Education News for 09-27-2012

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State Education News

  • More high schools teaching personal finance (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • Dozens of Ohio high schools are moving closer to complying with the state mandate to teach personal finance…Read more...

  • Schools that wiped out data the most take academic dive (Columbus Dispatch)

    • The Columbus schools that deleted the most student attendance records last year posted dramatic academic declines…Read more...

  • Report on TPS generally poor (Toledo Blade)

    • The Ohio Department of Education released a pared-down version of school report cards on Wednesday, withholding some of the most illuminating information while a statewide investigation…Read more...

  • Report cards incomplete (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • Based on preliminary report card data that the state released Wednesday, Warren City Schools are among those celebrating…Read more...

Local Education News

  • Akron, other Ohio urban school districts target attendance data system (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • Ohio’s eight largest big-city school districts say they have experienced numerous problems understanding…Read more...

  • Graduation rates fall on state's new Report (Cincinnati Enquirer)

    • Graduation rates have plunged almost across the board at school districts in Southwest Ohio…Read more...

  • Some school districts may slip in ratings (Dayton Daily News)

    • A Dayton Daily News analysis of the incomplete 2011-12 state report cards released…Read more...

  • Bristol BOE OKs 3-year contract (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • The Bristol Board of Education on Wednesday approved a three-year contract with the district's employees…Read more...

  • CEO of Cleveland Schools expected to address "F" grade at State of Schools Address (WEWS)

    • CEO of Cleveland Schools Eric Gordon will host the State of Schools…Read more...

  • Cardinal School District facing fiscal emergency (Willoughby News Herald)

    • The outcome of a five-year 9.7-mill renewal levy in the Nov. 6 election will determine whether the Cardinal Local School District will be placed in a state of fiscal watch or emergency…Read more...

  • Incomplete Ohio report cards show few Valley changes (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • Youngstown City Schools remain in academic watch, narrowly missing a continuous improvement designation…Read more...

Editorial

  • Booster rules, Court merger (Findlay Courier)

    • Sports and band booster clubs, and parent teacher organizations, serve an important function by aiding students…Read more...

An Open Letter to Ohio Women

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Playing fair and playing by the rules are two of the most important lessons we teach our children. Unfortunately, Ohio politicians don’t want to play fair and they want to make their own rules. The system is rigged to allow the majority party to draw Statehouse and Congressional district lines to protect their own seats and their political party. Drawing district lines that determine who gets elected is how the politicians hold on to their power. In effect, they have turned our government from “We the People” into “We the Politicians”.

Passage of State Issue 2 will establish a system that takes the power away from politicians and gives good, decent people who want to fix our problems a real chance to compete against career politicians and win. We all want an impartial process AND WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN! The choices we make on November 6 will have a profound effect on the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Politicians will come and go, but the passage of State Issue 2 will help ensure that neither party can unfairly dominate state politics. When elections are fair and balanced the people of Ohio win.

In this election, you will have an opportunity to take a stand and vote YES on Issue 2. The system that decides who our elected officials are should be open to the public, transparent and without partisan manipulation.

As women, one a Republican and one a Democrat, we invite you to unite with us around issues of fairness and accountability. There is much wrong with politics but how we choose our elected officials should not be one of those wrongs. We can fix this problem once and for all.

Collectively, we must stand up and be heard. We must do this for our communities, our children, our values and our future. We have the chance to make a big difference in this election. Not in one politician’s life–but in the lives of all Ohioans.

Please help us by talking with your friends and neighbors about this important issue and share this message on Facebook, Twitter and your other social networks. To volunteer or learn how you can become more engaged on this issue, please email women@votersfirstohio.com and a Voters First representative will get back with you right away.

Leave a legacy. Vote for fairness, vote for our future, and vote YES on ISSUE 2.

Sincerely,
Joan Lawrence
Former Member Ohio House of Representatives
League of Women Voters of Ohio, since 1957 State of Ohio

Frances Strickland
Former First Lady, State of Ohio

Some Choice

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ODE has just released their partial school report card. It doesn't contain any final grades, but it does tell us whether schools made adequate yearly progress, and the news isn't pretty for Ohio's charter school movement.

