Education News for 05-15-2013

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State Education News

  • Legislators try to combat school-standards rumors (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Tom Gibbs has reluctantly watched conservative commentator Glenn Beck and is up to speed on the criticisms of the new Common Core…Read more...

  • Columbus school district’s staffs being interviewed a 2nd time (Columbus Dispatch)

    • State investigators started a second round of interviews with dozens of teachers at most of the Columbus school district’s high schools yesterday…Read more...

  • School board urged not to arm teachers (Newark Advocate)

    • Top state law enforcement officials urged members of Ohio’s state school board Tuesday not to support arming untrained teachers with guns in response to recent school shootings…Read more...

  • School board members hear ideas on school safety, but seem to be rejecting arming teachers (Ohio Public Radio)

    • School safety was the top topic for the state board of education, which hoped to learn about how to make buildings, staff and students more secure…Read more...

  • Brookfield in fiscal emergency (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

    • The Brookfield Local School District is in a state of fiscal emergency, according to a report released Tuesday by Auditor of State Dave Yost…Read more...

  • State Board Hears Ways To Boost School Safety (WBNS)

    • Ohio’s top law enforcers addressed members of the state school board as it considers how to best update its school safety polices…Read more...

Local Education News

  • Cleveland school board OKs new teachers contract (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • The Cleveland school board Tuesday night approved a groundbreaking contract with its teachers, while also picking a new home for district offices…Read more...

  • No one told teachers they would lose jobs (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Less than two weeks before the May 7 election, Groveport Madison schools announced $2 million in cuts if voters turned down…Read more...

  • Treasurer’s mistake cuts up to $1.5M off Jonathan Alder’s budget (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Officials in the Jonathan Alder school district in Madison County don’t know how much money they have to operate on next school year…Read more...

  • Lorain School Board hears high school update, approves busing contract (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • The new Lorain High School has stayed within budget during its design development phase and few changes have happened since the initial design…Read more...

  • Lorain City Schools reassessing its 'Success for All' reading program (Lorain Morning Journal)

    • Lorain City Schools is reevaluating its “Success For All” reading program and could switch to a new system by next year…Read more...

  • Some Youngstown school principals to be in new posts (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • Some positions are being reshuffled to align with the new city school building configuration…Read more...

Ohio Teachers endorse Common Core Standards

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From our mailbag

At its Spring Representative Assembly in Columbus, members of the Ohio Education Association, the state’s largest education employee union, voted to support careful implementation of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics – but warned that outdated tests and lack of support for the standards could create major obstacles for success.

To address those issues, OEA members called for immediate suspension of outdated testing that does not align with the new Common Core State Standards and demanded comprehensive state and local support for the Common Core to bolster chances for successful implementation and challenging learning opportunities for students.

The moratorium on outdated high-stakes testing must begin now, said OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks. “It defies common sense for students, teachers, and schools to be held accountable for test scores based on standards that have been rejected by educators – and the State Board of Education. There is no benefit from teaching and testing young people on outdated standards.”

OEA warned that failure to provide professional development, technology for computer-based testing and time for collaborative planning “threaten successful implementation of the Common Core initiative.”

“The failure of policy makers to fund and support local implementation with the technology and ongoing communication with parents and communities will create unnecessary challenges for school districts and their employees,” said Frost-Brooks.

Common Core has great potential, and the issues OEA has identified are problems with implementation and support, not problems with the standards themselves, Frost-Brooks said.

“Teachers, parents and community leaders all helped create the Common Core, using research, best practices, and their hopes for the next generation,” said Frost-Brooks. “If properly implemented, Common Core learning strategies offer a dynamic foundation for lifelong learning, empowering teachers to use a wider range of strategies and their professional judgment and giving students more time to master essential knowledge and skills.”

That ought to embolden some of the tea party conspiracy theorists now popping up all over the place opposing Common Core.

Public schools neglected in favor of private choice expansion

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From William Phillis, Ohio E & A

"The public common school," Horace Mann said, "is the Greatest Discovery made by man." It constitutes a social compact established for the benefit of all the children of all the people, community by community, across Ohio and across America. It has been the primary force for the common good in America.

Although a state system in Ohio, required to be thorough and efficient by constitutional decree, it is operated at the community level by elected boards of education-the fourth branch of government. In spite of inadequate levels of state funding through the decades, the public common school in Ohio and throughout the nation has nurtured this country to which millions and millions in every generation have migrated.

The public common school, typically, on a modest and constrained budget, has attempted to meet the individual needs of students. Programs for vocational/technical training, programs for those with disabilities and special needs, have been a part of the common school fabric. Typically, education options have been limited by the fiscal resources available to school districts.

In the past two decades, the political will to maintain and strengthen the public common school, and thus the social compact, the common good, has dwindled in a frenzied untested "quick fix" strategy that is fueled by many who want to take public money to the altar of the god of school choice.

The public common school system, due to the transfer of resources from the system to private choices, is less able to provide for choice; hence, students within the public common school system are being denied choices due to choice expansion outside the system.

The school funding measures in HB 59 (school funding level and non-formula school funding formula) are detrimental to most school districts while favoring the school choice movement. The state has the constitutional responsibility to maintain and nurture the common school system, not give it away.

