Education News for 03-13-2012

Statewide Education News

• How the state will rank school spending (Dispatch)

Among the slew of school rankings we'll see on this year's report cards is a best-to-worst efficiency ranking based on per-pupil spending. The rankings will be based entirely on operational expenditures -- money spent to run the school district. So no facilities spending will be included. Read More…

• Group wants students to withdraw (Vindicator)

Youngstown - A community group plans to target the city school district’s 1,500 lowest-performing students, asking their parents to withdraw them from the schools. Jimma McWilson of the Community High Commission declined to specify how those students would be targeted, or during what time frame. The commission, which McWilson says includes about 50 members plus several affiliated groups, called a news conference Monday at the East Side branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. Read More…

• Kasich hails Cleveland school plan (Dispatch)

Gov. John Kasich is praying and begging for support for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s plan to overhaul the city’s schools, saying it’s a model that could be used in urban districts across Ohio. “I’m begging you as human beings to not let this go down the drain,” Kasich told the State Board of Education at its monthly meeting yesterday in Columbus. The governor urged the 19-member board to back the plan, which might be included in a mid-biennium review of the state budget that Kasich plans to unveil on Wednesday. Read More…

• State to lower ratings of area schools (Findlay Courier)

Almost every area school district that received an "excellent" rating on last year's state-issued report card would see that rating demoted if a new, tougher evaluation system is used. Arcadia, Findlay City, Liberty-Benton, McComb and Van Buren schools were all given excellent ratings, the equivalent of an A, for the 2010-11 school year. Had the new evaluation system been in place, all five districts would have instead received an "effective" rating, the equivalent of a B. The state plans to begin using the new system this year. Read More…

Local Issues

• Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson unveils draft legislation to support schools plan (Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND - Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson hopes to line up a legislative sponsor for his schools plan yet this month and is aiming for the necessary changes in state law by May and a tax increase this fall. Read More…

• New school rating system would reduce grades (Coshocton Tribune)

COSHOCTON - All county schools would drop a grade level if judged by a new system the state plans to put in place. "They're increasing the rigor, and it's nothing that we haven't anticipated," said Rick Raach, Ridgewood Local School District superintendent. Read More…

• School district grades drop under new rating system (Times-Recorder)

Three Muskingum County schools were rated excellent on the last state report card, but none of them would have achieved that rating under the state's new evaluation system. In fact, almost every Ohio school district rated excellent or higher on the state's 2011 report card -- the equivalent of an A -- would drop to a B or lower under proposed changes to the rating system. Read More…

• State gives Lorain Schools a ‘D’; Under new grading scale, not one district in Lorain County earned an ‘A’ (Morning Journal)

Under the proposed changes in how the state grades school districts, not one district in Lorain County would receive a top mark from the state. Under the new A to F grading scale, the highest grade a Lorain County school would receive is a B, according to the Ohio department of Education. Read More…

• Resident praises embattled principal (Advertiser-Tribune, Tiffin)

OLD FORT - During an Old Fort Local Board of Education meeting Monday evening, a district resident spoke out in support of an administrator who was suspended without pay Feb. 27. After the board spent 20 minutes in executive session, Anna Alexander described Tom Weaver, principal of grades 7-12 and athletic director, as a wonderful person and decent man. Read More…

• New Riegel board learns of new grading system for school districts (Advertiser-Tribune, Tiffin)

New Riegel Board of Education members learned a new accountability system may go into effect that would change the school's state report card significantly. Superintendent Elaine Nye said the Ohio Department of Education has submitted a waiver to the U.S. Department of Education for the new system. Read More…

• Parents set up experiments (Vindicator)

Canfield - Students at Hilltop Elementary are spending the week playing with science. On Monday, Hilltop fourth-graders took turns with hands-on science, technology, engineering and math experiments that were designed and organized by about 50 parent volunteers over the course of several months, said Principal Cathy Mowry. Throughout the week, the other grade levels also will participate. Mowry said the experiments were created with the kids in mind. Read More…

• Willoughby-Eastlake Schools proposes new grading scale (News-Herald)