Of the 352 charter schools listed, 58.2% of them failed to meet their adequate yearly progress (AYP) metrics.

If a student attends a school in any of Allen, Warren, Erie, Hancock, Lake, Madison, or Tuscarawas counties, not a single charter school made adequate yearly progress. Indeed, out of the 36 counties that have charter schools, 24 counties had schools that combined for more than half their charters failing to meet their adequate yearly progress.

County Not Met AYP Met AYP
Allen 100.0% 0.0%
Warren 100.0% 0.0%
Erie 100.0% 0.0%
Hancock 100.0% 0.0%
Lake 100.0% 0.0%
Madison 100.0% 0.0%
Tuscarawas 100.0% 0.0%
Stark 83.3% 16.7%
Trumbull 75.0% 25.0%
Summit 73.3% 26.7%
Montgomery 72.4% 27.6%
Mahoning 71.4% 28.6%
Hamilton 67.9% 32.1%
Richland 66.7% 33.3%
Clark 66.7% 33.3%
Fairfield 66.7% 33.3%
Morrow 66.7% 33.3%
Franklin 65.3% 34.7%
Butler 60.0% 40.0%
Lucas 58.8% 41.2%
Lorain 54.5% 45.5%
Marion 50.0% 50.0%
Columbiana 50.0% 50.0%
Greene 50.0% 50.0%
Cuyahoga 42.0% 58.0%
Portage 40.0% 60.0%
Licking 25.0% 75.0%
Muskingum 25.0% 75.0%
Seneca 25.0% 75.0%
Champaign 0.0% 100.0%
Wayne 0.0% 100.0%
Scioto 0.0% 100.0%
Coshocton 0.0% 100.0%
Hardin 0.0% 100.0%
Jackson 0.0% 100.0%
Van Wert 0.0% 100.0%
Grand Total 58.2% 41.8%

There's a lot of students in a lot of schools, in a lot of counties not being served by the "choices" they are being presented with.

Education News for 09-26-2012

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State Education News

  • State report cards to be posted today (Canton Repository)

    • The Ohio Department of Education will post school report cards today — minus the grades…Read more...

  • State issues schools’ slimmer report cards (Columbus Dispatch)

    • The slim version of Ohio’s school report cards that will go public today is like a hamburger without the bun…Read more...

  • Education Nation: Obama, Romney outline their plans (WKYC)

    • For the third straight year, the top minds in education are meeting in New York City for the annual education nation summit. Education is center-stage in the presidential election…Read more...

Local Education News

  • Budget woes continue for Akron schools (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • The cash-strapped Akron Public Schools took an unexpected budget hit this week with news that the district must repay more than $3 million…Read more...

  • No clarity on Coleman’s role in school district (Columbus Dispatch)

    • A special joint committee of the Columbus City Council and Columbus school board met yesterday, but with no clearer idea of how their relationship has changed…Read more...

  • PETA Seeks to Put Vegan Ads on CMSD Lunch Trays (WJW)

    • People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Or PETA, has made a unique proposal to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to help take a bite out…Read more...

  • Emotions run high at levy debate (WKYC)

    • It was an emotionally-charged debate in the heart of Cleveland's Lee-Harvard neighborhood. Community activists organized an informative debate…Read more…

Editorial

  • Open doors amid school controversy (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • Arrogance among those elected to represent the people's interests sometimes reaches intolerable levels. Often it involves keeping secrets from the public…Read more...

Research-Based Options for Education Policy Making

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The first in a new series of two-page briefs summarizing the state of play in education policy research offers suggestions for policymakers designing teacher evaluation systems.

The paper is written by Dr. William Mathis, managing director of the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education.

Teachers are important, and policies mandating high-stakes evaluations of teachers are at the forefront of popular school reforms. Today’s dominant approach labels teachers as effective or ineffective based in large part on a statistical analysis of students’ test-score performance. Teachers judged effective are rewarded, and those found ineffective are sanctioned.

