Education News for 01-27-2012

Statewide Education News

• Charters’ treasurer owes Ohio $617,260 (Dispatch)

A New Albany man owes the state more than $600,000 because he mismanaged taxpayer dollars meant for kids at several charter schools, the state auditor said yesterday. At least two schools closed in financial ruin, including Montessori Renaissance Experience in Columbus. Carl W. Shye Jr. has been hit with 25 findings at three schools since last year, including the auditor’s announcement yesterday that he must repay $112,000 that he collected on behalf of Montessori Renaissance Experience — even after it no longer had students. Read More…

• Fiscal emergency would be ‘ugly’ for Lorain Schools (Morning Journal)

LORAIN — The Lorain school board was told going through the steps to fiscal emergency is an “ugly” process. The board heard a presentation from Roger Hardin, assistant director for finance program services with the Ohio Department of Education, regarding what fiscal emergency is and what they can do. “Lorain Schools is in fiscal caution,” Hardin told them. “I will throw this out there in the beginning, everything we do at my office is to try and avoid fiscal emergency.” Read More…

• School Choice Ohio program set to expand (Repository)

CANTON — Representatives from School Choice Ohio (SCO) hosted a news conference Thursday morning with families, teachers and students at Heritage Christian School to celebrate Ohio School Choice Week. Heritage Christian School has the most EdChoice students in Stark County with 87. The vouchers allow students in poor performing schools to attend private schools that accept the voucher. Read More…

Local Issues

• Local parents sing praises of EdChoice scholarships (Vindicator)

Youngstown - Through the EdChoice scholarship program, Cindi Hilson is able to send her three children to Youngstown Christian School. “Without [the EdChoice scholarship], even though my husband works, we wouldn’t be able to afford to send all three of them,” she said. “Maybe one of them could come here.” EdChoice allows children whose residential school is considered low-performing to attend a private school using a voucher. The Hilson family lives within the city school district. Read More…

• Garfield Heights schools reduce staff, increase pay to play (WEWS 5 ABC)

GARFIELD HEIGHTS - Already faced with shortened school days and the elimination of art, music and gym classes, students in the Garfield Heights City School District will have to pay more to participate in extra-curricular activities next school year. The Garfield Heights school board voted Thursday to go to full pay to participate during the 2012-2013 school year, and to eliminate 48 positions in an effort to balance its budget. Read More…

Editorial

• Realistic standards (Dispatch)

Charter schools that serve dropouts and students at risk of quitting school can’t fairly be judged by the same standards as other schools, but they should be judged. Families in the unhappy position of needing that sort of help for their children deserve to know which ones are most effective. To date, this has been hard to determine, because the state Department of Education had only one set of criteria for measuring charter schools’ effectiveness, and most dropout-recovery schools earned dismal marks. Read More…

Education News for 01-26-2012

State Education News

• In Ohio, dropout law hard to enforce – (Columbus Dispatch)

During Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Barack Obama urged states to require students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18 — a law already in effect in Ohio and 19 other states. Still, at least 23,000 Ohio teens dropped out in the 2010-11 school year. Read More…

• Reynoldsburg ex-superintendent to become Kasich’s education czar – (Columbus Dispatch)

Gov. John Kasich has tapped former Reynoldsburg school Superintendent Richard A. Ross to head the Governor’s Office of 21st Century Education. Read More…

Local Issues

• SWCS audit goals nearly finished – (Grove City ThisWeek)

The recommendations of a performance audit issued by the Ohio Auditor’s Office in 2010 have led the South-Western City School District to cut expenses by at least $3.2 million a year, school officials said. The audit made 28 recommendations, and the school board on Jan. 23 was told the district has two left to address. Read More…

• State Steps In to Help Struggling School District – (Fox8 Cleveland)

MEDINA COUNTY, Ohio— Cloverleaf Schools are in the red, declaring a state of fiscal emergency. Now, the State of Ohio is stepping in to help. Read More…

• 200-plus jobs, sports could be cut – (Westerville ThisWeek)

Pinning the future on a March levy, the Westerville Board of Education on Jan. 23 approved $16.7 million in additional budget cuts, and at the same time approved a list of which programs would be first to return if voters approve Issue 10.Read More…

Editorial

• Liberty faces up-hill climb– (Vindicator Letter to Editor)

Liberty school district, I pray for your recovery. You have been led down a dangerous path by the Ohio lawmakers and Department of Education. Please stay diligent and show them both that local control can work. Read More…

Unworkable "solutions"

This letter is in response to a Dispatch Op-Ed column published Wednesday, January 25th.

