The Missing Link in School Reform

in

In trying to improve American public schools, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists are overselling the role of the highly skilled individual teacher and undervaluing the benefits that come from teacher collaborations that strengthen skills, competence, and a school’s overall social capital.

How to Reform Public Schools

THE PREDOMINANT IDEOLOGY

  • Power of the Individual: Reform efforts are focused on improving the capabilities of the individual teacher.
  • Wisdom of the Outsider: Bring in outside experts—or even novices—to solve problems.
  • Principal as Instructional Leader: The principal is the leader of school instructional reform.

THE REALITY

  • The Power of the Collective: The teaching staff is engaged in school reform collectively.
  • Reform from Within: Trust and meaningful communication among teachers are the bases of true reform efforts.
  • Principal as Protector: The principal supports teacher reform efforts through building external relations.

Here's the full article

The Missing Link in School Reform

SB5 arguments language

in

Here's the language for the yes and NO on issue 2 that will appear on the ballots

Argument and Explanation in Opposition to Issue 2

VOTE NO ON ISSUE 2, REPEAL SB 5 UNSAFE, UNFAIR AND HURTS OHIO'S MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES

UNSAFE

  • Issue 2 puts all our families' safety at risk—making it harder for emergency responders, police and firefighters to negotiate for critical safety equipment and training that protects us all.
  • Issue 2 will make our nursing shortage worse. It makes it illegal for nurses, hospital and clinic workers to demand reasonable safe staffing levels—so nurses will juggle more patients while their salaries and benefits are cut.

Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans Educational Fund, Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters say NO on Issue 2

UNFAIR

  • The same Columbus politicians who call for "shared sacrifice" exploited a loophole, giving a special exception to politicians and upper management.
  • Ohio's public employees have already sacrificed—saving Ohio taxpayers over $350 million through concessions, including pay freezes and unpaid furlough days.
  • It's not Ohio values to let firefighters, police and teachers lose their rights and see wages and benefits gutted, while insiders, politicians and people at the top sacrifice nothing.

HURTS US ALL

  • Instead of creating jobs to fix our economy, politicians like Governor Kasich gave away hundreds of millions in corporate tax breaks—draining our state budget while Ohio continues to lose jobs—and passed flawed laws like SB 5 to pay back their campaign donors.
  • Teachers, nurses, firefighters are not the reason Ohio's budget is in trouble. Big corporations. their high-paid lobbyists and the politicians they fund are blaming middle class Ohioans for a problem they caused.

Issue 2: Another example of the politicians turning their backs on Ohio's middle class.
Send Them a Message- Stop Working for the Special Interests. Start Working for We the People.
VOTE NO ON ISSUE 2

Official Argument and Explanation for Issue 2

Vote YES on Issue 2

A YES vote on Issue 2 will make long overdue reforms to unfair and costly government employment practices in Ohio, while helping to get government spending under control and making government more accountable to taxpayers.
Your YES vote on Issue 2 will:

Protect Good Teachers and Improve Our Schools

  • Issue 2 keeps the best teachers in the classroom by ending the unfair practice of seniority-based layoffs, which forces struggling schools to cut many of our best teachers first.
  • Issue 2 returns control of our schools to taxpayers by bringing increased transparency to teacher contract negotiations.
  • Issue 2 enables schools to retain and reward good teachers by allowing them to base pay raises on job performance.

Restore Balance and Ensure Fairness

  • Issue 2 ensures that government employees receive quality health care, but asks them to pay a mere 15% of their health insurance coverage, which is still less than half of what the average private sector worker pays (31%).
  • Issue 2 asks government employees to make a fair contribution (10%) to their taxpayer funded retirement plans instead of requiring taxpayers to provide these pension benefits for free. Many private sector workers get no retirement benefits at all.
  • Issue 2 allows good job performance to be considered when awarding pay raises to government employees. Private sector workers earn their paychecks by doing a good job, and so should government employees.

Get Spending Under Control, Retain Jobs, and Protect Taxpayers

  • Issue 2 will save our communities millions of dollars annually, helping them balance their budgets and retain jobs.
  • Issue 2 will protect taxpayers by giving them the right to reject unaffordable government employment contracts.
  • Issue 2 is the right change at the right time

Vote YES on Issue 2

Ohio Issue 2 arguments

Proving SB5 unnecessary, public schools show significant gains

in

The freshly released 2010-2011 state report card has some great news to demonstrate that public schools in Ohio are not in some crisis, and radical, extreme reforms are not needed in order for our students to recevie a quality education.

The percentage of students scoring proficient on state tests increased on 21 of 26 indicators, with the strongest gains in third-grade math, eighth-grade math and 10th-grade writing. Overall, students met the state goal on 17 out of 26 indicators, one less than last year. The statewide average for all students’ test scores, known as the Performance Index, jumped 1.7 points to 95, the biggest gain since 2004-2005.

For 2010-2011, the number of districts ranked Excellent with Distinction or Excellent increased by 56 to 352. The number of schools in those same categories grew by 186 to 1,769.

76% of traditional public schools statewide have a B or better this year.

Value-Added results, which show whether students meet the expected one year of growth for students in grades 3-8 in reading and math. In 2010-2011, 79.5 percent of districts and 81.4 percent of schools met or exceeded expected Value-Added gains.

The Performance Index looks at the performance of every student, not just those who score proficient or higher. In 2010-11, 89.3 percent of districts and 71 percent of schools improved their Performance Index scores.

We'll be taking a closer look at this results and bringing you all the latest findings.

The reform movement is already failing

in

In my nearly four decades as a historian of education, I have analyzed the rise and fall of reform movements. Typically, reforms begin with loud declarations that our education system is in crisis. Throughout the twentieth century, we had a crisis almost every decade. After persuading the public that we are in crisis, the reformers bring forth their favored proposals for radical change. The radical changes are implemented in a few sites, and the results are impressive. As their reforms become widespread, they usually collapse and fail. In time, those who have made a career of educating children are left with the task of cleaning up the mess left by the last bunch of reformers.

We are in the midst of the latest wave of reforms, and Steven Brill has positioned himself as the voice of the new reformers. These reforms are not just flawed, but actually dangerous to the future of American education. They would, if implemented, lead to the privatization of a large number of public schools and to the de-professionalization of education.

As Brill’s book shows, the current group of reformers consists of an odd combination of Wall Street financiers, conservative Republican governors, major foundations, and the Obama administration. The reformers believe that the way to “fix” our schools is to fire more teachers, based on the test scores of their students; to open more privately-managed charter schools; to reduce the qualifications for becoming a teacher; and to remove job protections for senior teachers.

[readon2 url="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/08/23/the-reform-movement-is-already-failing/"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

What Does a Teacher Do?

in

By Bob Sickles, President and Publisher, Eye On Education

As my staff and I began planning a roundtable webcast on teacher evaluation, a fundamental question emerged: What does a teacher do? Examining this question might shed some light on the teacher accountability debate which had been discussed in a recent issue of Education Week.

As the founder and CEO of a profitable education publishing company, I’m all for the entrepreneurial spirit and the push for accountability. Yet I feel uncomfortable when my MBA friend argues that our educational problems would be resolved if only schools would behave more like for-profit companies in the private sector. He wants to tie teacher evaluation to standardized test scores. His sole focus on high stakes tests is grounded in his desire to equate profit growth with test score increases.

[readon2 url="http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/08/22/guest-post-what-does-a-teacher-do/"]Continue reading...[/readon2]