Education News for 04-11-2013

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State Education News

Local Education News

  • 14 were interested in Columbus superintendent job (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Columbus City Schools had 14 applicants from across the nation for superintendent when the school board voted to suspend its search on Tuesday evening, bowing to the wishes of Mayor Michael B. Coleman and others.…Read more…

  • Goggin hired as Midview superintendent (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • The Midview school board will hire current Director of Education Scott Goggin as its next superintendent at today’s board meeting.…Read more…

  • Avon Lake High School might cut credit hours (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • It may be easier for Avon Lake High School seniors to receive their diploma in 2014 as school board members consider cutting graduation credit hours from 24 to 21 credits.…Read more…

  • South Range district asks state for more funding (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • The treasurer of a Mahoning County district urged state lawmakers Wednesday to increase state funding for local schools.…Read more…

  • Boardman stadium project gets boost from Home Savings donation (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • Boardman High School boosters are trying to get a new stadium project up and running, despite voter rejection of a bond issue in 2007 that would have provided funding.…Read more…

Fordham hides from facts

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UPDATE: Fordham has now published our comment on their site, for which we are grateful. See the comments to this article for their explanation.

The Fordham Foundation, one of Ohio's more vocal charter school boosters, has a post on their website defending the high number of failing charter schools. The piece is written by Aaron Churchill, someone we have observed stretching facts and the truth before (Fordham loses its bearings). Like his previous piece's error addled analysis, his latest defense of failing charter schools goes to great lengths to obfuscate hard truths using indefensible "statistical analysis".

Rather than write a post here on JTF, we tried to leave a long comment pointing out just some of the errors in the post. Fordham has decided they would rather that comment be hidden and not be published, so we are publishing it below, in response to a Fordham reader asking us to

Aaron states "The chart shows that a nearly equal number of charters reside in the state’s bottom 111 schools"

Let's just assume that is correct. What if utterly fails to recognize is that there are orders of magnitude more traditional public school buildings than charter schools - so the fact that so many charter school buildings appear in the bottom 111 should be disturbing to everyone, not glommed onto as a point of false equivalence. As an overall percentage of school buildings charter schools dominate the bottom rankings.

Let's look at another claim made by Aaron...

"The fact of the matter is that taxpayers spend less on each child in a charter school then is spent on their district peers."

That claim is contradicted by the Ohio Department of Education (link here:http://www.scribd.com/doc/117636411/ODE-Analysis-of-Per-Pupil-Cost-of-Charters-and-Publics).

"The average of total expenditure per pupil for public districts is $10,110.72.

The average expenditure per pupil for community schools is $9,064. When broken out: For e-schools it’s $7,027. For non-eschool community schools it’s $10,165.

So only when one combines the cost of the laughably cheap (and ludicrously underperforming) e-schools do Ohio's charters look inexpensive - and that's using ODE as a source.

Aaron did a good job, as all charter school boosters do, of obfuscating the facts - which is that the vast majority of Ohio's charter schools deliver a poor quality education at an inflated cost.

Let's close them down and concentrate our energy on the schools that 95% of Ohio's students go to, and maybe learn some things along the way from the few charter schools that are getting it right, instead of this constant non-debate and excuse making about the terrible charter schools we all know exist in very high numbers.

Fordham likes to hide behind their advocacy for charter school accountability and quality, but whenever they are pressed on this, they obfuscate the difficult facts and revert to defending the rotten and the failing. They may talk a good game, but in the end they are no less a charter school booster as White Hat owner, David Brennan. Mr. Churchill's post and decision to avoid a discussion on it are further proof of that.

Education News for 04-10-2013

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State Education News

  • Ohio Adopts New Restraint, Seclusion Room Policies For Schools (WBNS)

    • Ohio was a state that had no restrictions on seclusion rooms or restraints in schools. In December, the state created a policy, or guidelines, for districts to follow...Read more...

    


  • School funding plan gets overhaul from Ohio House (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • State legislative leaders tossed out a major part of Gov. John Kasich's school funding plan Tuesday and significantly shifted the dollars that individual districts would receive from the state...Read more...

Local Education News

  • National Robotics Challenge returns for 10th year (Marion Star)

    • While much of the robotics buzz locally is centering on the upcoming world robotics championship to be held in California, the event that first spurred an interest locally will enter its 10th year Thursday...Read more...

  • Cuts could hit Head Start (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • Students and teachers in Mahoning and Trumbull counties could be affected by a federal funding hit to Head Start programs...Read more...

    


  • Geneva schools to host open meeting on lockdown response (Ashtabula Star-Beacon)

    • Geneva teachers and first responders will team up Thursday to inform parents about new emergency lockdown procedures at every district school...Read more...

    


  • Students earn Junior Achievement experience, honors (Canton Repository)

    • Dozens of area high school students spent Tuesday morning showing what they’ve learned this year about business, and several went home with scholarship money...Read more...

    


  • Fairborn teachers put to the test (WDTN)

    • Fairborn students got an extra day of Spring Break Monday while their teachers had a very serious lesson to learn in the classroom...Read more...

    


  • Bluffton student raises awareness for diabetes, awarded for efforts (Lima News)

    • Jena Diller has no memory of a time when she didn’t have a sibling with Type 1 diabetes. Her older sister was diagnosed at age 12, her younger brother at age 4...Read more...

    


  • New Technology Allows Police To Have Eyes Inside Schools (WBNS)

    • A new tool has turned Baltimore village police officers into “virtual” cops. DARE officer Jason Harget demonstrated how officers can see inside every school in the district from the inside of his police cruiser...Read more...

