DNC Convention Day 1 - Democrats Strike Back

Day one of the DNC convention in North Carolina included the release of the Democratic Party platform. The Washington Post has a rundown of all the education mentions, which include this section

Because there is no substitute for a great teacher at the head of a classroom, the President helped school districts save more than 400,000 educator jobs.

We Democrats honor our nation’s teachers, who do a heroic job for their students every day. If we want high-quality education for all our kids, we must listen to the people who are on the front lines. The President has laid out a plan to prevent more teacher layoffs while attracting and rewarding great teachers. This includes raising standards for the programs that prepare our teachers, recognizing and rewarding good teaching, and retaining good teachers. We also believe in carefully crafted evaluation systems that give struggling teachers a chance to succeed and protect due process if another teacher has to be put in the classroom. We also recognize there is no substitute for a parent’s involvement in their child’s education.

Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland delivered a stemwinder of a speech

“Mitt Romney proudly wrote an op-ed titled, ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.’ If he had had his way, devastation would have cascaded from Michigan to Ohio and across the nation,” Strickland told the crowd Tuesday night. “Mitt Romney never saw the point of building something when he could profit from tearing it down. If Mitt was Santa Claus, he’d fire the reindeer and outsource the elves.”

Strickland led off by lambasting Romney’s opposition to the 2008 auto rescue, which was especially critical to Ohio’s industrial economy.

“If he had had his way, devastation would have cascaded from Michigan to Ohio and across the nation,” Strickland said.

But far more than a simple policy speech, Strickland portrayed Romney as a morally suspect and deeply un-American villain willing to do anything to make a dollar no matter who was hurt. His Caribbean holdings and past use of a Swiss bank account drew the toughest condemnation.

“Mitt Romney has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport,” Strickland said. “It summers on the beaches of the Cayman Islands and winters on the slopes of the Swiss Alps. In Matthew, chapter 6, verse 21, the scriptures teach us that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. My friends, any man who aspires to be our president should keep both his treasure and his heart in the United States of America.”

The highlight of the evening for the gathered Democrats was a speech by First Lady Michelle Obama, that brought tears and applause from most in attendance

Here's the word cloud of her speech

Day one of the DNC convention then, saw the Democrats strike back at the Republicans, whose own convention has produced little bounce in the polls.

Education News for 09-05-2012

State Education News

  • Temple creates enrichment program for home-school families (Lima News)
  • A new program at Temple Christian School will offer opportunities for home-schooled children that aren’t as easy to come by at home…Read more...

  • Hunger in the classroom a growing trend (WKYC)
  • A new study that included Ohio found that teachers are reporting many of their students are hungry…Read more...

Local Education News

  • Carroll works on energy savings (Dayton Daily News)
  • A recent energy conservation project is putting Carroll High School in the spotlight. The Catholic school is the first in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati…Read more...

  • Mansfield City Schools celebrate 'turnaround' (Mansfield News Journal)
  • The Mansfield City Schools Board of Education offered reflection and exhilaration…Read more...

  • Perrysburg Public Service Director Jon Eckel retires, rehired under new policy (Toledo Blade)
  • The public hearing on Perrysburg Public Service Director Jon Eckel's retirement was quick Tuesday, lasting only a few seconds, without any public outcry -- as quiet as the ensuing hearing about his rehiring…Read more...

  • Teen Behind Cryptic Video To Be Released, Bomb Squad Checks School (WBNS)
  • A teenager accused of making a video that other parents and students deemed threatening was in juvenile court…Read more...

Editorial

  • Ohio welcomes Teach for America (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
  • Just as Gov. John Kasich promised in his State of the State address in 2011, Teach for America graduates finally can teach in Ohio. So far, about 50 are assigned…Read more...

  • Ditching private schools (Los Angeles Times)
  • A study released last week by the libertarian Cato Institute showed that students are transferring in unexpectedly large numbers from private schools to charter schools…Read more...

Where the polls stand - Week 1

Labor Day has traditionally been seen as the kick-off for the fall campaigns. With that now behind us, we are going to begin a new weekly feature up through the election on November 6th, and bring you all the latest polling information for the Presidential race both nationally and in Ohio.

First, Real Clear Politics has President Obama leading in the race to 270 electoral college votes, 221-191 with 126 listed as toss-ups

In Ohio, with the exception of a purple strategies poll, the President has consistently led in the polling

538, another polling analysis site, run by the New York Times, runs a sophisticated and accurate analysis based on multiple factors. They currently have the President winning over 308 electoral college votes.

They have President Obama having a 71.5% chance of winning Ohio on November 6th.

