THE SCHOOL FUNDING SQUEEZE

Innovation Ohio has produced a new report that looks at the funding squeeze Ohio's public schools have suffered over the last 4 years. The Innovation Ohio analysis found

1. Over the last ten years, Ohio has been investing up to $3 billion annually in tax cuts for the rich instead of high-quality schools for our students.

2. Since 2011, state aid has dropped below 50 percent forcing local revenue now paying for the majority share of the public education funding mix.

3. When factoring in lost revenue to charter schools, education spending as a share of the budget drops to a historic low of 23 percent.

4. In the 2016-17 budget proposal, the percentage of local school districts that face funding cuts jumps from 51 to 67 percent when subtracting the amount of state aid that goes to charters.

5. In too many cases, state funding to charter schools reduces the amount of the total per-pupil funding available to students in local public schools, even with their local revenue.

The immediate fixes suggested by Innovation Ohio include using a portion of the revenue ($4.5 billion) for income tax cuts to instead increase state aid to schools by $1 billion; reducing the cost of new levies for local taxpayers by reinstating the 12.5 percent property tax rollback; base charter funding on the actual cost to educate a charter-enrolled student; and fund charters directly instead of driving that state aid through local schools districts.

Here's the full report.

IO Analysis the School Funding Squeeze

Dick Ross - Out of Touch on Testing

Dick Ross, the State Superintendent recently issued a statement saying schools would not lose funding if parents opted their children out of the new state tests (PARCC being one set of them). That's good news, but he also then went on to laud the tests

I know you understand the importance testing plays in an effective education system. Testing shows evidence of student progress. It provides much needed information to classroom teachers and others so they can monitor and improve student learning. Results of these assessments provide teachers perspective on what their students were able to retain and apply long term, allowing for reflection and correction in future school years.

The Trouble is, when it comes to the new state tests, that's just utter nonsense. The results of these tests won't be available for months, long after students have moved on, nor will the results be diagnostic in nature. They are also potentially developmentally inappropriate, with lots of evidence tests are being presented to students at a reading level much higher than the students actually grade.

but if you want to know just how out of touch Dick Ross is, simply look at the avalanche of public comments from the usually meek and mild school administrators.

Worthington City Schools

We believe that the PARCC assessments must change if they are to remain viable. While we acknowledge a common concern with the OAA methodology was that kids were tested on a single day, PARCC has swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. There are far too many testing events. We will suggest to the Ohio legislature that they conduct a review of the assessments to determine specifically whether the total time on task is necessary to accurately assess whether learning has occurred and whether the testing events can be consolidated to minimize disruption to the educational program.

We believe that if this assessment system is to remain in place PARCC must return results in a timely fashion. It is unacceptable to not receive the results of the assessment until well into the next school year – far too late to adjust curriculum, building level plans, or to appropriately differentiate instruction for individual students. While assessments have as a partial goal determining the efficacy of our program in different buildings and for our faculty, their main function must be to provide information about how to maximize learning for every student, and an 8 month delay in receiving the results doesn’t do that.

Benjamin Gibson, Firelands Local Schools

The state needs to take a hard look at the amount of testing and particularly the PARCC assessment. I am confident that you would see major improvements and support by eliminating the PARCC assessment. While I appreciate a single test that measures both student growth and teacher accountability, the PARCC test is full of poor content and developmentally misaligned material. Give us a test that is fair to our children and teachers and I guarantee we can sell it locally.

Tom Dunn, Superintendent of the Miami County Educational Service Center

There is also no debating that there are too many state-mandated tests, that the results from these tests are constantly used inappropriately, that the results, even if meaningful, are so long in coming back to schools that they lose their worth, and that this inappropriate use is dictated by lawmakers who apparently don't know the first thing about how students are educated or how to use test data appropriately. Worse, they apparently don't want to learn given the fact that there is plenty of scientific research that refutes their claim that student test results should be used to evaluate teachers, schools, and districts.