Dear Ms. Smith,

Your January 25 Dispatch column starts by lamenting “More and more money, a lot of tinkering, constant reforms and so little change,” and worrying because “The recession and state budget woes set off alarms, warning that many education needs can’t be met if we keep this up.” But then your suggestions are in large part old suggestions, unworkable, or expensive.

Year-round school, four-day school weeks, education via technology, state-leveraged purchases (buses, etc.), “best practices”/reports, and prefab buildings (“trailers”) have all been around for a while. And who will pay for the air conditioning needed for year-round school? How much expensive investment will techno-ed require if it is broadly applied in all schools? And many schools already temporarily use prefab classrooms to address population fluctuations.

You mention exempting prevailing wage. So, is it a new idea to pay for tax cuts by taking it out of working people’s income? You complain about “More and more money,” but apparently money taken from workers doesn’t count. Your suggestions don’t really seem to be against spending money. How will orphanages be paid for? Don’t you think that eliminating grade levels would require greater expenditures on personnel, software, and planning/ oversight? Do you agree with the governor that this could all be paid for by effectively eliminating collective bargaining for educational employees?

Statewide collective bargaining for salary or salary and fringes would be interesting. Do you actually think the well-to-do suburban schools would reduce their present levels to some overall average? Would the state raise all poor schools to the level of Upper Arlington, or even to a state-average level? We already have a ridiculously low minimum salary schedule.

Moreover, collective bargaining involves many more IMPORTANT aspects beyond salary, such as working conditions, fair and professional treatment, due process in discipline, sensible educational policy, and more. How would a state-level bargaining entity deal with such questions coming from over six hundred districts? Either the local boards would have to deal with this – eating up much of the “savings” – or you intend that such matters would no longer be considered. If the latter, then you would diminish the profession.

Without these options teachers have no way to demand respect, no real way to help mold policy, no way to counteract prejudice, nepotism, vendettas, foolish board policy, and other matters that harm teachers, students, and the educational process.

You end with: “Ohio can either greatly increase systemwide productivity or continue to rely on more local taxes, more district cuts and doing less with less.” Are those the only options? Why are you willing to frame the options as increase local taxes and make district cuts versus taking needed funds out of workers’ standard of living (I know: part of it – you think – would come from “productivity”)– but you don’t even mention calling for higher, progressive taxes to “stop the cuts in important areas such as preschool, the arts and foreign languages”? Is this any different from Tea Party types who MUST balance the budget by cutting the safety net but won’t touch taxing millionaires?

Finally, I am shocked by your asking a Republican governor and legislature, which supposedly hates “big government,” “Tzars,” and the federal Department of Education, to set up a “a board, which would have authority over early childhood, elementary, secondary and higher education, and could make the system function more cohesively.” What happened to “local control”? And even if local boards continue to exist in some form, isn’t this super board, as conservatives like to say, “just another level of worthless, expensive bureaucracy”?

All in all, I don’t think Einstein would be pleased with your column. It doesn’t seem that different from the same old easy (to say) fixes and politically oriented silver bullets. Much of it is entirely impossible to implement - for political and economic reasons; some cannot be universally or properly implemented; some is destructive of a valuable profession.

And your selection of types to serve on the “expert panel” is astounding: “certified public accountants, economists, futurists and technologists and perhaps be chaired by Ohio’s state auditor.” These are the “experts” – not one of them is connected to education in any way. None of them is qualified to understand education! Clearly, you are looking at money, not the education of kids. Would you make the same recommendation regarding a medical practice “expert panel” and keep everyone connected to medicine off the panel? Maybe, if you worked for a health insurance company.

