Education News for 12-05-2012

State Education News

• Ohio Senate passes student-athlete concussion bill (Columbus Dispatch)

Starting as soon as the spring sports season, Ohio’s young athletes would have to be immediately removed from a game or practice when they showed symptoms of a concussion…Read more...

• Columbus school district must pay audit bill (Columbus Dispatch)

The cost to Columbus City Schools for being investigated for data-rigging continued to grow this week: The district has become the only one in a statewide probe…Read more...

• Program to help Ohio schools teach historic texts (Newark Advocate)

An educational program unveiled Tuesday by the Ohio Historical Society is meant to help schools comply with a new state law requiring students in grades 4-12…Read more...

• State audit finds discrepancy in school’s bank deposit (Springfield News-Sun)

A state audit released Tuesday included a finding that required the Graham Local School District to repay about $330 to the district’s athletic fund, because of an accounting error…Read more...

Local Education News

• Adena students' service projects address multiple issues (Chillicothe Gazette)

This fall, one class at Adena High School spawned four service projects, most of which had students working within the school…Read more...

• Cleveland schools CEO Eric Gordon rolls out draft plan aimed at lifting district's performance (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Six failing schools in the Cleveland school district could be overhauled in the fall. New specialty schools could open in the district a year later…Read more...

• Opinions split on freshman reading assignment in Grandview (Columbus Dispatch)

Any other year, students needed a signed form from their parents to read the book. If they got that, they would meet after school to discuss the novel with their teacher in small groups…Read more...

• Vanlue takes over BVS busing service (Findlay Courier)

Going along with the recent statewide trend of sharing services to reduce cost, Vanlue schools has taken over busing for Blanchard Valley School's preschool and school-aged children…Read more...

• High school seniors finding they can't procrastinate in college search process (Willoughby News Herald)

Preparing to apply to colleges is a task seniors often begin long before they’re set to make the jump from high school. For example, students at Mentor High School start thinking about career choices in the ninth grade…Read more...

• CMSD to Restore Full K-8 School Day (WJW)

Changes are under way to kindergarten through 8th grade school days in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District…Read more...

Editorial

• Extended learning (Akron Beacon Journal)

Next year, 40 schools in five states will participate in a three-year pilot program to extend the school year by 300 or more hours. Research indicates that properly applied, more instructional time…Read more...

Education News for 06-29-2012

State Education News

• Schools air funding beefs during Ohio House hearings (Dispatch)

The spending-per-pupil statistic is often used to measure efficiency of school districts across Ohio, so when Chris Pfister saw that his small, low-income, rural district’s number was higher than those of other nearby schools, he scratched his head. Read more...

Local Issues

• Attendance-record manager reassigned amid mess (Dispatch)

The man who was in charge of gathering and reporting Columbus City Schools’ state report-card data is being reassigned from the district’s data center to another job as the state moves in to investigate allegations of rigging student attendance numbers. There was no documentation to show that attendance changes were legitimate in 80 of 81 cases the district’s internal auditor reviewed. Steve Tankovich, the executive director of the Office of Accountability Systems, will be out of the district’s Kingswood Data Center by Thursday, Superintendent Gene Harris said yesterday. Read more...

• Lorain Schools likely to face fiscal emergency even if levy passes (Elyria Chronicle)

The school district is expected to become insolvent and declare fiscal emergency this spring, triggering a state financial takeover even if a levy passes in November. “I won’t have the cash to finish out the year,” School Treasurer Dale Weber said after Thursday’s Board of Education meeting where board members closed out the 2011-12 school year. The district closed out the year with a nearly $91.8 million general fund budget. The 2012-13 budget is about $89.6 million. Read more...

• Licking Heights, Southwest Licking districts plan to share food-service director (Newark Advocate)

Two local school districts plan on sharing a supervisor to drive down costs, starting this school year. Officials at one of the districts said the move could be the first of several partnerships aimed at saving money. Licking Heights Board of Education on June 26 approved a shared-services agreement with neighboring Southwest Licking Local Schools. The agreement, if approved tonight by the SWL board, will allow both districts to share Heights’ food service director, Ginger Parsons. Read more...