Mark K. Neal, Superintendent Tri-Valley Local School District

While I am not (and never have been) an advocate of the PARCC Testing, Ohio got into this testing debacle with little to no input from local school officials. Therefore, I feel no responsibility to stick my neck out for the Department of Education by defending their decisions. What’s happening now, in my opinion, is that parents have figured out what is being forced upon their children, and the proverbial rubber… is beginning to meet the road. However, it is not our goal to discourage nor undermine the laws of our governing body.

Dublin City Schools Superintendent Dr Hoadley

All of these assessments require an enormous amount of preparation time on the part of our staff, and cost our district in instructional time for students and in dollars for the materials we must purchase in order to meet the state mandated requirements. No additional funding for Ohio schools accompanies the seemingly never-ending stream of state required tests. More assessments are being moved to an on-line format, requiring upgrades in technology and significant additional cost for many districts in Ohio.

We embrace accountability and realize it is essential to maintain the quality of Ohio schools. However, I ask, what kind of pressure is all this high stakes testing putting on our children? Is the goal of public education to create the best test takers in the world? For our District, the goal of public education is to help students become well-rounded individuals who are prepared for the world of work and higher education. Dublin City Schools works every day to provide our students with world-class instruction and a well-rounded education and to continuously improve in everything we do.

Our students deserve a well-rounded education beyond test scores, and need tools for success that go far beyond the skills they need to perform well on standardized tests. Creativity and innovation, the ability to think critically, communication skills, collaborative work, global awareness, financial literacy, information literacy and more are crucial components of our students’ overall development. These skills play a critical role in getting our students career and college ready. In Dublin City Schools, with the help of our extremely supportive parents and community, we are ready to meet these ongoing challenges in order to ensure our students receive a well-rounded education.

Dr. Keith Kline, Superintendent West Clermont School District

As you know, the testing monster is upon us. I know you have worked diligently to prepare our students despite the ever changing rules and expectations from the State of Ohio. Thank you!

I have attached a letter that I intend to blast out to parents later today. We have seen an uptick in the number of parents asking to opt their child(ren) out of testing. I wanted you to have this information first. In the letter, I am suggesting that parents plan to have their child(ren) take the assessments as schedule and, if they want to give their opinion, they should voice it with their state legislator. I believe we are all seeing the ramifications of this debacle. Kids and staff are stressed, systems don't work and the ODE does not have it together in regards to guidelines. That is a problem for everyone.

Greg Power, Lt. Col. USAF Retired, Superintendent Little Miami Local Schools

As we prepare for the state-wide infrastructure test this Thursday and for the first of two twenty-day test windows beginning in February, our curriculum director, special education director, EMIS coordinator, technology director, principals, assistant principals and teachers are being required to abandon their primary functional roles to prepare for these assessments. These staff members have spent countless hours and will continue to spend countless hours in these preparation activities as we continue to receive ever changing protocol guidance that often contradicts and causes follow-on support requests from your Ohio Department of Education offices. Departmental guidance has certainly been untimely, ever changing, and at certain points unknowable. I believe the unrealistically legislated timelines of implementation for all of these changes cause even more concern. Why would anyone create such a set of circumstances? We certainly will be seeing the "fruits" of this legislative wisdom coming to full fruition in the coming months.

Of added note, our district continues to incur added expenses as we work to meet all of the requirements needed to support this mandated testing without the benefit of any added financial support from the state or federal levels. Our district has spent and will continue to spend dollars on technology to support the online components of this testing, and will most likely add staff to support this assessment framework. The costs associated with all of this are being borne in large part by the local tax payers. These dollars are better spent on other needs to support our students and their learning needs.

It's hard to get more out of touch than this. No wonder the legislature are ignoring him and going ahead with a panel to investigate the problem.

