Lake Local may join trend of allowing armed staff

The way Tim Krugh sees it, he’s just trying to minimize carnage.

The Lake Local Board of Education president said that when he reads or hears about mass shootings in schools, he worries about it happening in his district. With the school system cash-strapped, and no large police force nearby, he’s joined a growing number of Ohio school officials considering a last-ditch line of defense: arming staff.

Mr. Krugh is quick to say that no decision has been made. The board will hold a forum at 10 a.m. Saturday, at which a Buckeye Firearms Association speaker will discuss a training program the nonprofit offers to school staff.

It is a chance for the community to ask questions about having teachers, principals, or janitors, or anyone carrying a gun into their child’s school.

“We are looking at every option we can,” Mr. Krugh said.

In the wake of mass school shootings in Newtown, Conn., Chardon, Ohio, and elsewhere, school districts around the country re-evaluated their security procedures.

(Read more at The Toledo Blade.

Survey of Akron teachers shows testing, student discipline top concerns

About half of Akron’s teachers say they work 16 hours more than they clock in for each week.

Nearly all say administrators should not tinker with a long-standing policy that automatically transfers problem students.

About four in five say high-stakes tests have hijacked their ability to teach.

And while a majority praise their building principals, even more say they have no voice in the direction of their school district.

These are among the key results of a survey the Akron Education Association culled from more than 2,000 members. About 900 responded to the survey before winter break. After tallying the responses, union leadership found the exercise to be both encouraging and concerning.

“When the majority of educators feel they do not have the freedom to organize their classroom and instruction as they think best, when 84.4 percent of educators feel they do not have a voice in the direction of the district and 72.7 percent do not feel valued as an educator ... well then, Houston, we have a problem,” the union said in a January newsletter to its members.

The survey underscores the frustrations teachers express toward central administrators but also the shared frustrations that stem from state-mandated student testing and laws dictating they be used to influence hiring decisions.

(Read more at the Akron Beacon Journal)

Incorporating Stakeholder Feedback when Developing Value-Added Models

In light of the ODE report suggesting we're over-testing students, this study titled "Anticipating and incorporating stakeholder feedback when developing value-added models" offers further means to address the explosion in testing.

Abstract: State and local education agencies across the United States are increasingly adopting rigorous teacher evaluation systems. Most systems formally incorporate teacher performance as measured by student test-score growth, sometimes by state mandate. An important consideration that will influence the long-term persistence and efficacy of these systems is stakeholder buy-in, including buy-in from teachers. In this study we document common questions from teachers about value-added measures and provide research-based responses to these questions.

The study found four key issues that consistently came up with regard to the use of value-added for teacher evaluations:

1. Differentiated Students. How can the model deal with a teacher who has students who are different for some reason (e.g., poverty, special education, etc.)? Will that teacher be treated unfairly by the model?
2. Student Attendance. Will teachers be held accountable for students who do not regularly attend class?
3. Outside Events and Policies. How can the model account for major events (e.g., school closings for snow) or initiatives (e.g., Common Core implementation) that impact achievement?
4. Ex Ante Expectations. Why can’t teachers have their predicted scores – the target average performance levels for their students – in advance?

These questions still persist today, and are larely unanswered.

Here's the full report.

State Superintendent says 20 hours of standardized tests is too many for Ohio kids, suggests reductions

Ohio students spend close to 20 hours a year taking standardized tests, state Superintendent Richard Ross reported today, as he suggested several ways to trim that time by about four hours per grade.

In a report to the legislature and Gov. John Kasich on testing in Ohio, Ross outlined ways he believes the state can reduce testing by about 20 percent, while also preserving the state's ability to evaluate the academic progress of students and measure the performance of schools and teachers.

Whether his recommendations satisfy critics of ever-increasing testing remains to be seen. He does not recommend any changes to the new state tests that ramped up testing time this year and that sparked some of the criticism of a "test mania": new Common Core tests in English and math and new tests created by the state in social studies, science and American history and government.

Ross instead proposes limiting standardized testing - not including tests created by teachers - to two percent of the school year for every student, and limiting districts to preparing students for tests only one percent of the time.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Kasich’s student-mentoring program drops religious requirement

The Ohio Department of Education will no longer require schools to partner with religious organizations in seeking funding from Gov. John Kasich’s new $10 million student-mentorship program.

Department officials said yesterday that the definition of a “faith-based organization has been expanded” to include nonreligious groups.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which argued that the requirement was unconstitutional, said the new definition was baffling and failed to resolve the issue.

“It’s clear that this was always intended to be a religious experience. This confusing language does not let them off the hook,” said Chris Link, executive director of ACLU Ohio.

Education Department spokesman John Charlton said the change was made in response to inquiries from the ACLU and grant applicants.

(Read more at the Dispatch)

ODE thinks we've been over-testing kids by 20%

The Ohio Department of Education was tasked with producing a report detailing the amount of testing being performed in K-12 public schools. You can read the report itself, below.

The report find the following: Total Testing Time for the Average Student in a School Year, in Hours

Kindergarten	11.3
1	11.6
2	13.6
3	28
4	24
5	22.6
6	22.3
7	21.1
8	23
9	20.4
10	28.4
11	18.9
12	12.2
Total	257.4
Average	19.8

That's a lot of testing, and is not fully comprehensive as the report notes.

ODE goes on to provide 8 action steps being taken, and ends with a number of recommendations, including

This report includes a comprehensive package of legislative recommendations to shorten the amount of time students spend taking tests. These recommendations place limits on the overall time students spend taking tests each year, eliminate unnecessary tests and modify the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System. The following recommendations are contingent on each other and would require implementation as a comprehensive set of reforms. If this package of recommendations is adopted, the state can reduce the amount of time students are taking tests by nearly 20 percent.

A clear admission that the testing regime in Ohio has gotten out of hand by at least 20%

To get there ODE lays out the following recommendations

Recommendation 1: Limit the amount of time a student takes tests at the state and district levels to 2 percent of the school year, and limit the amount of time spent practicing for tests to 1 percent of the school year. These limits will encourage the state and districts to prioritize testing and guarantee to students and parents that the vast majority of time in the classroom will focus on instruction, not testing.

[...]

Recommendation 2: Eliminate the fall third-grade reading test and administer the test in the spring. Students who do not reach the required promotion score on the spring test will have a second opportunity to take the test in the summer.

[...]

Recommendation 3: Eliminate the state’s requirement that districts give mathematics and writing diagnostic tests to students in first grade through third grades.

[...]

Recommendation 4: Eliminate the use of student learning objective tests as part of the teacher evaluation system for grades pre-K to 3 and for teachers teaching in non-core subject areas in grades 4-12. The core areas are English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. Teachers teaching in grades and subject areas in which student learning objectives are no longer permitted will demonstrate student growth through the expanded use of shared attribution, although at a reduced level overall. In cases where shared attribution isn’t possible, the department will provide guidance on alternative ways of measuring growth.

That last recommendation is a huge admission. Teachers and administrators have been hugely burdened developing and deploying SLO's and students have received little to no benefit from them. Here's the full report

Supt Ross Report on Testing