• Ohio Legal Rights Service Drops Lawsuit Against Columbus City Schools (State Impact Ohio)

A state agency that advocates for the rights of disabled people has dropped its lawsuit against the Columbus school district in connection with the use of seclusion rooms. Seclusion rooms are small, often padded rooms where violent or aggressive students can be taken to calm down. Read more...

• Ohio Schools Battling A Crisis (Wheeling News Register)

The blue-and-gold mascot of the Monroe Fighting Hornets was depicted on the school room wall, hovering over lists instructing children how to behave in the hallways, bathrooms and on the school bus. The hornet looked mad. Read more...

• Harris supports delaying Columbus school levy vote (Dispatch)

With the Columbus school board set to vote on Monday on whether to seek a levy in November, Superintendent Gene Harris now says she supports waiting until 2013, she told board members by memo this afternoon. The decision threw Harris’ weight firmly behind a 14-member citizen millage committee, which has been meeting for months to decide whether the district should put a property-tax issue on the fall ballot. That panel voted 8-2 on Tuesday to delay a levy until next year. Read more...

• Franklin County changes plan for disabled students (Dispatch)

The two schools operated by the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities will start the 2014-15 school year with a new curriculum designed to help students ages 14 to 22 transition to adult services and jobs. Board members approved the restructuring plan last night. It effectively phases out school services for children 6 to 13 at both Northeast and West Central schools. Read more...

• City schools avoid suit, hand over ‘seclusion room’ files (Dispatch)

A federal lawsuit to force Columbus schools to hand over records about its use of seclusion rooms has been dismissed because the district provided them. The Ohio Legal Rights Service, a state agency that works to protect people with disabilities, sued Columbus City Schools in March. The agency said the district was blocking its attempt to investigate whether children had been abused in the closetlike rooms. The agency sought the names and contact information of students who had been placed in seclusion rooms and records related to incidents that occurred in the rooms dating back to Jan. 1, 2011. Read more...

• Closed Tallmadge school to find new life as private school (Beacon Journal)

TALLMADGE: Overdale Primary School, which closed in the spring of 2011 as part of budget cuts made by the Tallmadge school district, will hear little footsteps echoing in its halls again this fall. Stow-based Cornerstone Community School placed a top bid of $320,000 on the property last week, and the school board approved the sale. Read more...

• Sponsor pulls plug on Academy of Excellence (Beacon Journal)

Former Akron Councilman Ernie Tarle’s Academy of Excellence charter school has lost its sponsor and won’t open this fall in Akron. Charters are publicly funded, privately operated schools that must have a state-approved sponsor to operate. Read more...

Teacher attrition and education policy

One of the genuine major issues facing education is one of teacher attrition. Each year significant numbers of teachers leave the profession. From a human capital perspective, this is hugely expensive and impacts education delivery. A large number of studies have been performed to asses this problem. A recent study, published by the american Education Research Association looked at all the major studies in this area. The study can be found here (pdf). What follows are come of the concluding remarks.

This literature review provides a summary and critical evaluation of the recent published research on the topic of teacher recruitment and retention. We reviewed studies that examined (1) the characteristics of individuals who enter teaching, (2) the characteristics of individuals who remain in teaching, (3) the external characteristics of schools and districts that affect recruitment and retention, (4) compensation policies that affect recruitment and retention, (5) pre-service policies that affect recruitment and retention, and (6) in-service policies that affect recruitment and retention.

The reviewed research offered several consistent findings. The strongest results were those relating to the influence of various factors on attrition due to the widespread availability of longitudinal data sets that track the employment of teachers. Below, we summarize the findings that emerged in the recent empirical research literature.

