Education News for 01-18-2013

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State Education News

  • Big changes could be coming to transfer rule (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • The word "transfer" appears 58 times in the Ohio High School Athletic Association bylaw covering eligibility…Read more...

  • Teachers get training on how to cope with shooter (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Like tornado and fire drills, lockdowns have become common practice in schools…Read more...

  • Yost seeks periodic head count of students (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Conducting official head counts of schoolchildren several times a year would discourage the “ scrubbing” of student data, the state auditor says…Read more...

Local Education News

  • Southeastern, Piketon schools honored for clean audit reports (Chillicothe Gazette)

    • State Auditor Dave Yost has announced a pair of local school governmental bodies have been presented the Auditor of State Award for clean audit reports…Read more...

  • Local teachers train to handle active shooters (Dayton Daily News)

    • The first group of 200 Ohio teachers were trained on Thursday about how to handle an active shooter situation in a school and hundreds more have signed up for upcoming classes…Read more...

  • Local schools wrestle with cost of security (WKYC)

    • Schools across the country are developing plans to avoid tragedies like Sandy Hook but increased security comes with increased costs…Read more...

  • City schools facing $48 million deficit (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • The city school district is facing a $48 million deficit by 2017 without reductions or additional revenue, according to its five-year forecast…Read more...

Editorial

  • Ohio searches for that elusive set of tests that does it all (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • The controversy over how and when to test Ohio students has been going on for 20 years, and rather than being settled, it is entering yet another iteration…Read more...

$50 million. 3 years. No clue.

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More on that awful Gates study

Though science does sometimes prove things that are not intuitive, science does depend on accurate premises. So, in this case, IF the conclusion is that “you can’t believe your eyes” in teacher evaluation — just because you watch a teacher doing a great job, this could be a mirage since that teacher doesn’t necessarily get the same ‘gains’ as the other teacher that you thought was terrible based on your observation — well, it could also mean that one of the initial premises was incorrect. To me, the initial premise that has caused this counter-intuitive conclusion is that value-added — which says that teacher quality can be determined by comparing student test scores to what a computer would predict those same students would have gotten with an ‘average’ teacher — is the faulty premise. Would we accept it if a new computer programmed to evaluate music told us that The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ is a bad song?

One thing that struck me right away with this report is that the inclusion of student surveys — something that aren’t realistically ever going to be a significant part of high stakes teacher evaluations — is given such a large percentage in each of the three main weightings they consider (these three scenarios are, for test scores-classroom observations-student surveys, 50-25-25, 33-33-33, and 25-50-25.)

Conspicuously missing from the various weighting schemes they compare is one with 100% classroom observations. As this is what many districts currently do and since this report is supposed to guide those who are designing new systems, wouldn’t it be scientifically necessary to include the existing system as the ‘control’ group? As implementing a change is a costly and difficult process, shouldn’t we know what we could expect to gain over the already existing system?

[readon2 url="http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/01/13/50-million-3-years-no-clue/"]Read the whole piece[/readon2]

Education News for 01-17-2013

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State Education News

  • Retiring Columbus schools official fears he’s data-rigging scapegoat (Columbus Dispatch)

    • No Columbus school-district worker is thought to have altered more student records over the past few years than Michael L. Dodds…Read more...

  • Westerville superintendent search down to 6 candidates (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Six candidates have been called back for second interviews in the search for the next superintendent of Westerville schools…Read more...

  • School reformer backs Kasich’s efforts (Columbus Dispatch)

    • A national education leader who has the ears of Gov. John Kasich and other Ohio GOP leaders says the state’s education system has improved, and she hopes this year to help push additional reforms through the General Assembly…Read more...

  • Ohio Police Department Offers To Add Armed Officers At Schools (WBNS)

    • A month after the deadly shootings at Sandy Hook elementary, President Obama is making recommendations to increase safety. Some Ohio school districts are taking action of their own…Read more...

Local Education News

  • No plan to arm teachers in North Canton schools (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • The carnage from the Newtown, Conn., shootings has added a new dimension to school safety and security…Read more...

  • Principal moved to district office after failing to report assault (Columbus Dispatch)

    • A Reynoldsburg elementary-school principal who did not immediately report a sexual assault involving two students to district officials or the police has resigned…Read more...

  • Coleman critical of school board (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman scolded the Columbus Board of Education yesterday for being reluctant to cooperate unconditionally…Read more...

  • Three elementary schools getting new security entrances (Findlay Courier)

    • By springtime, at least three of Findlay's elementary schools will have new security entrances, Findlay Superintendent Dean Wittwer said Wednesday…Read more...