Auditor Yost's Got Some Good Ideas for Charter Schools

State auditor Yost testified on HB2 - the bill designed to reform Ohio's broken charter school laws. In his testimony he covered 3 topics, accountability, finance, and governance. His policy suggestions for each are worthwhile and would add significant value to the charter school reform effort if incorporated into the bill.

Here's his testimony, with policy suggestions.

Auditor Yost HB2 Testimony

State Auditor Dave Yost gives lawmakers his assessment of problems with Ohio charter schools

State Auditor Dave Yost described for state legislators a “broken system of governance” overseeing a charter-school system in Ohio that has faced increasing criticism both in the state and nationally.

Yost, a Republican, testified on Wednesday in an Education Committee hearing on House Republicans’ House Bill 2, proposing charter-school oversight reforms. He praised school choice as valuable for some students, but he said several recommendations would improve accountability and transparency, while better ensuring that charters are getting only the tax dollars they are entitled to.

Last fall, Yost’s office made surprise visits to 30 charter schools and found that attendance at half of them was significantly lower than what the schools were reporting to the state. It raised questions because the state relies on student counts reported by the schools to calculate aid that totals about $1 billion a year.

Current law, Yost said, could theoretically allow a charter school to get full funding for a student who attends just 10 days of classes in a year. The law says a charter school must withdraw a student only after he or she misses 105 consecutive unexcused hours of school — nearly a month.

(Read more at the Dispatch).

State promises no funding cuts for Common Core opt-outs

Parents opting out of Common Core-based testing got some good news this week:

One: It won’t mean a cut in state funding.

And two: It won’t impact grades, promotion or school-choice vouchers.

Technically, state law prohibits the Ohio Department of Education from paying for students who didn’t take a state test the previous school year, according to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Richard Ross.

However, the law also allows him to issue a waiver, permitting funding for those students, Ross wrote in an email he sent Tuesday to Ohio school officials.

“Under that authority, the department has, in the past, automatically funded these students for many years,” Ross wrote. “We plan on continuing the same practice this year. This means that we will continue to fund each student in your district, regardless of their participation.”

Schools could still see restrictions placed on federal funds, although that would only happen if fewer than 95 percent of students take the test at any one school or district – or, fewer than 95 percent of any subgroup, such as students who qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Common Core is a set of nationwide standards that detail what students should know in English and math at the end of each year. Students across Ohio started in February taking the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers tests. The PARCC tests are centered around Common Core, and, in an effort to push back against the new standards, some parents are withdrawing their children from taking the exams.

There is no statewide data on opt-outs, but numbers seem to vary greatly district to district.

At Cincinnati Public Schools, for example, only 24 students opted out, said Public Affairs Director Janet Walsh.

At Lakota Local Schools, the second largest district in the region, 194 students opted out.

At Mason City Schools, however – smaller than CPS and Lakota – 350 students opted out. That’s about 4.5 percent of the Mason students scheduled for the test, said Tracey Carson, public information officer.

Re-enforcing Ross’ announcement, the Ohio Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill that would offer “safe harbor” to students who opt out this year – meaning it won’t impact grades or promotion. House Bill 7 is largely symbolic, but supporters say it provides another level of comfort for parents who don’t their children taking the new tests.

The bill will go back to the Ohio House then on to Gov. John Kasich for approval.

(Read more at cincinnati.com).

Should Ohio cut testing time or keep PARCC? New panel will review state's key testing issues

State Sen. Peggy Lehner wants to hear from educators about how much testing Ohio has and whether the new PARCC tests are what Ohio needs.

Lehner, who heads the Senate Education Committee, and Ohio Senate President Keith Faber just announced creation of the Senate Advisory Committee on Testing -- a panel of state school board members, teachers and superintendents.

Lehner said it is clear that Ohio will have to make a lot of decisions about testing, as opposition to increased test hours grows and as Ohio shifts to new tests based on the Common Core and other new state education standards.

On the table: testing time and the future of the new Common Core tests through the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) that Ohio students have just started taking.

(Read more at Cleveland.com).