1. Results that arose fairly consistently regarding the characteristics of individuals who enter the teaching profession were as follows:
• Females formed greater proportions of new teachers than males.
• Whites formed greater proportions of new teachers than minorities, although there is evidence that minority participation rose in the early 1990s.
• College graduates with higher measured academic ability were less likely to enter teaching than were other college graduates. It is possible, however, that these differences were driven by the measured ability of elementary school teachers, who represent the majority of teachers.
• A more tentative finding based on a small number of weaker studies is that an altruistic desire to serve society is one of the primary motivations for pursuing teaching.
2. Several findings emerged with a strong degree of consistency in empirical studies of the characteristics of individuals who leave the teaching profession:
• The highest turnover and attrition rates seen for teachers occurred in their first years of teaching and after many years of teaching when they were near retirement, thus producing a U-shaped pattern of attrition with respect to age or experience.
• Minority teachers tended to have lower attrition rates than White teachers.
• Teachers in the fields of science and mathematics were more likely to leave teaching than teachers in other fields.
• Teachers with higher measured academic ability (as measured by test scores) were more likely to leave teaching.
• Female teachers typically had higher attrition rates than male teachers.
3. Regarding the external characteristics of schools and districts that are related to teacher recruitment and retention rates, the empirical literature provided the following fairly consistent findings:
• Schools with higher proportions of minority, low-income, and low-performing students tended to have higher attrition rates.
• In most studies, urban school districts had higher attrition rates than suburban and rural districts.
• Teacher retention was generally found to be higher in public schools than in private schools.
4. The following statements summarize the consistent research findings regarding compensation policies and their relationship to teacher recruitment and retention:
• Higher salaries were associated with lower teacher attrition.
• Teachers were responsive to salaries outside their districts and their profession.
• In surveys of teachers, self-reported dissatisfaction with salary was associated with higher attrition and decreased commitment to teaching.Teacher Recruitment and Retention
5. Rigorous empirical studies of the impact of pre-service policies on teacher recruitment and retention were sparse. In general, few results emerged across studies, and the following findings were therefore not particularly robust:
• Graduates of nontraditional and alternative teacher education programs appear to have higher rates of retention in teaching than national comparison groups and may differ from traditional recruits in their background characteristics.
• There was tentative evidence that streamlined routes to credentialing provide more incentive to enter teaching than monetary rewards.
• Pre-service testing requirements may adversely affect the entry of minority candidates into teaching.
6. Findings from the research on in-service policies that affect teacher recruitment and retention were as follows:
• Schools that provided mentoring and induction programs, particularly those related to collegial support, had lower rates of turnover among beginning teachers.
• Schools that provided teachers with more autonomy and administrative support had lower levels of teacher attrition and migration.
• A tentative finding was that accountability policies might lead to increased attrition in low-performing schools. The entry, mobility, and attrition patterns summarized

One can see from the results of these studies, creating a lower paid, less secure profession as some current corporate education reform policies would do, would create a situation of worse renention, to the determiment of students. The importance of workplace conditions, classroom resources, and support are also critical, and may be lost without the ability to bargain for them.

Clearly, delivery of high quality education at an affordable cost is a complex subject with many complex variables at play. SB5 and HB153's highly prescriptive, and simplistic appoaches to reform without any broad expert consultation are bound to produce sub-optimal results. Ohio should take advantage of it's localized control and delivery of education, and its vast expert resources in education and pedagogy to experiment in reform before committing to a one size fits all simplistic approach.

A second literature review on teacher attrition an be found here.

Teach For America: From Service Group to Industry

One of the best articles written on Teach for America

Although Teach For America began twenty years ago as a well-intentioned band-aid, it has morphed into what is essentially a jobs program for the privileged, funded by taxpayers and wealthy individuals. TFA was originally designed it to serve a specific need: fill positions in high-poverty schools where there are teacher shortages.

A non-profit organization that recruits college seniors primarily from elite institutions to teach for two-year stints in high-poverty schools, preceded by five weeks of training. TFA has grown from 500 teachers to more than 8,000 teachers in thirty-nine rural and urban areas.

