Confessions of a bad teacher

in

Assign spelling words or read a short story in class, and it would take all of my wits to keep the texting, talking, sleeping and wrestling in check. But make it 80 words on "Would you give up your cellphone for one year for $500?" and every student -- even those who never did any schoolwork -- handed in a paper. When I read these essays to the class in dramatic, radio-announcer fashion, there was silence punctuated by hoots of laughter or roars of agreement or disagreement.

It was almost magic. It was really fun. And I often could squeeze in some spelling, even punctuation. But we weren't always quiet.

And, according to my personnel file at the New York City Department of Education, I was "unprofessional," "insubordinate" and "culturally insensitive."

In other words, I was a bad teacher.

[readon2 url="http://www.salon.com/life/education/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/08/29/confessions_of_a_bad_teacher"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Ohio education budget and policy briefing

in

On August 29, 2011, The Educational Service Center of Central Ohio, the Columbus Urban League, and KidsOhio.org co-hosted a budget briefing. The new State Superintendent of Education, Stan Heffner, and other Ohio Department of Education staff explained the many budgetary and policy changes in the newly-enacted, two-year state budget.

We were going to write a report on this presenation, that covered a diverse range of issues from the move away from minimum competency to college readiness, accountability, the budget, common core standards etc. There was a lot of corporate speak in this presenation, including such turns of phrase as "return on investment" and even a graph that shows arrows going up and down that's intended to mask the drastic budget cuts.

But, rather than write that report we thought we'd take all the words in the presenation and produce this word scramble. The more a word was used, the bigger it is. It's clear to see where the emphasis is, and just as importantly, where it is not.

Here's the powerpoint of the presentation that was given

Ohio Education Budget 829

Here's the video of the presentation. You'll want to fast forward past the introductions to the 13 minute mark for the beginning of the actual presentation. The presentation ends at 1 hour 10 minutes, then there's a Q&A

Watch live streaming video from escofcentralohio at livestream.com

A process with little credibility

in

NPR StateImpact has published a story about the Governor's education Czar and teacher liaison's unusual approach to developing a teacher evaluation system

As Dove explains it, her job now is to gather input from teachers on the new evaluation system and performance pay plans coming to Ohio public schools and to package it into a report later this year for Robert Sommers, the governor’s lead education advisor, and the Ohio Board of Education.

“I’m here to advocate for my profession,” said Dove, who met Kasich while working as a production assistant on his Fox News show, before she decided to become a teacher.

Sounds great in theory, only in practice the effort is less sincere

What Dove hasn’t been doing in her role as Ohio’s teacher liaison is talking with education union leaders. She and Sommers have held 19 meetings with teachers to hear their thoughts on how they should be evaluated and paid. But those meetings have been by-invitation-only. Leaders of the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers have not received invites.

“I’m going through the emails that we’ve received and looking for people that have valuable things to add. We’re meeting with those people,” Dove said.

As the NPR article points out, the Education Standards Board has already spent a number of years developing an evaluation system, and has done so in collaboration with teachers and their associations. It's a process with buy-in and credibility.

Why the Governor's Education Czar, Robert Sommers, and his appointed teacher liaison would want to try to develop this parallel track isn't totally clear, though the partisan disdain for education associations should be noted throughout the article.

What is clear is that this self selecting, somewhat petty and amateurish approach to public policy development can only lead to policy that has no credibility and sustainability.

Mr. Sommers may feel like he can avoid having serious discussions with education associations and their professionals, but with SB5's future very uncertain, any teacher evaluation system is going to need the buy-in from associations in order to pass muster through any collective bargaining agreement.

It's not like Education associations and federations are opposed to evaluation measures, as has been pointed out, they have worked diligently as part of the ESB to develop frameworks. Further evidence of reform minded approaches can be seen in the Cincinnati Public Schools, where we reported some time ago that the teachers entered into a merit pay and evaluation system not dissimilar to what some reformers would prefer.