New School Year - New Cuts in Funding

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) have just issued a report that details the sad fact that most states have begun the new school year with more cuts to funding.

States have made steep cuts to education funding since the start of the recession and, in many states, those cuts deepened over the last year. Elementary and high schools are receiving less state funding in the 2012-13 school year than they did last year in 26 states, and in 35 states school funding now stands below 2008 levels — often far below.

Ohio has fared particularly poorly under current Governor John Kasich, with the 7th largest per student cut in the nation

The “cuts-only approach” hasn’t worked, and many municipalities will have to raise revenue or cut needed services, said Jon Shure, the center’s director of state fiscal strategies. “What you’re seeing is that the jurisdiction-of-last-resort is now the one that has to honestly confront the situation because the buck has been passed.”

We're now seeing tax increases in local government to offset the local budget raid perpetrated by the Governor to balance his own budget. A website, www.cutshurtohio.com details a county-by-county breakdown of effects the budget has had. For example, in Cuyahoga county - where Cleveland schools reside, the cuts dwarf the $65 million budget hole the district is trying to plug

With rising tax revenues and the ability to close loopholes, there is no reason the Governor and his legislature cannot reverse this harmful trend, and use the next biennium budget to increase funding for Ohio's public school to adequate levels.

Education News for 09-04-2012

State Education News

  • Reading law has holdouts (Columbus Dispatch)
  • Mike Johnson loathes the idea of holding students back. But next year, Johnson, the superintendent of Bexley schools…Read more...

  • Truancy rates in doubt (Columbus Dispatch)
  • The Cleveland school district wiped more than 1,700 students from its rolls in a single year for being chronic truants…Read more...

  • Early college credit not enough (Columbus Dispatch)
  • Bryan Zake could have coasted in his senior year in high school. But he chose to get a head start on college by earning almost a year’s worth of classes at the University of Akron…Read more...

  • Kids late, lost as busing blunders abound (Columbus Dispatch)
  • Some school buses have been late taking kids home, sometimes by a couple of hours. Children have been left at the wrong stop, far from home. Other buses never showed up…Read more...

  • Students able to make up calamity days at home (Dayton Daily News)
  • Fifteen area school districts in the Miami Valley, as well as a couple of private schools…Read more...

  • Law more stringent on elementary readers (Hamilton Journal-News)
  • The percentage of third graders held held from fourth grade could quadruple in some local school districts…Read more...

  • Extra-curriculars keep students engaged (Marion Star)
  • A national report claims to shed some light on why students are skipping school. Local school officials say they hear a variety of reasons as they try different ways to encourage students to attend…Read more...

  • Local schools in attendance probe (Marion Star)
  • Government inspectors have been poring over student attendance records in school buildings across the state…Read more...

  • Area districts waiting out state report card delay (Middletown Journal)
  • The Ohio Board of Education’s delay in posting the state report cards has drawn mixed reactions from Middletown-area school districts. Some don’t mind the wait, while others would have preferred to be celebrating by now…Read more...

  • Ohio sports fees are growing trend, cutting in to athletics programs (Newark Advocate)
  • For an increasing number of Ohio families, students playing sports also means parents paying for sports. Participation fees, which can run into hundreds of dollars…Read more...

  • Schools prepare for third-grade reading guarantee (Youngstown Vindicator)
  • A law that takes full effect in the 2013-14 school year requires third-graders who aren’t reading at grade level to be held back another year…Read more...

  • Local Education News
    • Teach For America teachers start school year in local charter schools (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
    • The Village Prep charter school had openings for nine teachers this school year…Read more...

    • Football-concussion risk for middle-schoolers prompts protective moves (Columbus Dispatch)
    • Connor Laufenberg was a linebacker for his middle-school football team last fall when he took a hit that left him dizzy…Read more...

    • District let girl stay home for six weeks (Columbus Dispatch)
    • When Stacy Cox read her daughter’s report card from Columbus City Schools’ Marion- Franklin High School, it showed almost perfect attendance…Read more...

    • $2M deficit expect for Monroe schools at end of school year (Middletown Journal)
    • Monroe Local Schools will finish with a $2 million operating deficit at the end of the school year if no new revenue is brought into the district, according to treasurer Holly Cahall…Read more...

    • Engineering course offered at Franklin High School (Middletown Journal)
    • For the first time, the Franklin school district is offering a nationally recognized pre- engineering program at the high school…Read more...

    • Officer out of Monroe schools, again (Middletown Journal)
    • Monroe School District is once again without a school resource officer. City Council decided to reinstate a school resource officer for the first two weeks…Read more...