While many supporters are still celebrating the passage of the Willoughby-Eastlake School levy, the school board got back to work and had its first meeting at Kennedy Community School on Monday night since the election. A revision to the district's grading scale was proposed that would put Willoughby-Eastlake more in line with other schools, Superintendent Steve Thompson said. "What we have found is that our grading scale is higher than almost every school district around," Thompson said. Read More…

• Lakota schools' budget ax falls (Enquirer)

LIBERTY TWP. — When Lakota students start next school year, they will see fewer teachers, staff specialists and have fewer course options, thanks to about $10.5 million in sweeping budget cuts approved Monday night by the district’s school board. The Lakota board voted to accept some of the deepest budget reductions in the 18,000-student district’s 55-year history. The district is running out of money after voters have rejected three tax hikes in two years. Read More…

• Spring Valley to close, saves district $300K annually (Morning Journal)

ELYRIA — Spring Valley Early Childhood Center will close at the end of the year, sending young students to other buildings in a move that will save the district $300,000 annually, according to Superintendent Paul Rigda. Kindergarten students now attending Spring Valley will attend Windsor Elementary School, 264 Windsor Drive, in the fall, and Spring Valley’s preschool classes, for developing students and special-needs children, will be at the district’s Administration Building, 42101 Griswold Road. Read More…

Editorial

• Use caution with open enrollment (Tribune Chronicle)

Now that Liberty Local Schools has approved open enrollment, the district has a fighting chance of escaping state fiscal oversight sooner rather than later, improving its academic standing and avoiding another levy request on a community beleaguered by an extraordinary tax rate. The Board of Education last month unanimously approved reinstating open enrollment. This is noteworthy because so many parents attended the meeting to oppose the decision, and the district closed enrollment two years ago in answer to parental protests. Read More…

• Enhanced degree (Dispatch)

Any way that students can get a head start on a quality college education — and at a discount — is welcome. Reynoldsburg City Schools students soon might get the opportunity to graduate with both a diploma and an associate’s degree, through a partnership being considered by the district and Columbus State Community College. Officials still are working out details, including how much the high-school students would have to pay for the college credit, but a Columbus State spokesman says the cost will be “dramatically less” than the $79 per college credit hour that other students pay. Read More…

Science Fact

Corporate education reform science fiction, is having an unintended(?) science fact effect.

First the science

If VAM scores are at all accurate, there ought to be a significant correlation between a teacher's score one year compared to the next. In other words, good teachers should have somewhat consistently higher scores, and poor teachers ought to remain poor. He created a scatter plot that put the ratings from 2009 on one axis, and the ratings from 2010 on the other axis. What should we expect here? If there is a correlation, we should see some sort of upward sloping line.

There is one huge takeway from all this. VAM ratings are not an accurate reflection of a teacher's performance, even on the narrow indicators on which they focus. If an indicator is unreliable, it is a farce to call it "objective."

This travesty has the effect of discrediting the whole idea of using test score data to drive reform. What does it say about "reformers" when they are willing to base a large part of teacher and principal evaluations on such an indicator?

That travesty is now manifesting itself in real personal terms.

In 2009, 96 percent of their fifth graders were proficient in English, 89 percent in math. When the New York City Education Department released its numerical ratings recently, it seemed a sure bet that the P.S. 146 teachers would be at the very top.

Actually, they were near the very bottom.
[...]
Though 89 percent of P.S. 146 fifth graders were rated proficient in math in 2009, the year before, as fourth graders, 97 percent were rated as proficient. This resulted in the worst thing that can happen to a teacher in America today: negative value was added.

The difference between 89 percent and 97 percent proficiency at P.S. 146 is the result of three children scoring a 2 out of 4 instead of a 3 out of 4.

While Ms. Allanbrook does not believe in lots of test prep, her fourth-grade teachers do more of it than the rest of the school.

In New York City, fourth-grade test results can determine where a child will go to middle school. Fifth-grade scores have never mattered much, so teachers have been free to focus on project-based learning. While that may be good for a child’s intellectual development, it is hard on a teacher’s value-added score.

