Parents don't want to pull the trigger

If people who are voting in this poll are any indication, parents don't want a chaos creating parent trigger brought to Ohio.

Feel free to drop by and add your vote.

Pulling the Trigger

Included in this years budget is a radical provision only one other state has recently implemented. The Parent Trigger. The Dispatch gives us a quick explanation

Gov. John Kasich's budget plan would give parents the power to force radical changes on chronically underperforming schools.
[....]
The "parent trigger" would apply to schools that rank in the state's bottom 5 percent in academics for three consecutive school years. If a majority of a school's parents sign a petition demanding change, the school would be forced to accept the reform the parents propose:

• Converting into a charter school.
• Replacing at least 70 percent of the staff.
• Contracting with another school district, an effective nonprofit group or a for-profit group to operate the school.
• Turning the school's operation over to the Ohio Department of Education.
• Making "fundamental reforms" to the school's staffing or governance.

The article goes on to include a quote from JTF

Critics say they want parents involved in school reform, but perhaps not like this.

"I don't know how you don't create chaos when you've always got this specter of parents who are dissatisfied in some way saying, 'We're going to initiate this process and reconstitute this school,'" said Scott DiMauro, a Worthington teacher who heads the Central OEA/NEA, a regional union branch. He spoke on behalf of Join the Future, a new group advocating for public schools and teachers.

The Parent trigger has only been used at one California school, and the result was a mess, but before we get to the Compton story, EdWeek suggests that parents will be unlikely to want to use this trigger

Despite the fanfare since the law went into effect in Jan. 2010, few parents have taken advantage of their new leverage to create change. That's not at all surprising. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, which has been in existence since 2002, parents have had the right to transfer their children out of failing schools. But few have done so.

There are several explanations. In 2003, a study by the University of Texas found that parents often chose schools for idiosyncratic reasons, with low-income parents more satisfied with their schools despite low test scores. Echoing this finding, in 2005, the National Center for the Study of Privatization reported that parents frequently opted for schools based on holistic, social, logistic and administrative factors.

So why any concern? Compton.

There has been only one effort so far in California, in Compton, and it has proven highly controversial. California Watch has the story.

The issue of more transparency has emerged as a major source of controversy, and conflict, in response to the stealth campaign organized by Parent Revolution, which was able to gain sufficient signatures from parents at the McKinley Elementary School in Compton Unified School District to turn the school in a charter school, and to designate which charter school company would run it.

The petition was delivered to school district officials, who had no idea the petition drive was even underway, after weeks of signature gathering by Parent Revolution organizers who trolled Compton, knocking randomly on doors and stopping people on the street to locate McKinley parents, or parents from feeder schools.

After the petitions were delivered, many parents asked for their names to be withdrawn, claiming that they weren't fully aware of what they were signing.

So in short. A stealth trigger campaign was started by a for profit business (The Parent Revolution, has close ties to Green Dot public schools, a large charter management organization in Los Angeles) to take over a public school, and they did so by collecting signatures randomly and without properly disclosing their intent. The case is now pending before the courts.

That's the first and only instance of a parent trigger being pulled - and some want this debacle imported to Ohio.

Your Voice is Being Heard Now

For what seemed like week after week, legislators ignored the voices and will of working Ohioans as they plowed forward with their ill thought out assault on teachers, firefighters, police and public employees.

But Sunday marked a major turning point in this fight. Sunday, people from all around Ohio began to have their voice heard, filing into the Columbus OEA building on broad street, and other locations, to sign the "downpayment" petition to repeal S.B.5.

Picture curtesy of Columbus Education Association

With well over the required 1,000 signatures collected, the effort now moves to the SOS and AG to certify the petition before collection of the 231,000 signatures needed to place the repeal on the November ballot begins.

The Dispatch also reports that the Govenor has been hearing the message loud and clear too

the governor received thousands of emails voicing strong opinions on the bill.

The breakdown: 16 percent in favor, 84percent against, according to a Dispatch analysis of more than 14,000 emails obtained through a public-records request.
[...]
A Quinnipiac Poll released March 23 showed a majority of Ohioans opposed to virtually all provisions of the controversial measure. A handful of Republicans joined a solid bloc of Democrats to vote against the bill in the legislature; GOP Senate leaders had to replace two members of a committee just to advance the proposal.

If the depth of sentiment expressed in the emails is any indication, those organizing a petition drive to hold a referendum on the issue in November shouldn't have trouble gathering the approximately 230,000 signatures needed.