Education doesn’t change because the power structure won’t deal with the real problems and people who have a public platform make proposals like yours that serve the power structure.

Yours - Tom Harker
Retired School Teacher.

Education News for 01-25-2012

Statewide Education News

• New voucher effort serves special-needs students (Dispatch)

Ohio is about to launch its fourth tax-funded education-voucher program, this one for students with special needs. The application process is expected to begin in early February for the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship, named after the former state representative from Delaware who pushed for the program. The vouchers — up to $20,000 a year — will be available for the 2012-13 school year. Supporters say the program will give students with disabilities access to services tailored to meet their needs. Read More…

• Cloverleaf school district placed in fiscal emergency, state oversight (Beacon Journal)

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost placed Medina County’s Cloverleaf school district in fiscal emergency Tuesday because the district cannot overcome a nearly $600,000 deficit this June. The following year, the deficit will balloon to $2.6 million. The declaration means the district can borrow money from the state, but must submit all financial decisions — including whether to put a levy on the ballot — to a state commission for approval. Within the next 15 days, a five-member commission will be formed to oversee Cloverleaf’s finances. Read More…

• Ohio schools boost ranking in 2 U.S. studies (Dayton Daily News)

Ohio ranked 10th and 21st for its K-12 education performance and policy as compared to all other states and the District of Columbia for 2011, according to two national studies released this month. In a third study, released today by the National Council on Teacher Quality, the state’s teachers tied for fifth in the nation. According to the NCTQ, Ohio teachers earned a “C+” for 2011 in biennial report. The state had received a “D+” two years ago, making it one of the most improved states according to the most recent study. Read More…

Local Issues

• Youngstown schools distress commission gets another new leader (Vindicator)

Youngstown - The commission charged with developing a plan to move the city schools out of academic distress has a new leader for the second time in three months. Richard Ross, retired superintendent of Reynoldsburg Schools near Columbus, announced his resignation as commission chairman this week. Adrienne O’Neill, a commission member, will take his place. Stan Heffner, state superintendent of public instruction, had appointed Ross last November to lead the academic distress commission, the only one in the state. Read More…

• Riverside Schools to cut 25 teachers (News-Herald)

In a situation becoming quite common in the area, another school district announced teacher layoffs to help balance the budget. At a school board meeting Tuesday night, Riverside Schools announced the district will cut 25 teachers to help make up lost revenue after three failed levies. The elimination of the teaching positions will save the district about $1.5 million of the $3.1 million deficit, Superintendent James Kalis said. Read More…

• Youngstown board resolves union issues (Vindicator)

Youngstown - The school board has resolved two unfair-labor practice charges filed by the teachers union. The Youngstown Education Association filed a charge last April with the State Employment Relations Board after the Youngstown Academic Distress Commission returned management rights to the school district. Some management rights had been relinquished in collective- bargaining agreements. But because the district was in academic emergency last year and under the commission’s control, the law allows the commission to restore those rights to the district. Read More…

• Richmond Heights School Board terminates contract with lawyer investigating superintendent (News-Herald)

The Richmond Heights School Board voted 3-2 Monday to terminate the services of Charles Tyler, the attorney who had been working on the investigation of Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick. Hardwick was relieved of her duties with pay in November pending the investigation of her alleged misappropriation of district property, specifically confidential documents and emails. That investigation has come to a close, but pending issues still exist, and information from Tyler’s report has not been made public as of yet. Read More…

Editorial

• Expert panel could revamp education in Ohio (Dispatch)

Albert Einstein told us that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Sound like our educational system? More and more money, a lot of tinkering, constant reforms and so little change. The recession and state budget woes set off alarms, warning that many education needs can’t be met if we keep this up. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan now talks about the New Normal. Read More…

Natural disaster based ed reform

Corporate education reformers will latch on to anything to portray their preferred policies as being effective. Terry Ryan of the Fordham Foundation has one of the most ridiculous efforts to date

Is it time for urban school superintendents to move from being Reformers to Relinquishers? Yes, is the compelling case that Neerav Kingsland makes today over at Straight Up. Kingsland, chief strategy officer for New Schools for New Orleans, writes that reform-minded superintendents should embrace the lessons from New Orleans, a key one being that the academic achievement gains made in the Big Easy have not come from traditional reforms and tweaks to the system. Rather, the changes in New Orleans are the result of virtually replacing the traditional, centralized, bureaucratic system of one-size-fits-all command and control with a system of independent high-performing charter schools all held accountable by the center for their academic performance.