If Mr. Sommers wants an evaluation system that has credibility, sustainability and can be adopted under collective bargaining, then it's high time he and his liaison started having serious discussions with all the major stakeholders, not just some select meetings with a chosen few, spattered with a few caustic Facebook and Twitter messages designed to needle many of those who the policies seek to affect.

Analysis shows charters underperform in Ohio's big 8

in

Every year, the state of Ohio releases an enormous amount of district- and school-level performance data. Since Ohio has among the largest charter school populations in the nation, the data provide an opportunity to examine performance differences between charters and regular public schools in the state.

Ohio’s charters are concentrated largely in the urban “Ohio 8” districts (sometimes called the “Big 8”): Akron; Canton; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus; Dayton; Toledo; and Youngstown. Charter coverage varies considerably between the “Ohio 8” districts, but it is, on average, about 20 percent, compared with roughly five percent across the whole state. I will therefore limit my quick analysis to these districts.
[...]
In short, there are significant differences between charters and regular public schools in the likelihood that they receive different ratings, even controlling for the student characteristics mentioned above. To make things simpler, let’s take a look at how “being a charter school” affects the predicted probability of receiving ratings using three different “cutoff” points: The odds of schools receiving the rating of “continuous improvement” or better; “effective” or better; and “excellent” or better. The graph below represents the change in probability for charter schools.

The difference between the two types of schools in the probability of receiving “excellent” or better (-0.02, or two percent) is small and not statistically significant. The other two differences, on the other hand, are both large and significant. Charter schools are 13 percent less likely to receive a rating of “effective” or better, and they are 22 percent less likely to receive “continuous improvement” or better.

[readon2 url="http://shankerblog.org/?p=3554"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

State Charter Law Punishes Ohio’s Largest Districts

in

The release of the latest school report card data is proving to be a fly in the ointment of a lot of people who were making hay running around claiming Ohio's education system was in crisis and required radical, extreme changes. Contrary to that misbegotten belief, Ohio's public schools are showing widespread improvements, even in large urban districts that have long suffered under Ohio's unfair funding model.

Policy Matters Ohio recently released the information below, on how the recent chart expansion law is going to further hinder this progress.

That progress is in stark contrast to the 2011 charter school report card, which continues to show terrible overall results, with only 1 in 5 charter schools rated as effective or better

Designation 2011 % of Charters 2010 % of Charters
Academic Emergency 20.9% 23.8%
Academic Watch 16.8% 16.6%
Continuous Improvement 28.9% 30.4%
Effective 11.8% 10.0%
Excellent 7.4% 8.5%
Excellent with Distinction 1.5% 0.3%
Not Rated 12.7% 10.3%

Charters versus Districts: CPE, a statewide group of education, parent and civic organizations was quoted in Gongwer

The coalition said report cards show that although strengthened accountability has led to improved performance for some charter schools, a significant drop-off exists on performance index scores between the highly rated charters and the majority of poorly performing ones.
[...]
About two dozen community schools performed well on the performance index, which is a weighted measure of individual student assessment scores. CPE said those schools deserve further examination, but overall charters fall short compared to district schools. Only 7% of charter schools would rate in the top half of traditional public schools on the performance index rankings.

"We are encouraged that legislative changes in charter school accountability over the past few years seem to be having a positive impact, but are concerned that loosening those measures - as was done this summer in House Bill 153- will cause these modest gains to be quickly lost," Ohio Parent Teacher Association President Gloria Cazan said.

"This improvement happened with better accountability standards implemented, not the hands-off approach lawmakers took in the first eight years of the charter school program."

When it comes to the poster child of the failed charter experiment, White Hat Management, this is the best they can say about themselves

"This year's academic data highlights the challenges faced by some of our schools," CEO Tom Barrett said. "We're focused on improvement and will redouble our efforts to improve the quality of instruction and outcomes for our students."

It's clearly time to reevaluate their continued provision of education in Ohio, especially in light of the continued improvement of Ohio's traditional schools and the negative impact failing charters are having on that improvement.

State Charter Law Punishes Ohio’s Largest Districts