Nope. No trouble at all.

Governor’s Executive Budget Proposal Analysis

The following analysis is based on Governor Kasich’s Executive Budget Proposal for Fiscal Years (FY) 2012 and 2013. The following chart is based on “ALL FUNDS” dollars, not just state foundation aid:

Category	Current FY 2011	Proposed FY 2012	% from FY 2011	Proposed FY 2013	% Fromy FY 2012	Total Change
K-12 Education	$11.5 bill	$10.2 bill	(11.5%)	$9.7 bill	(4.9%)	($3.1 bill)
Higher Education	$2.57 bill	$2.3 bill	(10.5%)	$2.4 bill	3.7%	($440 mill)

K-12 SCHOOL DISTRICTS:

K-12 Funding:

• Decrease overall education funding by $3.1 billion over FY12-13 from FY 11 amounts ($1.3 billion cut in FY 12 and $1.8 billion cut in FY 13)
• Repeals Evidence-Based Model for school funding
• Increase state foundation funding by 2% for FY 12 and 1.5% for FY 13 (not the whole story)
• Eliminate state fiscal stabilization $ (fed stimulus for state foundation) of $457 million in FY 12.
• Reduce federal stimulus for IDEA Part B and Title IA totaling $400 million in FY11 by 90% for FY 12 with the remainder eliminated in FY13
• Decrease overall Special Education funding by 14.5% in FY 12 and another 2.1% in FY 13.
• Decrease TPP “hold harmless” payments by $428 million (37.2%) for FY12 and by another $247 million (34.2%) in FY 13. Reductions at school district level will be capped at 2% per year
• Decrease gifted funding by 88.2% in FY 12 and flat-lined in FY 13
• Reduces Kilowatt Hour tax reimbursement
• Decrease overall funding for early childhood education by 4.7% in FY 12 and .5% in FY 13
• Maintain current levels of overall funding for Joint Vocational School Districts in FY 12 and FY 13
• Diverts more funding from local school districts by expanding charter schools & vouchers

Teacher Salaries Removed From Collective Bargaining: 3317.14

• Each school district board of education and ESC shall annually adopt a teacher’s salary schedule with a minimum and maximum salary for the following categories of teacher licensure status:
  1) Resident educator license, an alternative educator license, or a temporary, associate or provisional educator license,
  2) professional educator license or a professional or permanent teacher’s certificate,
  3) senior professional license,
  4) lead professional license.
• For each teacher employed by a school board, the board annually shall designate a salary within the salary range of the appropriate board adopted salary schedule that considers the following factors:
  1) Teacher evaluations;
  2) highly qualified status;
  3) any other relevant factors, which may include whether the teacher teaches in a hard-to-staff district or subject area, teachers class sizes that are larger than average, or teaches at-risk students.
• If a salary paid to a teacher is higher than the maximum salary that the teacher may earn under a salary schedule adopted by the board, the board shall designate the salary paid to the teacher on that date as the teacher’s permanent salary, unless a subsequent salary schedule adopted by the board has a higher maximum salary. Collective bargaining agreements expiring after the effective date of the bill run their course.
• THE REQUIREMENT FOR LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD ADOPTION OF TEACHER SALARY SCHEDULES AND PLACEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL TEACHERS AT A SALARY WITHIN THAT RANGE PREVAILS OVER ANY CONFLICTING PROVISIONS OF A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT ENTERED INTO AFTER THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THE BILL.

Teacher Incentive Program:

• ODE shall pay eligible classroom teachers an annual stipend of fifty dollars for each of the teachers’ students in classes that have achieved more than a standard year of academic growth, in one or more eligible subject areas taught by the teachers, as measured by the value-added progress dimension.
• The program applies only to teachers in subject areas and grade levels for which value-added data is available under the value-added progress dimension, as determined by ODE.
• If a student attains more than a standard year of academic growth in more than one eligible subject area, the fifty dollar stipend attributable to that student shall be divided among the teachers who taught those subjects.
• If more than one teacher is responsible to teach a particular student in one eligible subject area, such as a team-teaching arrangement, the portion attributable to that student for that subject area shall be divided among the teachers who taught that student in that subject area.
• The first stipends paid shall be based on student performance for the 2011-2012 school year as computed by for the school district and school report cards issued by ODE in 2012.

