John Stewart of the Daily Show, talked to Melody Barnes, President Obama’s chief of domestic policy about K-12 education reforms and Race to the top (RttT). Fascinating discussion in typical TDS fashion. Check it out.
The education reform movement sweeping the country with its emphasis on standardized testing may be impacting the future of the nation by stifling ingenuity, intuition and creativity in student learning. In his recent biography, "Steve Jobs," author Walter Isaacson points out that the genius of Jobs was that he was an intuitive thinker. Jobs was able, according to Isaacson, " to connect artistry to technology, poetry to processors." Steve Jobs' ability and genius to apply creativity to technology is what set him apart from his competition and what made Apple the leading technology company of the world.
One has to wonder with the emphasis today in most schools on standardized testing in which the diminished role of teachers is to simply "teach to the test," how many creative, intuitive and original thinkers will emerge from this sterile learning environment prevalent in most schools today? It is obvious that the so-called education reformers in the country, most of whom are non-educators, and who basically utilize a punitive "test and punish" strategy in every classroom in the country are devoid of any educational research whatsoever. They know nothing, for example, of early educational icons such as Jean Piaget, who has had a profound impact on educational pedagogy. Over the years, psychologists and educational researchers have built upon the pioneering work of Paiget in understanding that learning is not a simple matter of pouring information into the heads of students but, rather, that learning is an act in which people construct new understandings of the world through active exploration, experimentation, discussion and reflection.
Diane Ravitch, author of the "Death and Life of the Great American School System," has a brilliant description of so-called education reformers in this country in which she describes them as people who believe "that schools can be improved by more testing, more punishment of educators, (also known as "accountability"), more charter schools, and strict adherence to free-market principles in relation to teachers and students." Hence, one has to wonder in this type of school classroom in which accountability is the primary goal whether our students will ever become the type of free thinking, creative, intuitive adults that our society needs for leadership and progress.
[readon2 url="http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Time-to-occupy-the-education-reform-2341151.php#page-1"]continue reading...[/readon2]
Statewide Education News
A midyear cut in federal funds now leaves Toledo Public Schools with little wiggle room and facing possible future program cuts. The funding loss -- nearly $500,000 for Toledo's public, private, and charter schools -- came after congressional budget reduction deals led to about $8 million less federal money for Ohio schools. The cuts came largely to Title I funding, which is federal money dedicated to high-poverty schools. Read More…
The Ohio Department of Education awarded grants yesterday to two consortiums of school districts teaming up to coordinate transportation services and computer purchases to save money. “Better use of scarce public resources is a key element for improving Ohio’s educational system,” said Stan Heffner, superintendent of public instruction. “The grant proposal(s) not only will save money for area taxpayers, but also will be example(s) for other schools to follow.” Read More…
Local Issues
HILLIARD - Hilliard City Schools plans to install new security measures at all 14 of its elementary schools by the new year. Officials said that they want to know who is in their buildings at all times, and plans to install buzzers to let visitors and parents in the buildings. The buzzer at Ridgewood Elementary School was installed over Thanksgiving and the others plan to be installed before students return from winter break, CrimeTracker 10's Maureen Kocot said. Read More…
FAIRFIELD — Before the end of the 2011-12 school year, students in the Fairfield City School District will get an opportunity to use iPads in the classroom. The district was awarded a $20,000 grant by the Duke Energy Foundation at Thursday night’s Board of Education meeting for the purchase of iPads for student use. Read More…
Editorial
There's such a thing as tightening our collective belt or making do with less. When that happens, Californians raise fees or close another public office for a few additional days or cram a few more students into an already full classroom without screaming too loudly about it. But something entirely different is happening now: California is becoming a state that lets down its elderly, its disabled, its children and its college students in fundamental ways that will harm all of us in the years ahead. Read More…
Thanks to ODE for compiling todays news.
Education policies that affect millions of students have long been tied to test scores, but a new paper suggests those scores are regularly misinterpreted.
According to the new research out of Mathematica, a statistical research group, the comparisons sometimes used to judge school performance are more indicative of demographic change than actual learning.
For example: Last week's release of National Assessment of Educational Progress scores led to much finger-pointing about what's working and what isn't in education reform. But according to Mathematica, policy assessments based on raw test data is extremely misleading -- especially because year-to-year comparisons measure different groups of students.