These teachers are not the only ones.

Bill Turque tells the story of teacher Sarah Wysocki, who was let go by D.C. public schools because her students got low standardized test scores, even though she received stellar personal evaluations as a teacher.

She was evaluated under the the D.C. teacher evaluation system, called IMPACT, a so-called “value-added” method of assessing teachers that uses complicated mathematical formulas that purport to tell how much “value” a teacher adds to how much a student learns.

As more data is demanded, more analysis can be done to demonstrate how unreliable it is for these purposes, and consequently we are guaranteed to read more stories of good teachers becoming victims of bad measurements. It's unfortunate we're going to have to go through all this to arrive at this understanding.

Simple thinking, bad reporting

Providing a broad based education for K-12 is a very complex endeavor. It's that complexity which makes it difficult to distill what policies work and what don't, when so many variables affect student outcomes.

However, a cottage industry is being developed to reduce the entire topic of public education to a letter grade or a single number. It's as though these architects of simplicity have read Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and determined that maybe because the answer to "the earth, universe and everything" is 42, it's should be even easier to grade a school as a simple C, or a teacher to a 1.07.

The problem of course is that much like Douglas Adams' novel, this thinking is also science fiction. To distill complexities down to such simple terms, means making highly subjective decisions and ignoring, or worse, being oblivious to, multiple variables.

A few cases in point. Ohio is about to deploy a new school rating system, based upon subjective measures, and ignoring a host of other factors.

As an educator and parent I could rail for days about the lack of actual meaning behind any letter grade, whether an A or an F, and this is a decision that even Rick Santorum would call anachronistic. If your child brings home a ‘C’ on his report card, what does that mean? Does than mean he’s working his ass off and completing all of his homework but struggling with expressing his knowledge on written tests? Or does it mean that he’s uninterested in completing homework that isn’t challenging him while attaining perfect scores on assessments? Or does it just mean that he is earning consistent C’s on every single assignment whether in-class, homework, quizzes, or tests? Perhaps it’s some combination of the above, so what does that tell you or your son about what he needs to do to improve?

See how clear those letter grades are?

Separating the effects of economic factors from school performance doesn't appear to have been one of the major efforts undertaken, even though we have known for a long time that a students socioeconomic status, and that of the school district is the leading predictor of performance, by far.

Another recent example has been the use of teacher level value add scores by New York's print media

The article is a pretty remarkable display of both poor journalism and poor research. The reporters not only attempted to do something they couldn’t do, but they did it badly to boot. It’s unfortunate to have to waste one’s time addressing this kind of thing, but, no matter your opinion on charter schools, it’s a good example of how not to use the data that the Daily News and other newspapers released to the public.
[...]
However, we can’t take the performance categories – or the Daily News’ “analysis” of them – at face value. Their approach has one virtue – it’s easy to understand, and easy to do. But it has countless downsides, one of them being that it absolutely cannot prove – or even really suggest – what they’re saying it proves. I don’t know if the city’s charter teachers have higher value-added scores. It’s an interesting question (by my standards, at least), but the Daily News doesn’t address it meaningfully.

Though far from the only one, the reporters’ biggest problem was right in front of them. The article itself notes that only about half (32) of the city’s charter schools chose to participate in the rating program (it was voluntary for charters). This is actually the total number of participating schools in 2008, 2009 and 2010, most of which rotated in and out of the program each year. It’s apparently lost on these reporters that only a minority of charters participating means that the charter teachers in the TDR data do not necessarily reflect the population overall. This issue by itself renders their assertions invalid and irresponsible.

Simple thinking, and bad education reporting is a major impediment to real education reform that will improve the quality of our schools.

Why is it that a politician, such as Mayor Frank Jackson, can put forward plans to eliminate teacher seniority, and it not be pointed out that teaching experience matters, and that if his goal is to improve the quality of Cleveland's public schools, his chosen policy preference is antithetical to that?