  • Arm teachers? Sheriff: response time critical (New Philadelphia Times)

    • Tuscarawas County Sheriff Walt Wilson believes that schools need both a police presence and armed employees to prevent the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years across the country…Read more...

  • Westlake teachers, district reach agreement on 18-month contract (Sun News)

    • School board members voted Wednesday to approve an agreement with the Westlake Teachers Association on an 18-month contract for teachers…Read more...

  • Hilliard Property Taxes Decrease Due To School Refinancing (WBNS)

    • Hilliard City Schools has taken steps to refinance some of its debt which will decrease property taxes in the district. A district spokesperson said school board members voted on two separate resolutions that will reduce the projected bond millage…Read more...

  • Orrville City Schools votes to arm science teacher (WEWS)

    • When it came to a vote for a school board resolution…Read more...

  • Geauga County school leaders discuss consolidating 4 smallest districts (Willoughby News Herald)

    • After a meeting Wednesday night, it's fair to say there are still more questions than answers about the possibility of consolidating Geauga County's four smallest school districts…Read more...

Editorial

  • Code of conduct (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • Public schools have a tough job when it comes to student discipline. As centers of learning, they are required to maintain an environment conducive to learning…Read more...

Gates Foundation Wastes More Money Pushing VAM

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Makes it hard to trust the corporate ed reformers when they goose their stats as badly as this.

Any attempt to evaluate teachers that is spoken of repeatedly as being "scientific" is naturally going to provoke rebuttals that verge on technical geek-speak. The MET Project's "Ensuring Fair and Reliable Measures of Effective Teaching" brief does just that. MET was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

At the center of the brief's claims are a couple of figures (“scatter diagrams” in statistical lingo) that show remarkable agreement in VAM scores for teachers in Language Arts and Math for two consecutive years. The dots form virtual straight lines. A teacher with a high VAM score one year can be relied on to have an equally high VAM score the next, so Figure 2 seems to say.

Not so. The scatter diagrams are not dots of teachers' VAM scores but of averages of groups of VAM scores. For some unexplained reason, the statisticians who analyzed the data for the MET Project report divided the 3,000 teachers into 20 groups of about 150 teachers each and plotted the average VAM scores for each group. Why?

And whatever the reason might be, why would one do such a thing when it has been known for more than 60 years now that correlating averages of groups grossly overstates the strength of the relationship between two variables? W.S. Robinson in 1950 named this the "ecological correlation fallacy." Please look it up in Wikipedia. The fallacy was used decades ago to argue that African-Americans were illiterate because the correlation of %-African-American and %-illiterate was extremely high when measured at the level of the 50 states. In truth, at the level of persons, the correlation is very much lower; we’re talking about differences as great as .90 for aggregates vs .20 for persons.

Just because the average of VAM scores for 150 teachers will agree with next year's VAM score average for the same 150 teachers gives us no confidence that an individual teacher's VAM score is reliable across years. In fact, such scores are not — a fact shown repeatedly in several studies.

[readon2 url="http://ed2worlds.blogspot.com/2013/01/gates-foundation-wastes-more-money.html"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Now is the time to do something about gun violence

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In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, the President has released his plan to improve gun safety and hopefully prevent future massacres and gun related deaths.

His full plan can be read here.

Here's a list of his major principles:

  • Require criminal background checks for all gun sales.
  • Take four executive actions to ensure information on dangerous individuals is available to the background check system.
  • Reinstate and strengthen the assault weapons ban.
  • Restore the 10-round limit on ammunition magazines.
  • Protect police by finishing the job of getting rid of armor-piercing bullets.
  • Give law enforcement additional tools to prevent and prosecute gun crime.
  • End the freeze on gun violence research.
  • Make our schools safer with more school resource officers and school counselors, safer climates, and better emergency response plans.
  • Help ensure that young people get the mental health treatment they need.
  • Ensure health insurance plans cover mental health benefits.

On top of these principles the President also issued 23 executive orders:

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

11. Nominate an ATF director.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

The NEA has issued a strong endrosement of this plan

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel issued the following statement:

“The senseless tragedy in Newtown was a tipping point and galvanization for action. As educators, we have grieved too long and too often—for the children killed, their families and the heroic educators who gave their lives trying to protect their students. Now more than ever we need to do what is necessary to make sure every child in our nation’s public schools has a safe and secure learning environment.

