Education Insider: Kasich trades jabs with Fairbanks superintendent

A war of words appears to be brewing between Gov. John Kasich and Fairbanks Superintendent Bob Humble.

It started when Humble offered his thoughts on Kasich’s school-funding proposal, which takes into account a district’s ability to fund its operations based on income and property value per student.

“This is absolutely the craziest, most-goofiest formula I’ve ever seen,” Humble said. “How can a state in the best financial state it’s ever been in be cutting funds to any district?”

Fairbanks in Union County is slated to lose about 6 percent, or $314,000, in state funding over two years under Kasich’s plan.

Humble was dumbfounded by the district’s capacity measure — its ability to pay for its schools — under Kasich’s plan. Fairbanks’ measure ranked above capacity in the New Albany and Olentangy school districts, which have higher median incomes than the mostly farming community. Fairbanks’ figure is just below Upper Arlington’s and Grandview Heights’.

Kasich responded just as harshly, calling out educators for what he said is their “irresponsible” reactions to his plan.

“We need more superintendents who are educators and less superintendents who are politicians,” he said.

(Read more at the Dispatch)

Ohio's School Counselors Could See New Evaluation Standards

A new set of evaluation rules for the state’s school counselors is included in Governor John Kasich’s proposed operating budget. And the Ohio School Counselors Association, or OSCA, supports the idea.

School counselors aren’t evaluated like teachers. OSCA created its own guidelines a few years ago, but assessments are still handled at the local level. Association President Sarah Collins says that means there’s no unified approach, so school counseling programs vary depending on where you are. She points out a counselor’s effectiveness also depends on the demands on them and if they are pulling double duty like filling in as substitute teachers.

“You may have one counselor that has 250 students, which is the recommended ratio by our national organization. There are some counselors that have 1,000 kids, or 2,000 kids in multiple buildings. So how do you evaluate those fairly?”

And she says having set guidelines written into law means everyone would also be speaking the same evaluation language.

“What’s working in your district with this? And what’s working in your district with this? I mean, certainly we know that the resources are probably are never going to be completely an even-playing field. But it at least gives us a starting point for administrators to talk, for superintendent to talk, for other school counselors to be able to talk using common language.”

Collins says her organization will continue working with lawmakers as they consider the rules. If the idea is approved, the state board of education would need guidelines in place by May 2016.

Your charter schools

School choice. Doesn't that sound nice? It seems to ring of sounds we all hold dear: liberty, equality and the pursuit of excellence in education. The sad truth is, however, that Ohio's charter schools are a mess.

According to a study released late last year and commissioned by the pro-charter Fordham Institute, of the 68 criteria on which public and charter schools are compared, 56 of those criteria indicate that charter schools have a negative impact on students versus public schools. For example, the average Ohio charter school student completed 14 fewer days of learning in reading and 36 fewer days in math than the average public school student.

The results are so bad that a member of the pro-charter Hoover Institution told the City Club of Cleveland, "I am actually a pro-market kind of girl, but it doesn't seem to work in a choice environment for education."

Recent Ohio school report cards show charter schools receiving more Fs than As, Bs and Cs combined. Over 60 percent of the state's charter schools earned Ds or Fs last year, according to knowyourcharter.com, which gathers its information from the Ohio Department of Education.

Charter school performance is so bad that even Gov. Kasich has vowed to get tough with underperforming charter schools in 2015.

(Read more at the Sandusky Register)

School districts' plea to Columbus: Slash the number of tests our students have to take

The sheer number of state tests that Ohio students face each year is stifling creative learning, some educators say, and a coalition of Greater Cincinnati districts is lobbying state lawmakers to cut the number of mandated tests.

Mason, Deer Park and West Clermont school districts are among those lobbying to reduce the number of tests for students in grades 3-12 from two or three a year – depending on the grade level – to one. They recommend staggering English, math, science and social studies testing so that none take place in the same year. Some also want to eliminate Common Core-based testing for high schoolers, replacing those exams with the ACT college prep test for juniors.

"It would allow our teachers to be more innovative, creative and engaging with their instruction," Deer Park Superintendent Jeff Langdon told WCPO. "We're assessing our kids more than we ever have. And we're doing less teaching."

(Read more at WCPO.com.

More charter school controls wanted by the left and by Auditor Yost on the right

Charter school reform proposals are gaining broad support in Columbus, but there are voices on both the left and the right who say the $1 billion charter school movement in Ohio needs even stronger controls than what has been proposed.

Both Gov. John Kasich and Republicans in the Ohio House have made separate proposals to change the oversight and management of charter schools - public schools open to anyone, but which are privately-run.

A third proposal is coming soon from the Ohio Senate.

While both proposals so far are receiving praise for taking on some important issues, some want them to go further.

Auditor Yost wants clearer rules

State Auditor Dave Yost, also a Republican, said he plans to give the legislature his own suggested changes early next month. Those will include requiring more financial reporting by charter schools and the private companies that often run them, along with better definition of the role of those companies.

"I don't think that what needs to happen is on the table yet," Yost told The Plain Dealer.

Among Yost's concerns: that Ohio has no clear definition of when a charter school is acting as a private organization or when they take on a governmental role in educating children. That leaves private organizations receiving large amounts of tax money that don't have much accountability to the public.

The complaints from the left, coming this week from the Innovation Oho think tank and the Ohio Education Association, are mostly predictable. Both are groups that have been critics of charter schools.

But while they both want bad charter schools closed faster and want better financial reporting, they and most Democrats aren't fighting to shut down the charter movement, just the worst schools.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Ohio must stop increasing taxpayer subsidies for ill-regulated charters at expense of Ohio's public schools

There has got to be a better way to fund K-12th-grade charter schools than Ohio Gov. John Kasich's latest budget proposal that would further rob traditional public schools of millions of dollars in order to subsidize poorly regulated charter schools. The governor's plan would continue the cannibalization of Ohio's public schools.

That's especially so since the Ohio General Assembly itself has been all too willing over the years to pick the pockets of public schools to pad the pockets of the private interests behind for-profit charters and the lobbyists who represent them -- and far too unwilling to tighten Ohio's shamefully lax regulatory framework for charters.

This year, it appears charter reform supported by Kasich finally will emerge in the General Assembly. Increasing charters' taxpayer subsidy should await the results of that reform effort; pumping nearly $1 billion into their coffers, as the governor's plan envisions, is not the answer.

The Ohio General Assembly should also change a state law that puts traditional public school systems such as Akron on the hook for millions of dollars to provide special bus transportation to private and charter school students even beyond what they can afford to offer regular public students.

But let's go back to House Bill 64, the governor's two-year budget proposal. According to the Legislative Service Commission, a nonpartisan research group for state legislators, Kasich's budget would give charter schools nearly $1 billion in 2016 and 2017 by increasing the amount of state funding charters will receive for operating, base pay per student and facilities.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)