Research suggests that students learn more from experienced teachers (those with at least five years of experience) than they do from less experienced teachers (NCES 2000d; Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain 1998; Murnane and Phillips 1981.) These studies point primarily to the difference between teachers with fewer than five years of experience (new teachers) and teachers with five or more years of experience.

If that wasn't simple enough, of course there are even more complex answers to this question.

But these overall findings ignore the fact that the experience/achievement relationship differs a great deal by context. For instance, the returns to experience appear to vary by where teachers work. The relationship is more consistent among elementary school teachers (especially compared with those in high schools). The effect of experience on teacher productivity may also be mediated by the quality of their peers in the same school – i.e., that novice teachers with more effective peers in the same school do better.

Similarly, there is evidence that experience matters less – or less consistently – in poorer schools (also see here). There are several plausible explanations for this discrepancy, such as the possibility that teachers in poorer schools burn out more rapidly, or that there are difficulties in teaching lower-income children that are harder to adjust to.

The experience factor not only varies by where you teach, but also by what you teach. Math teachers seem to improve more quickly (and consistently) than reading teachers, while newer evidence suggests that the same is true for teachers who remain in the same grade for multiple years.

Finally, it bears mentioning the obvious point that the effect of teacher experience might be totally different if we were able to look at outcomes other than test scores. The idea that experience doesn’t matter after five or so years incorrectly implies that test scores are the only relevant outcome. Nobody believes that is the case. (And, for what it’s worth, teachers with whom I’ve spoken find the idea that they stop improving after four or five years laughable.)

Instead the debate over the Mayor's plan has not revolved around whether it has any basis in supportable fact, but instead around simplistic stories of the politics involved.

There are enough bad actors in the corporate school reform movement willing to put aside hard truths and solid facts in favor of their desire to profit from public education, but that should be no excuse for others to not challenge simplistic thinking and unsupported asertions which can be equally as damaging to the goal of delivering a quality education to all students.

Education News for 03-12-2012

Statewide Education News

• It’s PB and crackers if parents don’t pay (Dispatch)

Students at Fouse Elementary School ordered off a menu of burgers, chicken tenders and a slew of sides last week –– unless their parents were behind on lunch payments. The menu for those children was juice, six peanut butter-filled crackers and applesauce. The meal meets federal nutrition requirements, officials at the Westerville school say, while sending parents the message that they need to pay up. “It’s very comparable to a regular lunch,” Principal Brian Orrenmaa said. Read More…

• Ohio schools leader fears for future of arts teaching (Enquirer)

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS — Ohio Superintendent of Public Education Stan Heffner told a group of Cincinnati business leaders Thursday that he’s worried about the future of the arts in public schools. “I am worried for the arts because of funding,” said Heffner. “Superintendents have no choice. They took hits.” Heffner mentioned his concerns during a talk at Hughes STEM High School for Leadership Cincinnati’s Education Day, a day-long session in which business leaders learned about the issues affecting education in Cincinnati. Read More…

• Tougher state ratings for schools make ‘A’ hard to get (Beacon Journal)

Hudson would be the only school district in Summit County earning an “A” if the state’s new rating system had been in place last year. Stark County’s only A school would be Jackson. Aurora would have the only A in Portage County, and Wadsworth would get the only top grade in Medina County. Wayne County would have no A schools at all. Only 17 Ohio districts out of 609 that received report cards last year would be given the top grade under the new system, which begins with this school year. Read More…

• Area schools may see lower marks (Chillicothe Gazette)

Almost every Ohio school district rated excellent or better on the state's 2011 report card would drop to a B or worse under proposed changes to the rating system. The change is part of Ohio's waiver application for key portions of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. It replaces the state's current rating system with traditional letter grades and beefs up the standards for achieving high grades. "The purpose is to make it more understandable to the public," Ohio Department of Education spokesman Patrick Gallaway wrote in an email. Read More…

• Kasich to pitch policy reform (Dispatch)

Gov. John Kasich is likely to propose a new tax structure for Ohio’s banks that would provide relief for community banks but close loopholes for larger financial institutions, sources tell The Dispatch. Kasich also could propose legislation on Wednesday that would allow Cleveland schools to divorce tenure from staffing decisions — a potential steppingstone for changing education policy statewide and a component of the failed Senate Bill 5. Read More…