“We commend President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for moving swiftly and presenting concrete, bold steps to keep children safe and begin addressing gun violence in America. We believe the common-sense recommendations put forth by President Obama are an important first step toward keeping children safe, providing more support for students and educators, and keeping military-style weapons out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them. To solve the problem, we must have not only meaningful action on preventing gun violence but also bullying prevention and much greater access to mental health services, so that educators and families can identify problems and intervene before it’s too late.

In a letter to Vice President Biden, the NEA outlined its proposal that, while including sensible gun safety recommendations, focuses on truly preventive measures, including greater access to mental health services, plus the infrastructure, training and programs that will ensure safe learning environments for the nation’s children.

The presidential recommendations are in line with the views of NEA members. A new NEA member poll released yesterday indicates overwhelming support for stronger gun violence prevention laws, including background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips. The NEA members polled also overwhelmingly rejected the idea of arming educators.

“The idea of arming teachers as some had suggested was rightly and soundly rejected by the president’s task force. We especially welcome the president’s comprehensive approach by allowing school districts the option to design and implement appropriate measures to make schools safer and protect their students.

“With the clock ticking to prevent another Sandy Hook and Americans demanding swift action, the nation’s attention now is squarely on Congress. The time is now for Washington to put politics aside and work together to keep our children safe and reduce the incidence of gun violence in our communities.”

Education News for 01-16-2013

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State Education News

  • Ohio adopts student restraint, seclusion policy (Canton Repository)

    • The Ohio Board of Education has approved a policy on how educators seclude and physically restrain students in schools…Read more...

  • Allison named Canton City Schools superintendent; gets 5-year contract (Canton Repository)

    • Nearly 64 years after his grandfather became the first black employee hired in the district, as a janitor, Adrian Allison becomes its first black superintendent…Read more...

  • Key district official in data-rigging case retires (Columbus Dispatch)

    • In a flurry of developments yesterday, a key figure in the investigation of Columbus City Schools’ data-rigging retired; the Board of Education gave a cool reception to Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s request to critique district business operations…Read more...

  • Schools’ use of seclusion now limited (Columbus Dispatch)

    • State Board of Education members say their seclusion and restraint policy isn’t perfect, but they’re proud to have done something to protect Ohio’s children…Read more...

  • Gov. Kasich says his comprehensive school plan will be delivered shortly (NPR)

    • Gov. Kasich has signed a bill into law that grades schools on an A through F grading scale. But as Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles reports, that’s a part of a bigger education plan that the Governor intends to release soon…Read more...

  • OPATA offering free training for educators (Portsmouth Daily Times)

    • Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says more training opportunities for Ohio’s educators have now been scheduled…Read more...

  • State says former treasurer must repay school (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • A state audit has revealed excess payments to the retirement fund of the school district’s former treasurer…Read more...

Local Education News

  • North Canton takes proactive security steps in schools (Canton Repository)

    • After the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Police Chief Stephan Wilder feared a copycat gunman could strike here…Read more...

  • Looking at the bottom line, Heath schools open doors (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Less than 24 hours after the board agreed to allow open enrollment at Heath City Schools, a parent sat in the district parking lot filling out applications…Read more...

  • After-school shooting sends boy to youth prison (Columbus Dispatch)

    • A 15-year-old boy who fired a gun outside an East Side elementary school, grazing the head of a 17-year-old girl, was committed to the Ohio Department of Youth Services yesterday…Read more...

  • City schools board enters agreement for energy savings (Mansfield News Journal)

    • Mansfield City Schools could save “tens of thousands of dollars” in energy expenses through a new program, Superintendent Dan Freund said…Read more...

  • County delays decision on school funding (Springfield News-Sun)

    • Clark County commissioners delayed a decision about contributing $100,000 to the Global Impact STEM Academy due in part to uncertainty about the project…Read more...

  • Schools to cash in (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • Area schools are cashing out. Local school districts soon will receive the first payment of casino-tax revenue, with some districts set to take in more than $110,000…Read more...

  • Columbus City Schools Hopes To Have New Superintendent In 6 Months (WBNS)

    • The Columbus School Board is meeting Tuesday night with the firm that has been hired to lay out the process for searching and hiring a new superintendent. The goal is to have someone hired in six months…Read more...

  • Ohio school workers to carry guns have police training (WEWS)

    • Two of the four employees who have agreed to carry guns at a rural Ohio school apparently have law enforcement backgrounds…Read more...

  • Superintendent, board respond to concerns about enrollment at Austintown (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • Open enrollment was the hot-button topic at the Austintown school board meeting…Read more...

Editorial

  • Aiming to excel (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • As a national monitor for effective and high quality education, Education Week’s annual Quality Counts surveys are a valuable resource in comparative data…Read more...