Teacher Dismissal:

• Eliminates the option to hold teacher dismissal a hearing in front of a referee instead of the school board.
• Any teacher whose contract is terminated may appeal to the court of common pleas or request execution of the grievance procedure specified in any collective bargaining agreement that is applicable, but many not do both. This limitation on appeal of dismissal prevails over any conflicting provisions of a collective bargaining agreement entered into on or after the effective date of the bill.
• When implementing a reduction in teachers, a school board or ESC board shall consider the relative quality of performance the principal factor in determining the order of reductions. Quality of performance is measured by level of license, highly qualified status, performance evaluations under 3319.111, and any other criteria established by the board. Seniority may be considered, but only after considering these other factors.
• Eliminates preference in dismissals for teachers with continuing contracts. If a teacher contract is suspended in part, teachers with continuing contracts have the right of restoration to continuing service status if positions become open, but not in the order of seniority service to the school district or ESC.
• All of the above provisions prevail over any conflicting provisions of collective bargaining agreements entered into on or after the effective date of the bill.

Teacher Testing:

• The board of education in each school district ranked in the lowest ten percentiles of performance index score (3302.01) by ODE shall require each of its classroom teachers in a core subject area (3319.074) to register for and take all written examinations prescribed the state board of education for licensure to teach that core subject area and grade level.
• Each district board of education may use the results of a teacher’s examination in developing and revising professional development plans and in deciding whether or not to continue employing the teacher, in accordance with statutory dismissal processes. Test scores cannot be used as the sole basis for a decision to terminate or non-renew a teacher unless the teacher has not passed the exam three consecutive times.

Parent Takeover of Schools:

• A parent initiated takeover may be conducted for any public school (city, exempted village or local) that has been ranked by ODE in the lowest five percent of performance index scores for three or more consecutive school years.
• If the parents or guardians of at least fifty percent of the students enrolled in a school eligible for a parent initiated takeover sign and file with the school district treasurer a petition for one of the following reforms, the school board shall implement the requested reform in the next school year:
  Reopen the school as a community school; replace at least seventy percent of the school’s personnel who are related to the school’s poor academic performance; contract with another district, non-profit or for-profit entity to operate the school; turn operation of the school over to ODE; any other major restructuring of the school that makes fundamental reforms in the school’s staffing or governance.

Creation of Innovation Schools:

• Any public school may (city, exempted village or local) apply to the district board of education to be designated an innovation school.
• The innovation school application must include a plan with specified provisions, including a description of any laws in ORC Title 33, rules adopted by the State Board of Education, requirements by the district board, or provisions of a collective bargaining agreement that would need to be waived to implement the innovation plan.
• Evidence must be shown that a majority of administrators and teachers assigned to the school consent to seeking the innovation school designation, as well as a statement of support from other staff in the school, students and parents and members of the community.
• Each CBA entered into on or after the effective date of the bill must allow for the wavier of any provision in the agreement specified in an approved innovation plan as needing to be waived to implement the plan, contingent upon at least sixty percent of the members of the bargaining unit covered by the CBA who work in the school voting, by secret ballot to approve the waiver.

Sanctions for “Poor Performing” Schools:

• For any school building ranked in the lowest five percent of schools based on performance index scores for three consecutive years and is declared to be under academic watch or emergency, the district board of education shall do one of the following:
  Close the school and reassign students to other buildings with higher achievement; contract with another district, non-profit or for profit entity to operate the school; replace the principal and all teaching staff of the school; reopen the school as a conversion community school.

Determining “Classroom” And “Non-Classroom” Expenditures:

• ODE shall develop standards for determining the amount of annual operating expenditures for classroom instructional purposes and for non-classroom purposes for all public schools and community schools.
• ODE shall rank each district and community school from highest to lowest in terms of percentage spent for classroom instructional purposes and non-instructional purposes.

School District Rankings and Recognition:

• ODE shall develop system to rank all public schools districts and community schools according to the following measures:
  Performance index score; student growth from year to year using value-added dimension if applicable or other measures designated by state superintendent; performance measures requires for career-technical education; current operating expenditures per pupil; percentage spent on classroom instruction.
• Establishes the governor’s effective and efficient schools recognition program, whereby the governor shall recognize the top ten percent of all public and chartered nonpublic schools in the state.

Distance Learning:

• The Ohio Board of Regents clearinghouse of interactive distance learning courses for students in K-12 shall be based, in part, on the following principles:
  Students may take distance learning courses for all or any portion of their curriculum requirements and may utilize a combination of distance learning courses and courses taught in a traditional classroom setting.
  Students may earn an unlimited number of academic credits through distance learning courses.
  Students may take distance learning courses at any time during the calendar year.
  Student advancement to higher coursework shall be based on a demonstration of subject area competency instead of completion of any particular number of hours of instruction.
  A school district or charter school is not required to pay the fee charged for a course offered through the clearinghouse.
  

