Improving the Budget Bill Part I

Hb 59, the Governor's budget bill can be significantly improved during the legislative process. We're going to detail some of the ways improvements can be made.

Improvements can first start by correcting a major policy flaw inserted into HB555 at the last minute. HB 555 radically changed the method of calculating evaluations for about 1/3 of Ohio's teachers. If a teacher's schedule is comprised only of courses or subjects for which the value-added progress dimension is applicable - then only their value-add score can now be used as part of the 50% of an evaluation based on student growth. Gone is the ability to use multiple measures of student growth - i.e. Student Learning Objectives or SLO's.

Therefore we suggest the legislature correct this wrong-headed policy by repealing this provision of HB555.

Furthermore, greater evaluation fairness could be achieved by lowering the number of absences a student is allowed before their test scores can be excluded from a teacher's value-add score. Currently a student needs to be absent 60 times - or 1/3 of a school year. This is an absurd amount of schooling to miss and still have that student's score count towards the evaluation of his or her teacher. This absence exclusion should be lowered to a more reasonable 15 absences.

Value-add should not be used to punish teachers on evaluations, instead it should be just one component of a multiple measure framework, and a tool to help teachers improve student learning. HB555 moved us much further away from that goal.

The Crisis in American Education Is a Myth

By Randy Turner, English teacher

One of the most frustrating things teachers have to deal with every day is this myth that our profession is filled with lazy, undermotivated educators who arrive just in time for the first bell and leave immediately at the end of the school day.

We watch as, year after year, politicians devise radical plans that totally revamp our "failed" system. Many times these plans involve taking public money and putting it into private schools, relying more and more on standardized tests, and tearing down the teachers who are the key to the success that public education has always been and hopefully, after the fallout of this well-organized attack, will continue to be.

So across America, including my home state of Missouri, teachers teach to the test, hope and pray that the legislative attacks on our profession can be held off for yet another year, and watch as our livelihood is devalued and our reputations are savaged by elected officials whose pockets are lined with campaign contributions from the billionaires who don't want to pay a cent to help anyone who is not in their tax bracket.

And we do all of this hoping and praying as the headlines are filled with news of a crisis that does not exist.

We live in an era where No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have been allowed to define public schools as failures, when, in fact, they still offer the best chance for children who were not born with silver spoons in their mouths to climb the ladder to success.

For too long we have allowed politicians to ignore dealing with the real problems of poverty and permitted them to use education as a convenient scapegoat for their negligence.

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News for March 15th, 2011

Today is the day we finally get some details on the budget for the next 2 years, but in advance of that, schools are still struggling as the Chillicothe Gazette reports

CHILLICOTHE — More than 50 Chillicothe City School employees listened closely Monday as district administrators unveiled a $1.5 million budget reduction plan that would cut more than 20 staff positions, a majority of field trips and two freshman sports programs.
[...]
The board is trying to get ahead of a $3.9 million deficit that’s anticipated for fiscal year 2013. The shortfall is based in part on a projected 11 percent cut in state funding. That figure could change, for better or worse, when Gov. John Kasich releases his state budget today.

The budget announcement itself will apparently be televised

Unlike previous governors who held press conferences about their plans, Kasich is spending about $5,000 to rent the 900- seat room for an “Ohio Town-Hall Meeting” tonight and broadcasting on satellite television and the Web, Kasich’s office said.

Bizarely, the Governor had indicated that the media would not be allowed to effectively report his budget announcement, but after much hue and cry, he appears to have relented according to Plunderbund

The Administration is backpeddling after an afternoon of press reports about the unprecedented restrictions they were trying to place on the media at tomorrow’s budget unveiling at 1 p.m.

Rob Nichols has told the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association that video and photo cameras will now be permitted. Audio recordings also permitted.

You can follow today's budget developments by following us on Twitter @jointhefutureOH.