ACLU of Ohio says state can't "inject religious criteria" into Gov. Kasich's student mentoring program

COLUMBUS, Ohio, The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is researching possible legal action over a requirement for schools to have religious partners to be part of Gov. John Kasich's $10 million student mentoring program.

Christine Link, ACLU of Ohio executive director, said she is troubled that the new "Community Connectors" program requires that a "house of worship" or "faith-based" organization join with a business and a school before the school can qualify for grants from the program.

As The Plain Dealer reported last Friday, other non-profit organizations that want to mentor students can participate, but only if a business and a religious group are also in the partnership with the school. But the other non-profits are not eligible if no religious group is included.

In a letter this week to Kasich and State Superintendent Richard Ross, ACLU officials say they are "troubled" that the state has "injected religious criteria" into the program and that the requirement may be unconstitutional. Link said the government and schools can have religious groups work with students, just with strong limits, but not give them preferences or include them at the exclusion of other groups.

"The government is not supposed to prefer religion over non religion," said Link.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Ohio's charter school performance is "grim" and needs state attention, Stanford researcher tells the City Club

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio's longstanding and "grim" problem with underperforming charter schools is improving, a Stanford researcher said at the City Club today, but the state needs to increase its quality control efforts.

Macke Raymond, director of Stanford's Center for Research of Educational Outcomes (CREDO), presented details from CREDO's just-released report on charter schools in Ohio to a lunchtime crowd, while also discussing policy changes that can improve charters.

Most of all, Raymond stressed, Ohio has an "expanded need for attention to quality" of charter schools to reduce the large amount -- about half -- whose students show both low ability and low improvement in reading and math.

"Year over year over year, (the students) are actually falling further behind," Raymond said, with chances of ever reading well or having basic math skills "virtually nil."

As we reported yesterday, and as Raymond told the City Club crowd today, CREDO found that students learn less in charter schools than in traditional districts – the equivalent of 36 days of learning in math and 14 days in reading.

The results for Cleveland are very different from the rest of the state, with charter schools here outperforming district schools by 14 days of learning in both subjects.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Do charters take money from Cincinnati Public kids?

COLUMBUS – Charter schools take away money intended to pay for the education of students who stay in the Cincinnati Public Schools system, according to a report by a group critical of Ohio's charter school system.

Ohio has delegated $3,600 in state taxpayer money to pay for the education of each student who lives in the Cincinnati Public district. If a student attends a charter school instead, the district must contribute at least $5,800 to the charter school – much more than the per-student amount it received from the state.

That puts a strain on school systems' ability to educate the children who are left in the district, said Stephen Dyer, a former Democratic state representative who now works at left-leaning think tank Innovation Ohio, which co-authored the study. Schools may have to cut programs, or they may have to ask voters to approve property or income tax hikes to help make up for the difference, he said.

"We need to find a way to fund charters that doesn't hurt kids who aren't in charters – which is the vast majority of students in Ohio," Dyer said Tuesday. Dyer's group authored the study with the Ohio Education Association, a longtime opponent of charter schools.

Democrats and teacher union groups – and, increasingly, Republicans – have called for increased oversight of the state's often low-performing charter schools, which are run by independent groups but paid for with taxpayer money.

Some of Southwest Ohio's three dozen charter schools are high-performing and well-run, but many have closed after financial problems or poor academic marks. Other charters have been marred by criminal charges and even investigations by the FBI. The links between some charter schools and powerful, GOP-leaning donors have increased the controversy surrounding the schools.

(Read more at Cincinnati.com)

Parent Trigger ‘Pilot Project’ In Columbus Has No Takers

Improving low performing public schools is a problem that has troubled educators and parents for decades.

This year, Ohio is trying a new tactic – allowing for parents to take over a troubled school.

Under a ‘pilot project’ set by Ohio lawmakers, nearly two dozen Columbus City schools are eligible for the so-called ‘parent trigger’ option.

With an end of year deadline approaching the state’s largest district has not received a parent petition.

(Read more at StateImpact Ohio)

Kasich appointees dominated state school board vote to end requirements for school nurses, counselors and librarians

COLUMBUS, Ohio - State school board members appointed by Gov. John Kasich dominated Tuesday's vote to drop state requirements for school nurses, librarians and counselors and leave staffing decisions to local school boards.

The 11 members of the 19-person board that were appointed into their seats by Kasich voted 10-1 to kill the so-called "5 of 8" requirement the state has had for years.

It's not the final vote on the issue. That will come next year after two required administrative reviews of the change. But Tuesday's vote was a major step toward ending "5 of 8."

The rule requires schools to have at least five student support personnel from eight categories for every 1,000 students. Those eight are: elementary art, music or physical education teachers, school counselors, library media specialists, school nurses, social workers and "visiting teachers."

Debate was heated on the issue, with supporters of the change saying they want to remove state mandates and give districts the ability to set staffing at schools they know better than officials in Columbus. Opponents wanted to keep the rule to prevent less-affluent districts from axing these services when budgets are tight.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Principals Reject ‘Value-Added’ Assessment That Links Test Scores to Educators’ Jobs

The Board of Directors of the National Association of Secondary School Principals has given preliminary approval to a statement that rejects linking educators’ jobs and pay to standardized test scores that are plopped into a formula that can supposedly determine exactly how much “value” an individual educator has added to students’ academic growth.

The method of linking test scores to job status and pay is known as “value-added measurement” or VAM, and it has been embraced by school reformers, including the Obama administration, as a prime way to hold educators “accountable” for how well their students do in class. In some states, up to 50 percent of an educators’ evaluation is based on VAM systems. The problem is that numerous assessment and statistics experts — including the American Statistical Association — have said that VAM formulas (there are many) are not a valid or reliable method of assessing the value of individual teachers and principals.

Last April, the Statistical Association, the largest organization in the United States representing statisticians and related professionals, said in a report that value-added scores “do not directly measure potential teacher contributions toward other student outcomes” and that they “typically measure correlation, not causation,” noting that “effects — positive or negative — attributed to a teacher may actually be caused by other factors that are not captured in the model.” After the report’s release, I asked the Education Department if Education Secretary Arne Duncan was reconsidering his support for value-added measures, and the answer was no.

Read more at the Washington Post