EDUCATION SERVICE CENTER SERVICES:

• Requires school districts (except cooperative education school districts) with an average daily membership of 16,000 or less to enter into an agreement with an ESC to provide services to the school district.
• A school district with less than 16,000 students may enter into an agreement with an ESC for services. These services may include any services the district board and ESC board agree can be better provided through the ESC.
• An ESC may enter into a contract with a political subdivision to provide services.

CHARTER SCHOOL PROVISIONS:

• Eliminates caps on numbers of charter schools in “challenged” districts: An unlimited number of “start-up” charter schools may be established in any “challenged” school district. Restrictions on “start-up” charter school expansion in 3314.013, 3314.014, 3314.016 and 3314.017 are removed. A “challenged” school district is district in that is either in a state of academic watch or emergency, a “big eight” school district, or the Lucas County pilot project area. (331402(3))
• Charter school sponsor & operator restrictions: If a charter school is under academic watch or emergency on the effective date of the bill, the school’s sponsor and operator shall not be permitted to sponsor or operate any additional community schools. Contracts with such sponsors that have been entered into prior to the effective date of this bill are void if the schools have not yet opened by the effective date. Contracts with such operators are void where they are to begin operating a school in the 2011-12 school year.
• Leasing school district property to charter schools: If a school district board of education decides to lease space it must first be offered to the governing authorities of charter schools located within the territory of the school district.

VOUCHER EXPANSION:

• Increases the number of vouchers in the Ed Choice program from 14,000 under current law to 30,000 in the 2011-12 school year and 60,000 in the 2012-13 school year.
• Expands eligibility to students assigned to school buildings that ranked in the lowest 10% in performance index score in two of the last three years.

PENSION AND HEALTHCARE:

12/12 Split in Pension Contributions:
• Beginning July 1, 2011, increases the employee contribution for members of STRS, SERS and OPERS to 12% of their salary (from 10%).
• Simultaneously decreases employer contributions from 14% to no more than 12%.

Health Care Pooling:

• Eliminates the School Employees Health Care Board.
• Directs the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) to contract with a consultant to recommend a program of pooling. Upon completion of the of the consultant’s report DAS shall implement health care plans that may be used by school districts (not charter schools), ESCs, higher education institutions and political subdivisions.
• Consultant’s report shall include recommendations on the following: establishment of regions; viability of voluntary or mandatory participation; use of PPO, closed panel or HAS plans to stabilize costs and premiums; system to obtain data; use of competitive bidding; experience of other states; strategies for transition; option of joining existing consortia; mandatory or optional coverages; risks; legislative language needed; reserves and stop-loss.
• Maintains best practice standards of SEHCB and allows DAS to adopt standards until release of initial plans.
• DAS, subject to competitive selection process, shall negotiate with one or more insurance companies for issuance of health care plans. Plans may be self-insured.
• Shall determine best practices, regions and cost-effectiveness.
• DAS shall design plans and set employer and employee premiums.
• Consortia representing 2,500 or more employees may request permission to continue offering plans from DAS.

Senate Bill 5 Analysis

Senate Bill 5 Analysis: AS SIGNED BY THE GOVERNOR SB 5 would impact CBAs entered into on or after the effective date of the bill (90 days after filing with Sec. of State).

IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS & EDUCATION SERVICE CENTERS:

Scope of bargaining: K-12 school employees may bargain wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment. HOWEVER, the bill outlines extensive restrictions and prohibitions on bargaining and removes leverage in negotiations.

• No “affects” bargaining; CBA provisions do not become mandatory bargaining matters because they are in a previous contract. Removes from mandatory bargaining the continuation, modification, or deletion of an existing CBA
• Each CBA covering public employees of school districts shall comply with all applicable state or local laws regarding wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment of public employees.

Teacher Salaries: Statutory salary schedule eliminated. Teacher salaries must be based on the following performance based measures:

• Level of teacher license; whether the teacher is a “highly qualified teacher” under law; the value-added measure the board uses to determine the performance of the students assigned to the teacher’s classroom; the results of the teacher’s performance evaluations, any peer review program created by an agreement between the board and teachers association, or another system of evaluation used by the board; any other criteria established by the board.

