Ohio’s phaseout of tax still hitting schools’ finances

A decade after state legislators eliminated what was regarded as one of the worst taxes in Ohio, the move continues to haunt state officials and local school districts.

A relic from the days when manufacturing made Ohio a national economic powerhouse, the tangible personal property tax, known as the TPP, was assessed on equipment, inventory and furniture.

Although most people still agree that getting rid of the tax was a good idea that made Ohio more competitive in attracting business, it remains a headache for those trying to craft school-funding plans, and a worrisome problem for schools trying to manage their budgets.

The state is still reimbursing schools for that lost TPP revenue, but those reimbursements have been cut significantly in recent years and are set for an additional $239 million reduction in the new two-year budget.

Losing more of the reimbursement “will decimate the Princeton educational system and our community,” Edward Theroux, interim superintendent of Princeton City Schools, recently told a Senate panel. His Hamilton County district gets about a quarter of its total budget from the TPP fund.

“We will not be able to recover and meet the needs of our students,” Theroux said.

(Read more that the Dispatch)

How Ohio funds charter schools has caused some disput

The billion dollar mark illustrates how important the charter -or community school- system has become in Ohio.

Not only is state spending on charter schools going up, nationwide investors think there is profit to be made. The real estate company Entertainment Properties Trust usually builds movie theaters, ski resorts, and retail properties. But here was the CEO, David Brain, a couple years ago on CNBC saying charters schools are the strongest part of their portfolio.

“The industry is growing about 12-14% a year so it’s a high growth, very stable, recession resistant business. It’s a public payer. The state is the payer on this category. And you do business in states with fiscally sound treasuries, then it’s a very solid business.”

But how the state funds charters is a matter of some dispute in Ohio. The state sends money to each public school district for its own schools but also for any charter school that kids in that district may attend. Ohio starts by earmarking a foundation of $5800 for each and every public school student and then holds back some of that. The Ohio Department of Education Budget Director Aaron Rausch says the percentage a district gets to keep will vary.

“There is a state share percentage that is applied to the calculated aid for a traditional public school that is between 5 and 90%.”

A poor district might get more than $5 thousand dollars per student in state aid while a rich district could get less than $500 a student. But if a child in that district goes to a charter school, the district may have to pass along more than it gets from Columbus. Damon Asbury of the Ohio School Boards Association says charters will get the full $5800.

“So that charter school student is taking with him or her a lot more money than the kids who remain in the district. They therefore have fewer resources for the remaining students because the charter school is taking a disproportionate share.”

So where do districts get the extra money to send to charter schools?

“Local tax revenues.”

(Read more at NPR)

HB74 Takes Axe To State Testing

HB74 pass the Ohio House 92-1, and has a wide range of provisions affecting student testing.

HOUSE BILL 74 SUMMARY (As Reported by H. Education)

Academic content standards

• Requires the State Board of Education, within 30 days of the bill's effective date, to provide an online opportunity on the website of the Department of Education to make comments on specific academic content standards.
• Requires each academic standards review committee (established under current law), by September 30, 2015, to submit its review and determinations of the academic content standards and state assessments to the State Board and Department of Education.
• Requires the State Board, by June 30, 2016, to review the current academic content standards, taking into consideration the input from the academic standards review committees and the comments posted on the Department's website, and to adopt revised academic content standards for each of grades K-12 in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.