  • Turnout seen as key to Chillicothe City School's levy success (Chillicothe Gazette)

    • With no other candidates or issues on the May 7 ballot for Chillicothe voters, people pushing for passage of the Chillicothe City Schools’ operational levy realize that getting people fired up..Read more...

  • Pymatuning Valley Local School District classified employee has beef with superintendent (Ashtabula Star-Beacon)

    • A Pymatuning Valley Local School District classified employee says she has been placed on unpaid administrative leave after missing several weeks of work due to being on a mission trip out of the country...Read more...

  • Cleveland School district approves sale of administration building to hotel for $4.5 million (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • A St. Louis hotel company will become the new owners of the Cleveland School District's landmark East Sixth administration building after the school board voted 5-to- 3 to accept its $4.5 million bid Tuesday night...Read more...

  • Avon Lake City Schools stress passage of levy (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • As the May 7 primary election quickly approaches, Avon Lake City School board members met yesterday to discuss financials and stress how important the upcoming levy is to success of the district and city of Avon Lake...Read more...

  • 'Do the Right Thing' program returns to Lorain City Schools (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • Lorain City Schools’ “Do the Right Thing” program has returned after more than a year’s hiatus...Read more...

  • Niles McKinley High begins classes in new building (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • “It’s really nice, and I love it,” said Angelisa Beltran, a 17-year-old senior, as she and nearly 675 of her fellow students began their first day of classes in the new Niles McKinley High School...Read more...

  • Youngstown school board rejects funding members' trip to Calif. (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • If three city school board members want to attend a National School Boards Association conference this weekend in San Diego, they’ll have to pay for it themselves...Read more...

    


Bill Gates Dances Around the Teacher Evaluation Disaster He Sponsored

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No one in America has done more to promote the raising of stakes for test scores in education than Bill Gates.

Yesterday, Mr. Gates published a column that dances around the disaster his advocacy has created in the schools of our nation.

You can read his words there, but his actions have spoken so much more loudly, that I cannot even make sense out of what he is attempting to say now. So let's focus first on what Bill Gates has wrought.

No Child Left Behind was headed towards bankruptcy about seven years ago. The practice of labeling schools as failures and closing them, on the basis of test scores, was clearly causing a narrowing of the curriculum. Low income schools in Oakland eliminated art, history and even science in order to focus almost exclusively on math and reading. The arrival of Arne Duncan and his top level of advisors borrowed from the Gates Foundation created the opportunity for a re-visioning of the project.

Both the Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers processes required states and districts to put in place teacher and principal evaluation systems which placed "significant" weight on test scores. This was interpreted by states to mean that test scores must count for at least 30% to 50% of an evaluation.

The Department of Education had told the states how high they had to jump, and the majority did so.

[readon2 url="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/04/bill_gates_dances_around_the.html"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Education News for 04-09-2013

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Local Education News

  • Watching over Lorain's schools; Academic Distress Commission appointed to help district recover (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • The Academic Distress Commission that will oversee Lorain City Schools education improvements includes three Lorain County Community College employees, the former director of REACHigher in Lorain County and a former associate state superintendent…Read more…

  • Cleveland school district avoids state control based on Cleveland plan already in place (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • The Cleveland schools will not fall under the control of a state academic distress commission.…Read more…

    


  • Medina superintendent Randy Stepp offers his side of contract, education payment controversy (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • The following letter was sent to area media outlets earlier today by Medina Schools superintendent Randy Stepp following the Medina School Board's decision to place him on paid administrative leave.…Read more…

  • Strongsville City Council considering resolution urging end to teachers strike (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • According to Strongsville City Council, the now six-week old teachers strike has "undoubtedly irreparably" harmed students, and it will go on the record saying that a special meeting called for 5 p.m. April 9.…Read more…

    


  • The superintendent will explain the Revitalization/Choice Plan changes (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • Youngstown parents and students are invited to meet with Superintendent Connie Hathorn this week to learn more about new program options for the 2013-14 school year.…Read more…

    


  • Connie Hathorn seeking retirement and rehiring as superintendent (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • City schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn will retire and is seeking re-employment to the post. The school board will conduct a public meeting on the issue of Hathorn’s proposed employment as a retiree at 5:30 p.m. June 4…Read more…

  • Brighter Tomorrow Plan: School, citizens plan for future (Canton Repository)

    • The first of four community meetings to discuss the future of the City Schools drew about 120 parents and concerned citizens to Souers Middle School Monday evening.…Read more…

    


  • New strategy for intruders to be enacted (Findlay Courier)

    • A new, nationally recognized strategy for defending against violent intruders will be taught to staff and students of Findlay City Schools beginning in June thanks to the city's police department.…Read more…

  • Veterinary program teaches care (Marion Star)

    • The shout went out as Tri-Rivers Career Center students shuffled about, checking on lizards, tortoises, chinchillas and other animals in the veterinary science lab.…Read more…

    


  • Students, public say goodbye to Niles school (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • It was a bittersweet farewell as students and teachers - both current and former - walked through the halls of old Niles McKinley High School one last time.…Read more…

    


  • King CLC opening likely to be delayed due to moisture problem (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • Akron school officials say a water barrier that was “not properly” installed at the King Community Learning Center (CLC) will likely delay its opening.…Read more…

    


  • Carey board OKs teacher contracts (Findlay Courier)

    • Carey school board approved teacher and non-teacher contracts for the 2013-14 school year.…Read more…

    


  • Huntington School Board cuts one position, trims four more (Chillicothe Gazette)

    • Faced with a projected $720,000 deficit and flat-lined funding from the state, the Huntington Board of Education began working to narrow its budget gap Monday.…Read more…

    


Editorial

  • Listen to the police (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • A school safety bill beginning to make its way through the Ohio House has triggered concerns that it would encourage more school districts to arm teachers and other staff members.…Read more…