fighting, drugs, and poor discipline. This year, as in the last few years, lack of funding was by far the most common single response Americans cited as the biggest challenge facing schools in their communities. Parents were even more unified that lack of funding was the No. 1 challenge facing schools.

A further question explored sentiment to improving urban schools

Ninety-seven percent believe it’s very or somewhat important to improve the nation’s urban schools, indicating a strong continuing commitment, and almost two of three Americans said they would be willing to pay more taxes to provide funds to improve the quality of the nation’s urban schools. However, there was a clear difference of opinion between Republicans (41% in favor) versus Democrats (80% in favor) on the taxation question.

It's hard to get 97% of Americans to agree on pretty much anything, so to have that, and 2 out of 3 citizens wanting to increase taxes to address it, one might be forgiven for thinking we're talking about apple pie not urban education. A tip of the hat must also be given for recognition that our education system is unequal

On teacher evaluations, there is a significant divide

Americans are evenly divided on whether states should require that teacher evaluations include how well a teacher’s students perform on standardized tests, and this finding is consistent across all demographic groups. Clearly, American opinion on this doesn’t match the massive effort under way in many states and school districts to do so. Of the 52% who favor including students’ performance on standardized tests in teacher evaluations, almost half said this should constitute between one-third and two-thirds of the teacher’s evaluation.

Considering that people have only heard from one side of the debate on this, and have yet to see the consequences of these corporate education reform policies, this is likely to be a high water mark.

On the subject of teachers, few professions garner as much trust as teachers

Remaining constant over a series of years, 71% of Americans have trust in teachers, despite constant efforts to tear them down by corporate education reformers and their billionaire and media supporters .

You can read the entire survey at this link. We'll close out with words from teacher of the year, Rebecc Mieliwocki.

What a wonderful shot in the arm this year’s survey results are for the American schoolteacher. The core truth is that Americans are confident in their child’s teachers and proud of our educational system.

They see the best educators as caring, attentive, and demanding professionals. They want us to have the freedom to create relevant, rigorous, and engaging lessons for students and to have our effectiveness measured fairly through both classroom observations and student scores on standardized tests.

Americans want teachers held to high standards from the moment we enter a preparation program to our last day in the classroom, and they want us to improve how we prepare young people for the rigors of college and their careers. These are all good things. Just like teachers themselves, Americans want to see schools and the teaching profession elevated and strengthened.

The great news is that kids are learning more than ever before from teachers who are better trained than at any time in history. Walk into most classrooms in America, and you’ll see tremendous things happening. Yet, the persistent negative messages about public schools and teachers remain. If we hope to attract the best and the brightest into the profession and keep them there, we’ve got to put an end to this.

Ryan budget wrecks public education

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Education issues have arrived front and center in the Presidential campaign. President Obama discussed education during his weekly address

With students starting to head back to school, President Obama used this week’s address to discuss the critical role that education plays in America’s future. Nothing is more important to a child’s education than a great teacher.

Unfortunately, tens of thousands of teachers will not be going back to school this year, partially because of budget cuts at the state and local level. That means more crowded classrooms, fewer kindergarten and preschool programs, and shorter school years and weeks. President Obama has proposed a jobs bill that would help states prevent further layoffs and rehire teachers, but Congress refuses to pass it.

Instead, the budget that almost every Republican voted for would further cut education in order to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

The debate continued in Ohio

President Barack Obama drew a sharp line with Republican Mitt Romney on education Tuesday, telling Ohio voters that "putting a college education within reach for working families doesn't seem to be a priority" for his opponent.

Obama quoted his Republican challenger's assertion that the best option for students trying to find an affordable education is to "shop around."

"That's his answer for a young person hoping to go to college — shop around, borrow money from your parents if you have to — but if they don't have it, you're on your own," Obama said in prepared remarks ahead of a planned campaign stop Tuesday afternoon.

The president was expected to point to the budget plan put forward by Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, as he tries to paint the GOP ticket as too extreme for the nation.

He plans to criticize Ryan's budget proposal for cutting $115 billion from the Education Department, removing 2 million children from Head Start programs and costing 1 million college students their Pell Grants over the next decade.

According to the Washington Post, a recent poll on the Ryan budget found that a leading concern about the Ryan budget were cuts to education, and that those cuts raised serious doubts about Romney when voters were told that he supports the Ryan agenda.

Those cuts, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities discovered, are needed to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthiest

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney plan to further defund education in order to provide tax cuts to people who have the least need. The choices for public education supporters have never been more stark.