The 130th General Assembly should put a moratorium on the expansion of school choice and establish a bipartisan, bicameral legislative research committee to study the current choice program.

Education News for 05-14-2013

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State Education News

  • Schools, city look for millions in BWC rebates (Columbus Dispatch)

    • The city of Columbus could get at least $5.4 million and Columbus City Schools about $1.9 million under Gov. John Kasich’s proposal…Read more...

  • Plan would return $113M to Ohio schools, cities (Marion Star)

    • Ohio communities and schools would share almost $113 million in rebates from the state’s workers’ compensation fund should a proposal from Gov. John Kasich be approved…Read more...

  • Schools fared "better than normal" in special election, even though many had losses (Ohio Public Radio)

    • Voters across the state headed to the polls yesterday to make decisions about all kinds of levies – including almost 140 school issues…Read more...

Local Education News

    

  • No interim chief on the horizon for Columbus schools (Columbus Dispatch)

    • The Columbus Board of Education has no idea who will take over the $1.3 billion-a-year…Read more...

  • Fifth-graders have a blast while learning (Mansfield News Journal)

    • Fifth-graders at Hannah Crawford Elementary are learning math, language arts, science and social studies skills in a unique way…Read more...

Editorial

  • Yet another tale of a looted charter school shows that better fiscal safeguards (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • The Cuyahoga County prosecutor has it right, for the last six years, an in-house den of thieves has stolen nearly $2 million from a Cleveland charter school for teen dropouts…Read more...

Education News for 05-013-2013

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State Education News

  • School boards to review 5-year forecasts (Chillicothe Gazette)

    • Taking a look ahead at the next five years is a common theme of area school board activity this week…Read more...

  • Cleveland school district, Cleveland Teachers Union revamp salary system (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • A tentative contract negotiated by the Cleveland school district and Cleveland Teachers Union throws out "step" raises based on years of experience…Read more...

  • City schools requiring password changes (Columbus Dispatch)

    • The Columbus school district soon will require employees to regularly change their passwords to access computerized student data…Read more...

  • Taxpayers will soon be able to go online to see how the state is spending money (Ohio Public Radio)

    • Taxpayers will soon be able to go online to see how the state is spending money. Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles reports on a new database being developed by state leaders…Read more...

  • Charter schools in Youngstown need improvement (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • The chairwoman of the Youngstown Schools Academic Distress Commission is waging what she calls a one-woman crusade to ensure all students…Read more...

Local Education News

  • School officers take a hit in city budget (Cincinnati Enquirer)

    • Cincinnati Public Schools officials were surprised by a proposal to remove police resource officers from schools and to put those officers on city streets to replace laid-off police officers…Read more...

  • Noxious ‘crush’ sites plague area high schools (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Like a digital sleepover game, the Twitter account encouraged Pickerington students to share a secret crush under the cover of online anonymity. And the first nine posts played along…Read more...

  • Charter school for troubled students calling it quits (Columbus Dispatch)

    • A Columbus charter school that serves troubled students in grades 6-9 will close at the end of this school year…Read more...

  • Wind Power Cuts Ohio Schools' Electric Bills (WBNS)

    • Two northwest Ohio school districts say wind power is reducing their electricity bills and adding new learning tools for math and science…Read more...

ALEC's Report Card Receives Failing Marks

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Via the Great Lakes Center

EAST LANSING, Mich. (May 9, 2013) – Ranking states is a popular tool for education advocacy groups, with the goal of advancing a policy agenda based on ideologically driven pre-packaged reforms. These report cards receive considerable media attention, although few reflect research-based evidence on the efficacy of particular polices. The 18th edition of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress, and Reform is no different according to an academic review.

Christopher Lubienski, associate professor of education policy and Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois, and T. Jameson Brewer, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, reviewed ALEC's Report Card for the Think Twice think tank review project. The review was produced by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Lubienski and Brewer find that ALEC draws its grades exclusively not from research organizations, but from like-minded market-orientated advocacy organizations.

"Furthermore, when studies are highlighted in this report, they do not represent the peer-reviewed research on a given issue, are often of extremely poor quality, and generally unsuited for supporting their claim."

In their review, Lubienski and Brewer provide two key areas – alternative teacher certification and school choice – to highlight gaps between ALEC's agenda and empirical evidence. Despite multiple claims that a "growing body of research indicates…" – the report offers absolutely no supporting evidence. Math results, which have a lower pass rate, were used to compare traditionally-certified teachers to alternatively-certified teachers. Meanwhile alternatively-certified teachers were portrayed using their reading results.

"Many of the grades given to states reflect the level to which pro-market policies have been implemented while the grades systematically ignore meaningful measurements of equality and outcomes" according to the review.

Readers of ALEC's Report Card should consider it a statement of policy preferences and not an overview of research on education reforms.

The reviewers conclude, "At best, the report serves as an amalgamation of other like-minded think tanks' assessments of states' adoption of pro-market policies, and thus offers nothing new … it provides little or no usefulness to policymakers."

Find the report by Lubienski and Brewer on the Great Lakes Center website: www.greatlakescenter.org