• New law will put some teachers to the test (News-Sun)

This fall, thousands of teachers in Ohio’s lowest-performing schools will be required to take new licensing tests. The requirement — a provision of the state budget law — likely would make Ohio the first state to take this step. It would affect teachers in core subject areas whose schools are in the bottom 10 percent based on Performance Index scores and are in Academic Watch or Academic Emergency. The rankings would be based on Performance Index scores on the next state report cards, which come out in August. Read More…

• Schools push up property values (Dispatch)

Through February, school districts had filed more than double the number of complaints contesting property values set by the Franklin County auditor’s office than they filed in all of last year. The districts want the property values raised so they can collect more tax dollars. To show that property is undervalued, they hire lawyers who seek out commercial and industrial properties that were sold at a price higher than the value set by Auditor Clarence Mingo. School districts had filed 447 complaints through February, compared with 262 complaints last year. Read More…

• Mild winter means districts haven't used allotted calamity days (News-Herald)

Last year, after months of discussion, state legislators chose to restore the number of calamity days schools could use to five, up from the previous three. However, to the chagrin of most students, this increase has not come into play this year thanks to a mild winter. Geauga County schools frequently use their full supply of calamity days because of historically heavy snows. However, this winter has required few or no days off from attending class. Ledgemont Schools used a single day and is on pace the use the fewest in several years, said district treasurer Kelly Moore. Read More…

• Push for action to curtail restraining students (Dispatch)

WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of students, most of them disabled, are strapped down or physically restrained in school, and disability advocates hope that a new Education Department report detailing the practice of "seclusion and restraint" will spur federal action to end it. The report, compiled and made public for the first time by the department's civil rights arm, shows that 70 percent of students subjected to the techniques have disabilities. There are no current federal standards on the use of the techniques in schools. Read More…

• Healthier lunches helping students develop nutritious eating habits (News-Herald)

Brown bags packed with provisions from home along with purchased meals from the food service filled cafeteria tables during a recent lunch period at West Geauga High School. Whether bagged or bought, the majority of edibles appeared to be healthy and nutritious. Fruits, sandwiches made with whole-grain bread, salads and soups seemed to be the norm. Noticeably absent were cans of soda, french fries and sugary desserts. Read More…

Local Issues

• Olentangy schools didn’t track expenses (Dispatch)

More than $11,000 in unapproved purchases occurred in the Olentangy Local School District’s athletic department, the state auditor says. The audit, released this week, shows the money was spent from outside bank accounts between 2008 and 2011. The money has been repaid, “but it should not take an audit to correct this kind of error,” State Auditor Dave Yost said in a news release. The outside accounts were opened by three athletic directors to pay for tournaments sponsored by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. Read More…

• Mayor Frank Jackson's plan to revamp Cleveland schools still needs legislative support (Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS - Mayor Frank Jackson wants to make it easier for the city's public school brass to fire or re-assign ineffective teachers to help turn around low-performing buildings. The Democratic mayor also wants the school system to share school revenue raised through tax measures with high-performing Cleveland charter schools, a holistic schooling approach aimed at reversing the city's dismal record for educating children. Read More…

• Region mobilizes to ensure 3rd-graders read well (Enquirer)

More than 70 organizations in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are teaming up on a national effort to improve third-grade reading levels. The eight-year initiative includes seven counties and 19 school districts. It’s one of the broadest such efforts ever undertaken, organizers said. Its goal is to have 100 percent of children in this region reading successfully by the end of third grade by 2020. The groups are taking on this issue because third-grade reading is a problem here, they say. And failing to address it has huge consequences. Read More…

• Ohio plan would hurt TPS rating (Blade)

A proposed school evaluation system could have major effects on the images of area schools, and hits Toledo Public Schools especially hard. Part of Ohio's request for a waiver from No Child Left Behind Act requirements includes a proposal by the state's Department of Education for a new school rating system. Gone would be designations such as "academic emergency" and "excellent." In the designation's place would be an A through F scale. Gone also would be high rankings for many districts, with A's sparsely distributed, as the new system is considerably more rigorous. Read More…