Non-teaching school employee salaries: Statutory salary schedule eliminated. Pay must be determined by performance based measures, which are undefined. Hourly overtime rates that exceed the rate required by the Fair Labor Standards Act are prohibited.

Teacher Evaluation: Not later than July 1, 2013, every board of education, in consultation with teachers, shall adopt a policy for the evaluation of teachers that complies with the framework to be established by the State Board of Education. The framework adopted by the State Board shall require at least 50% of each evaluation to be based on measures of student academic growth specified by ODE.

School District and Education Service Center Employees specifically prohibited from bargaining the following:

• Requirement that the employer employ a minimum number of total personnel or any category of personnel.
• Restrictions on the authority of the public employer to assign personnel or workload to school buildings.
• Establishment of a maximum number of students who may be assigned to a classroom or teacher.
• Prohibitions on employer from making reductions in teachers or nonteaching employees for statutory reasons.
• Restrictions on the authority of the public employer to determine the order of layoffs.
• Restrictions on the authority of the public employer to acquire non-educational services from another public or private entity through competitive bidding.
• Restrictions on statutory public employer management rights.
• Restrictions on public employer’s authority to acquire products/programs/services from and ESC.

Teacher Contracts: An initial limited contract for a classroom teacher entered into on or after the effective date of the bill shall not exceed three years. Any subsequent limited contract: not less than 2 years and not more than 5 years. No continuing contracts may be entered into on or after the effective date of the bill.

School Employee Leave: The bill abolishes statutory provisions for sick leave, leave of absence, and assault leave provided to all school employees, the personal leave and vacation leave provided to nonteaching employees, and the professional improvement leave provided to teachers. The school board/ESC must adopt a policy covering these leave provisions for employees not covered by a CBA. Leave is still subject to bargaining.

Teacher and Non-teaching Employee Layoffs:

• Prohibits any CBA provision that requires an employee’s length of service as the only factor in a RIF or that restricts the authority of the public employer to determine the order of layoffs.
• Subject to a preference for teachers with a continuing contract, the principal factor in teacher RIFs must be a school board’s consideration of the relative quality of performance, including type of license held, “highly qualified” status, use of a value-added measure and results of the teacher’s performance evaluation, and any peer review program created by an agreement entered into by a board of education and representative of teachers employed by that board.
• Subject to a preference for non-teaching employees with continuing contracts, the principal factor in RIFs must be the relative quality of performance as measured by the board.

PROVISIONS APPLICABLE TO ALL PUBLIC EMPLOYEES:

• Right to Strike Eliminated: Prohibits public employee strikes and establishes penalty of $1,000 fine for engaging in an illegal strike, as well as a compensation deduction of twice the daily rate of pay for each day of engagement in an illegal strike. A court may still jail an individual for violating an injunction against an illegal strike.
• Final Dispute Resolution Procedure: If the parties are unable to reach agreement within 20 days after the publication of fact-finder or expiration of a CBA, the legislative body of the public employer shall conduct a public hearing to consider the last best offer of each party and shall vote to accept one of the last best offers. Except for state employers and state institutions of higher education, if the chief financial officer of the public employer determines that new revenue must be generated to fund the agreement, either party to the agreement or any constituent in geographic area of the public employer may submit the last best offer from each party to the electors for a decision on which should be the agreement between the parties. Until the resolution of such as vote, the last best offer of the employer shall be implemented.
• Decertification of an Exclusive Representative: Another employee organization, employees currently represented by the employee organization, or the public employer may file a petition for decertification with SERB demonstrating that at least 30% of the employees support the decertification petition. The petition may be submitted any time subsequent to 120 days prior to the expiration of the CBA.
• Sick Leave Payout: Prohibits payout of an accumulated paid sick leave balance that exceeds 50% of total sick leave accumulations or for accumulated sick leave in excess of 1,000 hours.
• Health Care: No bargaining on health care benefits or anything less than a 15% employee premium. Benefits for employees must be the same as management level employees.
• Pension Pickup: Employer prohibited from paying any part of the employee’s share of contribution to a state retirement system (i.e. employee must pay full 10% share, employer continues to pay 14% share.)
• Fair Share Fees: Prohibits any CBA from requiring fair share fee be paid as a condition of employment.
• Automatic Contributions to Political Action Committees (PACs): Prohibits any public employer from agreeing to a provision that provides for the payroll deduction for any contributions to a PAC, e.g. FCPE, using any other method than prescribed in Campaign Finance Law (currently allows auto deductions to PACs).
• Unfair Labor Practice: Creates ULP’s for insisting that a permissive subject of bargaining be bargained to impasse; inducing a secondary boycott; restraining or coercing public employers in their rights under 4417; any communication that contains a threat of reprisal, force or promise of benefit.
• Leave Accrual: Prohibits accrual of leave credits in excess of 6 weeks annual paid vacation prior to 20 years of service, 12 paid holidays annually, and 3 paid personal days annually.
• Fiscal Watch and Emergency: Allows a public employer that is in a state of fiscal watch to suspend wage/benefit increases; if in fiscal emergency may terminate or modify a CBA.
• Liberally Construe: Repeals current law requiring the Collective Bargaining Law be liberally construed for the purpose of promoting orderly and constructive relationships between employer and employees.

IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES OF STATE AGENCIES (SCOPE), COUNTY GOVERNMENTS (DD) and NON-FACULTY HIGHER EDUCATION:

Higher Education Faculty Can No Longer Bargain: Higher education faculty are excluded from collective bargaining by being defined as “supervisors” or “management level” employees and ineligible to collectively bargain.

Scope of Bargaining for State Agency, County and Non-Faculty Higher Education Employees: May bargain wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment, subject to restrictions. No “affects” bargaining; CBA provisions do not become mandatory bargaining matters because they are in a previous contract. Removes from mandatory bargaining the continuation, modification, or deletion of an existing CBA.

• Salaries: Eliminates statutory salary schedules and requires the Department of Administrative Services to adopt rules to develop a performance pay system.

Leave:

• Caps vacation leave accumulation at 7.7 hours per biweekly pay period after 19 years of service (current cap is 9.2 hrs./bi-weekly pay period after 24 yrs. of service), which supersedes CBA’s entered into on or after the effective date of the bill. Reduces sick leave accrual from 4.6 (3 weeks) hours to 3.1 (2 weeks) hours per biweekly pay period. State agency employees already at 3.1.
• Requires an employee who is accruing vacation leave at a rate of 9.2 hours per pay period and whose vacation leave balance exceeds 600 hours on the bill’s effective date to forfeit the employee’s right to take or be paid for any vacation leave credit that is in excess of 720 hours.

Layoff: Prohibits an agency from using an employee’s length of service as the only factor to determine whether to lay off the employee. Layoffs to be determined by a system of retention points for each employee, based on length of service, efficiency of service and other similar factors the director considers appropriate.

We're gonna need a bigger boat

There's a line in the movie Jaws, where it dawns upon Martin Brody that they are up against a serious shark and need a bigger boat. Well there's an article in the Dayton Daily News today that suggests school districts might need a bigger boat too, if they are to comply with some of the crazy provisions of S.B.5

The new merit pay system mandated in Senate Bill 5 will be applied to Ohio’s 146,000 K-12 teachers and indirectly impact 1.78 million students in 613 school districts.
[...]
Senate Bill 5 calls for teachers to be evaluated each year by April 1. The reviews would be based on: licensure level; whether teachers attain ‘highly qualified’ status; student test scores; at least two observations of at least 30 minutes each; and other criteria picked by the local school board.

Pay, firings and layoffs will be based on these evaluations.

Let's stop there just for one second. We won't dwell on licensure level, status or even student test scores. We'll get to those for sure another time.

Let's just think for a minute about these observations.

There must be 2 per year per teacher of at least 30 minutes each. 30 minutes + 30 minutes = 1 hour. 1 hour x 146,000 teachers = 146,000 hours of observation per year.

But these observers aren't just going to magically appear. They will need time to organize the observations, to get to the classes, to record their findings and to issue a report. Conservatively this adds another hour per year per teacher to the effort.

Now we are at 292,000 hours per year just for this provision alone.

If someone were to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year it would take them over 140 years to complete this task. Since these observations have to be completed annualy that means we're going to need at least 140 more administrators just for this provision alone!

Is this what was meant by providing school districts the tools they need to save money?

Ohio School Boards Association lobbyist Damon Asbury, a former school district superintendent who has assessed evaluation systems, said the best ones boil down to using multiple data points, including observations made by different observers. Asbury said high quality, annual evaluations of every teacher will put heavy pressure on administrators.

“That is not to say it can’t be done but it’ll require more time and effort,” he said. “We may find ourselves in need of more administrators.”

We're going to need a bigger boat, or at least one that doesn't have so many holes in it.