    • Report card scores discussed at PCSD (Portsmouth Daily Times)
    • Parents, community members, teachers, and school administrators gathered Wednesday morning for the Portsmouth City School District…Read more...

    • Ursuline leads Valley schools with 9 AP courses (Youngstown Vindicator)
    • Twelve seniors sit in a third-floor classroom at Ursuline High School discussing literature…Read more...

    • Youngstown School District | Defining partnerships (Youngstown Vindicator)
    • The city school district is trimming its large list of partnerships, bringing such support more in line with the needs of students…Read more...

  • Editorial
    • Drawing up a route to better Cleveland schools (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
    • The Cleveland School District seems to know what it wants to be in the near future -- an effective system where more students attend…Read more...

    • Delaying state school district report cards is a necessity (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
    • The Ohio Board of Education wisely and unanimously decided recently to delay the release of critically important school district report cards…Read more...

    • Wrong watchdog )Columbus Dispatch)
    • The Ohio Department of Education’s request for more authority to monitor and investigate school districts data collection is premature…Read more...

    • Former school head should repay (Warren Tribune Chronicle)
    • ''I just didn't know how else to do it,'' former Ohio state school Superintendent Stan Heffner told investigators looking into the scandal that forced him to resign earlier this summer…Read more...

  • Choice, but for who

    A couple of recent stories have highlighted how damaging the current school "choice" scheme is. Proponents of choice like to concentrate on the few that might benefit, but seem to willfully fail to acknowledge the many that suffer as a consequence. Only 5% of Ohio's students go to a charter school, yet they received 10% of the state funding.

    This phenomena gets worse when one looks at the newly created special needs vouchers, as Stephen Dyer explains

    The voucher is geared toward special education children and is not means tested. It provides up to $20,000 for a student to attend a private school. That money, by the way, comes out of the state aid meant for the child's district of residence.

    The bill was introduced twice during my time in the House, and my argument was that it earmarked up to 1/3 of the state's special education money to serve 3% of the special needs children in this state. This, of course, left 97% of the state's special needs children with 2/3 of the money.

    Does that sound right to anyone? Can even proponents of "choice" support this untenable situation? We suspect many of them do, because the agenda of many appears not to be about choice, but about subsidizing private education, and the data bears this out. In Cincinnati for example, 199 students were enrolled in this voucher scheme, yet

    Cincinnati Public, for instance, said that only 15 of its Peterson voucher recipients are switching to a private school. Most of the other recipients live in the district but already attend private schools or are kindergartners, said Pat Cleveland, CPS’ manager of non-public schools special education services.

    We are diverting millions of dollars of tax payer money to subsidize parents who have already enrolled their children into private schools. As a consequence, the children being served by their local public schools see their revenues drop, causing their educational opportunities to be diminished.

    As if that isn't bad enough, one set of private school parents have decided to sue their local school district so their children can ride redirected public school buses to school. There seems no end to the entitlement of the few at the expense of the many.

    But the problems don't stop there. The CATO Institute, a right wing think tank, has recently published a study that demonstrates the increase in "choice" via charter schools is having adverse effects beyond public schools.

    Charter schools are changing public and private school enrollment patterns across the United States. This study analyzes district-level enrollment patterns for all states with charter schools, isolating how charter schools affect traditional public and private school enrollments after controlling for changes for the socioeconomic, demographic, and economic conditions in each district.

    While most students are drawn from traditional public schools, charter schools are pulling large numbers of students from the private education market and present a potentially devastating impact on the private education market, as well as a serious increase in the financial burden on taxpayers.

    Private school enrollments are much more sensitive to charters in urban districts than in non-urban districts. Overall, about 8 percent of charter elementary students and 11 percent of middle and high school students are drawn from private schools. In highly urban districts, private schools contribute 32, 23, and 15 percent of charter elementary, middle, and high school enrollments, respectively. Catholic schools seem particularly vulnerable, especially for elementary students in large metropolitan areas.

    The flow of private-school students into charters has important fiscal implications for districts and states. When charters draw students from private schools, demands for tax revenue increase. If governments increase educational spending, tax revenues must be increased or spending in other areas reduced, or else districts may face pressures to reduce educational services. The shift of students from private to public schools represents a significant shift in the financial burdens for education from the private to the public sector.

    Parents of private school students can save a lot of money by enrolling their children in quasi-private charter schools - placing additional burdens on public schools, tax payers and some private schools.

    This system of the few benefiting at the expense of the many needs to be reversed. No child's education should come at the expense of others, yet that is exactly what is happening in Ohio right now, thanks to school "choice" proponents and their legislative supporters.