• Steubenville a model for other districts — including Warren (Tribune Chronicle)

At first glance the classrooms inside the Steubenville city school district may look similar to those found in other schools throughout the state. Colorful bulletin boards decorate the walls, instructors use some of the most modern technology and students work on assignments at their desks or in small groups around the room. But when it comes to academics, Steubenville is a cut above the rest. So successful is the district that it is garnering attention from officials in other school districts - including Warren City Schools. Read More…

• Niles schools still face financial difficulty despite passage of levy (Vindicator)

NILES - Voter approval of a renewal school levy last Tuesday has staved off a state declaration of fiscal emergency for now, but the school district faces the same threat again with the start of the new fiscal year this July. “We are still under the specter of a fiscal-emergency declaration because our current five-year plan shows a deficit of more than $2 million for fiscal year 2013, and we have to show the state we can eliminate it,” said Mark Robinson, school superintendent. Fiscal year 2013 begins July 1. Niles schools have been under a fiscal watch since 2003. Read More…

• Granville only 'A' school under new grading system (Newark Advocate)

NEWARK - Eight Licking County school districts were rated excellent or better in 2011, but only Granville would have achieved that rating under Ohio's new evaluation system. The change is part of the state's waiver application for key portions of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. It replaces the state's current rating system with traditional letter grades and beefs up the standards for achieving high grades. Read More…

Cleveland School Plan Needs Work

This is a very level headed and reasonable approach to modify Frank Jackson's corporate education reform plan into something that might work and would bring more people willingly into the process.

Columbus: Innovation Ohio, a progressive think tank headquartered in Columbus, today released an analysis of the education reform plan recently put forward by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. Governor Kasich has indicated the plan might serve as a model for his own education reform effort, which presumably will include the new school funding formula he promised but so far has failed to deliver. The analysis is available at www.innovationohio.org.

IO said an analysis of the “Cleveland Plan” is important given Ohio’s history of expanding Cleveland education experiments, such as private school vouchers, state-wide. “If Governor Kasich is intent on using the Cleveland Plan as a model for other Ohio school districts, then it’s critical that we get it right,” said IO President Janetta King.

The analysis found a number of “things to like” about the Cleveland Plan, including:

• Innovations such as a Global Language Academy, an Environmental Science School, Early Childhood Education Academies in every neighborhood, and an English Immersion School for all children for whom English is a second language;
• A focus on high-quality preschool education, as well as on college and workforce readiness; and
• A series of proposed changes to state law that would, for example, give the Cleveland Metropolitan School District flexibility to manage its fiscal assets and close loopholes in existing law that allow poorly-performing Charter Schools to continue operating.

IO said other ideas, like adoption of a year-round school calendar, support for high-quality Charter Schools, and the aggressive pursuit of talented teachers, “have potential, but need more work and further fleshing-out.”

But Innovation Ohio said several Cleveland Plan ideas are fatally flawed as currently written and should either be modified substantially or jettisoned entirely. Among these are:

• A proposal to allow the transfer of local property tax revenue to Charter schools;
• The transfer of school oversight and other functions from the Cleveland School Board (accountable to the Mayor) to an unelected and less accountable “Cleveland Transformation Alliance”;
• A weighted per pupil funding formula with “money following the child” that, in IO’s view, would inevitably end up short-changing either students or schools;
• Several proposals relating to teacher compensation, collective bargaining and accountability, which IO says are exact replicas of provisions in last year’s Senate Bill 5, which Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected with 61% of the vote in November.

Said IO President Janetta King:

“IO congratulates the authors of the Cleveland Plan for thinking outside the box and being willing to go big. Nothing is more important to Ohio’s future than our schools and our kids. That’s why education reform is so important, and it’s why all of us who truly care about our state, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates alike–must be willing to embrace change and challenge the status quo.