That's one heck of a claim, but the entire piece misses one astoundingly obvious and important fact. New Orleans suffered one of the worst natural disasters to ever afflict a US city, and as a consequence the demographics of the city changed dramatically.

The aftermath of the 2005 storm, which took 1,835 lives and caused an estimated $81 billion in property damage, has left the city with an older, wealthier and less diverse population, according to data recently released by the Nielsen company. If its findings are confirmed by the 2010 Census, that information could go a long way in helping the city attract businesses and outside capital to continue rebuilding.

According to Nielsen, New Orleans lost 595,205 people prior to and shortly after Katrina, dropping it from the country's 35th largest market in 2000 to the 49th largest market in 2006. Atlanta, Houston and Dallas received the bulk of Katrina refugees. Now in 2010, New Orleans ranks as the 46th largest market with 1,194,196 persons. Nielsen projects the city will have a population of 1,264,365 in 2015 and will likely remain ranked as the 46th largest market in the U.S.

"The city has become older (the median age rose from 34 to 38.8), less diverse (the white non-Hispanic population increased from 25.8% to 30.9%) and a bit wealthier (median income rose from $31,369 to $39,530)," says the Nielsen report. The challenge now for New Orleans is to find ways to use some of these changes to help attract the developers and corporations who could help the city rebound.

The population got smaller, richer. It's not a stretch to understand that these factors, and not some corporate education reform policies that have failed to work at scale anywhere are the cause for any aggregate gains in student performance in New Orleans.

Unless, along with getting superintendents to relinquish control of their districts, corporate education reformers can also summon great floods and pestilence, we might be better off not throwing everything out the window just yet.

Kids ride filthy, broken privatized buses

One of the provisions contained in the state budget (HB153) that has gone mostly unremarked was the privatization of some education support services, such as transportation

Privatization of School District Transportation Services

Permits non-Civil Service school districts (local, exempted and some city) to terminate transportation employees for reasons of economy and efficiency and contract with an independent agent if various conditions are satisfied, including that any CBA covering employees to be terminated has expired or will expire within 60 days. The independent agent is required to consider hiring terminated employees for similar positions. In addition, the independent agent is required to recognize any employee organization, for the purposes of collective bargaining, that represented employees at the time of termination.

It's supposed to save money, mostly by firing bus drivers and then re-hiring them at lower wages and with poorer benefits.

But that isn't the only corner cutting private school busing companies appear to want to engage in.

The Columbus school district’s private bus contractor, First Student Inc., was forced to park six of its buses last week after surprise inspections found loose seats, holes in the floor and other safety issues.

The State Highway Patrol, which inspects school buses, found unsafe conditions on eight of the nine buses it checked on Jan. 18 and 19. All eight were declared unfit to drive, although two of them were repaired right away and cleared for use.

The inspection of the busses happened quite by accident, due to one bus running a red light, but when the inspectors looked at all the buses what they found was quite shocking

Inspectors noted that some of the nine buses they checked didn’t have working windshield wipers. Others had inoperative taillights, brake lights, horns and warning buzzers. Rust had eaten away at the back of one bus, leaving sharp edges and a hole where air could flow in.

Several buses were dinged for being “filthy,” with trash strewn throughout the bus and on the floor, a hazard for students as they walk the aisles.

The rest of the article details other problems with this private bus company, including it being on probation 2 previous years. This is just another dimension to the privatization of public education tax dollars under the banner of corporate education reform. $14.2 million a year for kids to ride in filthy, broken buses.