"Every time the NAEP results come out, you see a whole slew of headlines that make you slap your forehead," said Steven Glazerman, an author of the paper and a senior fellow at Mathematica. "You draw all the wrong conclusions over whether some school or district was effective or ineffective based on comparisons that can't be indicators of those changes."
[readon2 url="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/test-scores-often-misused_n_1149501.html?ref=education&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008"]Continue reading...[/readon2]
The Shanker Institute has just released a policy brief titled "The Evidence on Charter Schools and Test Scores", which finds
The Ohio Department of Education's communications & Outreach team began compiling and sending out daily Ohio Education related newsclips. We'd like to thank them for this to be very useful free service. We're going to experiment with sharing this on JTF as a daily feature in the hope that our readers find it useful too. You can follow ODe on Twitter at www.twitter.com/oheducation.
Statewide Education News
A special board meeting was held Wednesday evening to address the dire financial situation at the Garfield Heights City Schools. According to the district, the financial situation remains bleak due to another failed levy. Over the past several years, the district has eliminated more than $4 million from the district's operating budget resulting in the loss of many teachers and educational opportunities for students. A recent Ohio Department of Education report has listed the Garfield Heights School District's performance index as one of the lowest in the state. Read More…
LIBERTY TWP. — With an increase in pay-to-participate fees, the Lakota Local School District has seen a decline in athletic participation numbers. The winter numbers are out, and all six schools — the two high schools (East and West) and four junior highs — all have declining athletic participation numbers. Pay-to-play is $550 per sport at the high school and $350 per sport at the junior high. There is no family cap. Last year’s pay-to-play fees were $300 and $200 for the high school and junior high, respectively, but continued budget cuts led Lakota to nearly double those fees for the 2011-12 school year. Read More…
Local Issues
Groveport Madison schools pitched a plan to families yesterday that would require uniforms for middle- and high-school students starting next fall, but many parents and students were adamantly opposed. Families will have another chance to learn about the proposal at a second forum at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 5 at Groveport Middle School South. District officials have been mulling the idea for the past two years, but the effort gained momentum in the spring, after high-school administrators presented benefits of uniforms at a school board meeting. Read More…
LORAIN — Facing a $12 million deficit, interim Lorain Schools Superintendent Ed Branham last night detailed options that include borrowing $6 million from the Ohio Department of Education, plus cutting an additional $6 million in spending. His final proposal is to be ready for the school board at the Jan. 11 meeting. After making $1.5 million in cuts in October, the school district still has a $10.5 million deficit to address. Under Ohio law, schools are not allowed to operate in the red. Read More…
Olmsted Falls school leaders have turned their talk to fixing, rather than eliminating, items in their buildings. That is due to the district’s 2.8-mill, 5-year, permanent improvement levy of Nov. 8 passing by seven votes, following recounts in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties where its boundaries extend. "For the last three years, our conversations dealt with what can we cut, eliminate and squeeze," said school Superintendent Todd F. Hoadley. Read More…
Editorial
The U.S. economy has shifted so dramatically that education must shift accordingly. But a couple of statistics hint that that shift has yet to fully occur. State Superintendent Stan W. Heffner points out a glaring disconnect between high-school standards and college expectations. If more than half of Ohio’s school districts are rated excellent or better by the state, Heffner asked during a speech last week before charter-school administrators, why do 41 percent of high-school students need remedial classes when they get to college? Read More…
Children are worth concessions. That's the positive lesson expressed in a tentative agreement Cleveland teachers will be voting on beginning today (Wednesday, Dec. 15) and continuing until Dec. 21. There is reason for optimism. In an interview, David Quolke, Cleveland Teachers Union president, described the proposed settlement as "good for kids and fair to our members." The $7 million in teacher concessions would be achieved primarily by giving up some teacher calamity and professional days this school year along with higher health co-pays for the next two years. Read More…
Budget crunches have left many schools with little choice but to cut funding for things state law doesn’t require them to provide, and that has left arts and physical-education instruction in the lurch in many Ohio elementary and middle schools. Pickerington City Schools officials and teachers deserve credit for adapting to harsh budget realities and finding a way to continue arts and phys-ed instruction with less than half the staff of a year ago. Read More…