“But our goal cannot be change for the sake of change, or change that can’t work and will only make things worse. So Innovation Ohio has tried to be constructive in our analysis. Where we’ve been critical of the Cleveland Plan, we’ve offered alternative ideas and proposals that we believe are more likely to achieve the desired goals.

“But we recognize that we don’t have all the answers. Frankly, neither do the people who put the Cleveland Plan together. And that is why we believe any serious school reform discussion should and must include the voices of professional educators, parents, and other members of the community. We hope their exclusion will be rectified in the weeks and months ahead.

“So what is Innovation Ohio’s bottom-line take on the Cleveland Plan? We believe the Plan as written is a reasonable place to start, but would be a terrible place to end up. It needs work and IO stands ready to help any way we can.”

Education News for 03-09-2012

Statewide Education News

• State switching to new system of grading academic performance (Dispatch)

Ohio is about to lose nearly 95 percent of its “excellent” schools. Last year, 382 school districts and charter schools received an A, or excellent rating, on state-issued report cards. If a new evaluation system the state plans to start using this year had been in place, only 22 would have gotten an A — just one in central Ohio (Granville). In Franklin County, 11 of the 12 districts that earned A’s on last year’s report cards would drop to B’s, and one, South-Western City Schools, would fall to a C. Read More…

• Schools from across Northeast Ohio, nation offer support to Chardon students (Plain Dealer)

CHARDON — Students at Chardon High School need only look to the hallways in their building to find encouragement. Banners, sympathy cards and private notes of well wishes from their peers at high schools and colleges throughout the region and across the country adorn the walls, offering support to help cope with the shootings Feb. 27 that left three students dead. The signs -- from schools like Aurora, Chagrin Falls, Mentor and Westlake -- carry messages like "We Support You," "We are all Hilltoppers," "Our hands hold you, Our hearts love you" and "One Heartbeat." Read More…

• Ohio to toughen school, district rating system (Dayton Daily News)

There will be far fewer As on this year’s state-issued report cards under a new, more rigorous school rating system the state plans to start using. Only three of the 28 school districts in Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Warren counties that received Excellent or Excellent with Distinction ratings on last year’s report cards would get an A under the new system — Oakwood, Miami East and Mason. Last year, 382 school districts and charter schools in Ohio received the equivalent of an A, or excellent rating, but only 22 would have gotten that top grade if the new evaluation system had been in place. Read More…

Local Issues

• Cleveland Mayor Jackson brings schools to forefront in 'State of the City' speech (Cleveland Business)

As he has in recent years, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson closed his annual State of the City address today by bringing to the forefront his effort to improve Cleveland's schools. He spoke in the address of plans for the lakefront and Public Square, and he ticked off a long list of accomplishments, including the financial stability of the city. But Mayor Jackson found his voice, one businessperson in attendance said, when he spoke about education. Read More…

• Hathorn’s first report card: Good but not yet excellent (Vindicator)

Judging by the report card issued by the Youngstown Board of Education to Superintendent Connie Hathorn last week, one would not accuse the city school district’s policymakers of grade inflation. In their evaluation of Hathorn’s first year at the helm of the troubled city school district, board members rated the top administrator a 7 out of a possible 9 points across six categories, or roughly a B grade for “commendable” good work. Read More…

• Special-needs restraint called means to safety (Dispatch)

To keep everyone safe, schools need to be able to restrain and isolate special-needs students when they become violent or disruptive, a national educators group says. And using “seclusion rooms” — sometimes called timeout rooms or quiet rooms — has allowed students whose disabilities once kept them from attending public schools to do so, the American Association of School Administrators said in a report released yesterday. The report was, in part, a response to a bill introduced in Congress in December that would limit the restraint or seclusion of students. Read More…

• Lunch becomes a moneymaker for Springfield City Schools (News-Sun)

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield City Schools are figuring out ways to make more lunch money while saving taxpayer dollars. The district makes about 8,500 meals for its own students. Now, it’s also making 800 meals for other programs, including Springfield Head Start, Springfield Catholic Central, Clark County Educational Service Center and OIC of Clark County, said Chris Ashley, supervisor of food and nutrition for the district. Read More…