Achievement assessments

• Requires the Department of Education, within 30 days of the bill's effective date, to issue a request for proposals to provide the elementary achievement assessments and the high school end-of-course examinations for administration by school districts and schools beginning with the 2015-2016 school year.
• Prohibits certain multistate consortia, or their agents or subsidiaries, from being eligible to submit a proposal to provide the elementary assessments and end-of- course examinations.
• Limits to three hours per assessment the duration of the administration of each state elementary achievement assessment beginning with the 2015-2016 school year.
• Limits to three hours per year the duration of the administration of each high school end-of-course examination beginning with the 2015-2016 school year.
• Specifies that the bill's time limits do not apply to (1) assessments for students with disabilities, (2) the nationally standardized assessments that measure college and career readiness, (3) the third-grade English language arts assessment, (4) any diagnostic assessment for students who did not pass the third-grade English language arts assessment, or (5) substitute examinations in science, American history, or American government.
• Reduces, from twice annually to once annually, the administration of the third- grade English language arts assessment beginning with the 2015-2016 school year, and prohibits school districts from being required to administer that assessment in the fall.
• Eliminates the requirement for school districts and schools to administer all of the writing diagnostic assessments in grades K-3, and the requirement for the mathematics diagnostic assessments to be administered in kindergarten and first grade.
• Requires the Department to specify not less than two mathematics diagnostic assessments that are approved for (1) identifying students as gifted in mathematics and (2) the student academic growth component of teacher evaluations.
• Requires the reading diagnostic assessment to be completed by September 30 of each year for students in grades one to three.
• Limits the duration of the administration of the kindergarten readiness diagnostic assessment to one hour.
• Specifies August 1, instead of "the first day of the school year" as under current law, as the earliest date by which a student may take the kindergarten readiness diagnostic assessment.
• Permits a school district or school to administer the kindergarten readiness diagnostic assessment all at one time or in portions at different times, so long as the assessment has been administered in its entirety by November 1 of the school year.
• Requires the Department, by July 1, 2016, to make available a kindergarten literacy assessment that districts and schools may use in lieu of the kindergarten readiness assessment.
• Requires the Department, by December 31, 2016, to complete a study comparing nationally normed, standardized assessments approved by the Department for specified purposes and the state elementary assessments administered during both the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years.
• Eliminates the English language arts II and geometry end-of-course examinations.
• Requires the State Board of Education, by March 1, 2016, to (1) compile a list of multiple assessments that are equivalent to the end-of-course examinations for use instead of the end-of-course examinations and (2) identify a table of corresponding score equivalents that correlate to the current achievement levels (advanced, accelerated, proficient, basic, and limited) for all end-of-course examinations.
• Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, requires a district or school to notify the Department of any assessment in a subject area that it elects to use as an equivalent examination, and requires that the notification be made by September 15 of each year.
• Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, authorizes a school district to use end-of- course examinations, substitute examinations, or equivalent examinations as final examinations for the related class or course of study.
• Specifies that, for purposes of substitute examinations and equivalent examinations, a score of 2 on an Advanced Placement (AP) examination and a score of 3 on an International Baccalaureate (IB) examination are to be considered equivalent to a "proficient" score.
• Prohibits a school district from charging a student for (1) any of the nationally standardized assessments that measure college and career readiness, (2) any end-of-course examination, (3) any substitute examination, or (4) any equivalent examination, unless the examination is an AP or IB examination.
• Requires the Department to identify and approve at least two assessments that can be used for multiple purposes, including (1) a diagnostic assessment administered to third-grade students, (2) an assessment that permits a student to demonstrate an acceptable level of performance for purposes of the third-grade reading guarantee, and (3) an assessment used to identify students as gifted in specific academic ability fields in reading, writing, or both.
• Requires the Department to develop a table of assessments that may be used for multiple purposes and for which a measure of student performance or aptitude is required, in order to reduce the total number of assessments administered by a school district or school.
• Requires the Department, within 90 days of the bill's effective date, to determine which components of the resident educator performance-based assessment may be used as part of the teacher evaluation system.
• Extends through the 2015-2016 school year a current provision prohibiting the Department from requiring school districts, other public schools, and chartered nonpublic schools to administer any state achievement assessment in an online format.
• Requires the Department to conduct a comprehensive survey of the capacity and readiness of each school district for the online administration of the state achievement assessments based on recommended specifications for such administration of the assessments and to report the results of the survey to the Governor, the State Board of Education, and the chairpersons and ranking members of the House and Senate Education Committees by June 30, 2016.
• Requires the Department to study the impact on student performance of the online administration of the state achievement assessments and submit results of the study to the General Assembly and Governor by June 30, 2016.
• Requires the State Board, by November 1, 2015, to make a recommendation on whether to extend by one year the safe harbor provisions in effect for the 2014-2015 school year for students, public school districts and schools, and teachers.
• Requires the Department, except as otherwise prescribed by federal law, to consider as an acceptable measure of technical skill attainment (1) an industry-recognized credential or (2) a license issued by a state agency or board for practice in a vocation that requires an examination for issuance of that license.
• Prohibits the Department from requiring a student to take additional technical assessments regardless of whether the student has earned the credential or taken the licensure examination at the time the technical assessments would otherwise be administered.
• Requires the State Board to periodically revise the nationally recognized job skills assessment that it selects for use as a pathway to high school graduation and to do so with input from individuals and educators who have a background in career- technical education.
• Prescribes the manner in which the governing body of a school district, community school, STEM school, or educational service center must evaluate the student academic growth component of a teacher for purposes of teacher evaluations.
• Requires, for the 2014-2015 school year only, a school district or school to use a different measure of student progress for purposes of teacher evaluations, if the district or school has entered into memorandum of understanding with the teachers' labor union stipulating that the value-added progress dimension rating for the 2014- 2015 school year will not be used when making decisions regarding dismissal, retention, tenure, or compensation.
• Requires the State Board to submit recommendations to the Governor, to the chairperson and ranking members of the House and Senate Education committees, and to the State Board itself on how to revise by July 1, 2016, the framework for the evaluation of teachers to reduce the estimated time necessary to complete teacher evaluations.