While such summative evaluations can be useful, lawmakers should be wary of approaches based in large part on test scores: the error in the measurements is large—which results in many teachers being incorrectly labeled as effective or ineffective;1 relevant test scores are not available for the students taught by most teachers, given that only certain grade levels and subject areas are tested; and the incentives created by high-stakes use of test scores drive undesirable teaching practices such as curriculum narrowing and teaching to the test.

Summative initiatives should also be balanced with formative approaches, which identify strengths and weaknesses of teachers and directly focus on developing and improving their teaching. Measures that de-emphasize test scores are more labor intensive but have far greater potential to enrich instruction and improve education.

The paper goes on to give some key research points and advice for policy makers

  • If the objective is improving educational practice, formative evaluations that guide a teacher’s improvement provide greater benefits than summative evaluations.
  • If the objective is to improve educational performance, outside-school factors must also be addressed. Teacher evaluation cannot replace or compensate for these much stronger determinants of student learning. The importance of these outside-school factors should also caution against policies that simplistically attribute student test scores to teachers.
  • The results produced by value-added (test-score growth) models alone are highly unstable. They vary from year to year, from classroom to classroom, and from one test to another. Substantial reliance on these models can lead to practical, ethical and legal problems.
  • High-stakes evaluations based in substantial part on students’ test scores narrow the curriculum by diminishing or pushing out non-tested subjects, knowledge, and skills.
  • Teacher evaluation systems necessarily involve trade-offs, and specific design choices are controversial, so it is important to involve all key stakeholders in system design or selection.
  • To be successful, schools must invest in their teacher evaluation systems. An adequate number of highly trained evaluators must be available.
  • Given the wide variety of teacher roles and the many factors that influence learning that are outside the control of the teacher, a wide variety of measures of teacher effectiveness is also indicated. By diversifying, the weakness of any single measure is offset by the strengths of another.
  • High-quality research on existing evaluative programs and tools should inform the design of teacher evaluation systems. States and districts should investigate balanced models such as PAR and the Danielson Framework, closely examine the evidence concerning strengths and weaknesses of each model, and never attach high-stakes consequences to teachers which the evidence cannot validly support.

The paper can be read in full below

Research-Based Options for Education Policy Making

Education News for 09-25-2012

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State Education News

  • No charges for former leader of Ohio schools (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Prosecutors won’t press criminal charges against former state schools Superintendent Stan Heffner…Read more...

  • SAT reading score hits 40-year low (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Reading scores on the SAT for the high-school class of 2012 reached a four-decade low, putting a punctuation mark on a gradual decline…Read more...

  • Booster clubs funds face state scrutiny (Dayton Daily News)

    • School booster and parent teacher organizations are about to come under increased scrutiny from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office…Read more...

  • Attendance records being examined at 6 schools (Dayton Daily News)

    • State auditors are examining student attendance records in six Miami Valley school districts as part of a statewide probe into possible data tampering…Read more...

  • Five-year-olds put to the test as kindergarten exams (Reuters)

    • With school in full swing across the United States, the littlest students are getting used to the blocks table and the dress-up corner…Read more...

Op/Ed

  • What It Means to 'Believe in Teachers' (Education Week)

    • Last month, in his much-lauded speech to the Republican National Convention, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made "we believe in teachers"…Read more...

Local Education News

  • School board takes next step toward busing pact with city (Chillicothe Gazette)

    • The board approved an agreement with the Ohio Department of Development for a Local Government Innovation Fund grant that will pay for environmental site studies…Read more...

  • Dublin teachers forgo some pay hikes (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Dublin teachers and school administrators are giving up base-salary raises for next school year but will continue to receive step increases…Read more...

  • State report card ranking may drop (Findlay Courier)

    • Findlay City Schools will most likely lose its "excellent" rating and instead earn a lesser "effective" rating on the state-issued report card…Read more...

  • In Cincinnati, orchestrated academic support boosts students from cradle to career (NBC News.com)

    • Eight-month-old Calvin Boggs Jr., grinned when social worker Heidi Sullivan pulled a cardboard book emblazoned with the face of the character Thomas the Tank Engine out of her bag…Read more...

  • Mathews seeks levy to avoid projected deficit (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • Mathews Board of Education is asking voters for a new five-year, 4.65-mill levy district officials said is needed to help avoid a projected deficit…Read more...