As TFA is expanding, it is no longer just filling positions in shortage areas; rather, it’s replacing experienced and traditionally educated teachers. To justify this encroachment, TFA claims that their teachers are more effective than more experienced and qualified teachers, and that training and experience are not factors in effective teaching. TFA supporters also defend the explosive growth of TFA as an indication that TFA is elevating the status of the teaching profession for ambitious high-achieving college students.

Unfortunately, while Teach for America has been very effective at elevating the status of Teach for America, it has not had a similar impact on the status of teaching as a profession.

[readon2 url="http://allthingsedu.blogspot.com/2011/05/teach-for-america-from-service-group-to.html"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

SB5 would set us back

Submitted by Bexley Superintendent, Mike Johnson

Public negotiations take two parties to carve out outcomes based on mutual interests to add value and ultimately benefit the community. These mutual interests provide opportunities to serve the common good. The common good principle is a concept that assures everyone will share in the benefit of a service, independent of the wealth and status of any individual community member.

These benefits, whether they are in the form of public education, safety, health, welfare or transportation, are always provided by loyal and dedicated community servants. Community servants allow each of us to have access to a world-class education; provide peace of mind in knowing that our properties are safe and secure; and ensure that the basic needs of the poor, the disabled, the unemployment and the underemployed are met.

Public servants have one negotiation chip, their service. They do not have capital, land or money to bring to the table. They only have their willingness to labor and to serve the public and thereby benefit everyone. The only power that a public servant or public employee can exercise in negotiations is the ability to ultimately withhold services.

In the case of the services provided by fire and police, withdrawal of services would threaten our property interest and personal safety. Therefore, third party arbitration provides for a balance of power during negotiations. Fire and police personnel are secure in knowing that if negotiations are at impasse that a neutral third party will hear the facts and render a decision, while public and private safety are maintained.

If the United States and the state of Ohio are to become leaders in a knowledge economy, then educators must be invited and remain at the table as equals. Educators are knowledge workers and if we are to overcome some very serious national and international challenges, then we will need our teachers to assist all of us in making decisions, designing the best possible research driven solutions and implementing those decisions over time. The full value of our knowledgeable and professional teaching staff will not be realized in an environment where they are on the receiving end of a power shift.

It strikes me as a case of very poor timing to suddenly develop laws to truncate the advantages, negotiations provides for those responsible for growing our economy. In Ohio, we will need to rely more on our intellectual capacities and assets and less on physical inputs or natural resources. I cannot think of a greater source intellectual capacity, than can be found within our K-16 public education community. As Powell and Snellman (2004) state, that an upsurge in knowledge production is associated with the emergence of new industries.

We need to make sure before making any final decision on SB5, that we will achieve the intended ends. Personally, I believe that we are going to experience some adverse unintended consequences as a result of passing such legislation. It is going to take some creative, collaborative, and systemic decision making to keep Ohio at the forefront nationally and internationally.

Administration - cut ESP's first

Despite analysis and news reports to the contrary, the administrations education Czar continues to state that school districts can and should meet their massive budget shortfalls without local tax increases.

Mr. Sommers said the budget proposal is as much about trying to correct a faulty funding system as it is about a lack of money. "We're real clear: Don't raise taxes at the local level either. It's time to think about ways to be more efficient in our production of educational success."

A report from the political think tank Innovation Ohio said the cuts to schools would result in the layoff of 30,000 teachers and support staff. Mr. Sommers said the administration's message has been to not start cuts with teachers and principals.

"I think any school that starts by cutting teachers is short sighted," he said.

Schools should instead make reductions in non-instructional costs such as administration, food service, transportation, human resources, etc., he said.

Clearly as much as the focus has been on teachers, this reckless budget also impacts education support professionals too. Indeed, if you take Mr. Sommers at his own word, ESP's would be first on the chopping block.

On top of the errosion of these middle class jobs, a lot of parents are going to struggle to find ways to safely get their kids to and from school because they have inflexible work schedules.

The services ESP's provide to both parents and teachers, often unrecognized, will come into stark relief if no serious adjustments are made to this reckless budget.