State report cards

• Specifies a schedule of deadlines by which the State Board of Education must adopt rules establishing the proficiency percentages required to be considered meeting performance indicators.
• Removes the prohibition on the Superintendent of Public Instruction from establishing a performance indicator for passage of the third- or fourth-grade English language arts assessments that is based solely on the fall administration of those assessments.
• Delays until July 1, 2017, the date by which the State Board must adopt the high school student academic progress measure.
• Makes optional the inclusion of the high school student academic progress measure as an ungraded measure.
• Delays until the 2017-2018 school year the assignment of a separate letter grade for the high school student academic progress measure and the inclusion of that grade in a district's or building's overall letter grade.
• Requires that a district's or school's overall letter grades, component grades, and each performance measure grade be expressed as a percentage of total possible points, in addition to the required letter grades on the state report card.

The Full LSC analysis can be found below

HOUSE BILL 74 SUMMARY (As Reported by H. Education)

1917 Paper Highlights How Antiquated Modern Corporate Reformers Are

Corporate reformers may like to think many of their ideas are new and ground breaking, but as this paper published in 1917 demonstrates, their ideas are old and antiquated. The paper titled the “Problems of Teacher Measurement” was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology by B. F. Pittenger. The full paper can be read below. We've highlighted a number of relevant passages to demonstrate how what was once old is now new again.

Clearly, almost 100 years later, some are still trying and failing. Teaching is far too complex a discipline, with too many variable inputs, to be boiled down to a single number, no matter how fancy ones formula might be.

Problems of Teacher Measurement

Senate Advisory Committee On Testing Recommendations

The Senate Advisory Committee on Testing, appointed March 4th by Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina), has completed its recommendations to improve state testing for next school year. The 30 member committee chaired by State Senator Peggy Lehner (R-Kettering) was created following the rocky rollout of the new state assessments in February. Teachers, parents, school leaders and policymakers serving on the committee were charged with providing advice to the Senate on how to improve state testing.

A written recommendation is currently being prepared. It will include the following components:

• The new twice a year administration of tests that occurred this winter and spring should be scaled back to once a year and the tests should be shortened. The testing window should be closer to the end of the school year to provide more time for classroom instruction and less disruption in learning.
• Accommodations for children with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) must be improved and more clearly communicated to parents and schools. Training must be provided for intervention specialists and paraprofessionals who assist students with IEPs.
• Test results must be returned in a timely manner to benefit student instruction – although the group recognized that results from a writing test may not be able to be returned as quickly as the rest of the results.
• Transparency – test questions and answers must be made available within a reasonable timeframe after the administration of the tests to ensure the tests are aligned to Ohio’s learning standards and that questions are developmentally appropriate for grade level.
• Online testing is necessary and schools must plan to move in that direction; however, local schools must continue to have the option to administer paper/pencil tests for at least the next two school years. State funding for technology based on need should be considered.
• A single technology platform is preferable for next year’s tests. Improvements in technology are needed to ensure smooth administration of the tests.
• A “safe harbor” must be in place that allows results from this year’s tests to be reported but students, teachers or schools should not be penalized for results this year due to the transition to a new test and the concern that results may not accurately reflect a student’s achievement level.
• A comprehensive communications plan must be developed to provide parents, teachers, school leaders and the general public with clearer information about the tests.
• If the current vendors for state tests - PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College & Careers) for the math and English language arts assessments and AIR (American Institute for Research) for the science and social studies assessments will not make changes to the test for next year to accommodate these issues, the Ohio Department of Education must find a test vendor that will.

New standardized tests bring technical challenges, concern

Call this the year of the test. Or, at least the year of standardized test mania.

Standardized test season in K-12 classrooms has been dominated in some states by widespread technical problems or by parents allowing their children to opt out. But testing officials say the rollout this spring of new standardized tests taken by computer in many U.S. public schools has been without major problems in much of the country.

The next step? Seeing how students did - and how parents and educators respond. Test scores don't just inform parents of their child's progress; they are used to judge schools and teacher performance, too. The new exams are expected to be harder in many states than the state assessments they replaced, but they've been billed as a more accurate testing of what students are actually learning.

Read more at NBC4i)