classrooms

Education News for 08-30-2012

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State Education News

  • Lax sex ed lets fallacies flourish (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Plenty of Americans thought Missouri Rep. Todd Akin was out of line, wrong and maybe even a little nutty when he said that a woman’s body has a way of preventing pregnancy in cases of “legitimate” rape...Read more...

  • Attendance scandal claims a casualty (Columbus Dispatch)

    • State Auditor Dave Yost warned Columbus schools leaders a month ago that contacting the district’s internal auditor as she investigates claims of data rigging could have serious consequences...Read more...

  • Hathorn predicts improvements in Youngstown schools (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • Although the release of the state report cards is weeks away, city schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn expects it to show improvement...Read more...

Local Education News

  • Bay Village school district sees health insurance premium hike (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • Health and prescription insurance premiums for school district employees will increase by more than 9 percent beginning...Read more...

  • Man challenges effort to roll back school tax (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Gene Hollins says he has friends on both sides of the ballot issue that aims to repeal part of a property tax for the Westerville school district...Read more...

  • Crawford County partnership links education, economic development (Mansfield News Journal)

    • Adding the word education isn't just a change in semantics for a local group...Read more...

  • Lakewood teachers to receive base pay raises (Newark Advocate)

    • For the first time since the 2009-10 school year, Lakewood teachers will receive a base pay raise...Read more...

  • Preschool programs return to Southwest Licking (Newark Advocate)

    • At this time last school year, the classrooms inside Southwest Licking's former kindergarten center were empty and quiet, but that no longer is the case...Read more...

  • Parents Threaten To Take School District Back To Court Over Busing Issues (WBNS)

    • Parents were threatening to take a school district back to court over whether their children should be bused to private schools...Read more...

  • Willoughby-Eastlake Schools to bring new technology into the classrooms (Willoughby News Herald)

    • The Willoughby-Eastlake School District is preparing to train 200 teachers as it moves to bring in newer technology in the classroom...Read more...

Five School Reform Sound Bites That Hurt Teacher Buy-In

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There is a growing assumption that education reformers are anti-teacher and teachers are anti-reform. Disagreements between these groups have become so heated and so public recently that this seems like a reasonable conclusion.

The real story is more complicated. Over the past year, I've had the chance to speak with many people in the education reform world. I have come to believe that most reformers became reformers for the same reasons that most teachers became teachers: a hope that we can provide a higher quality education to a greater number of children in a fairer and more equal way.

As a teacher, though, I share my colleagues' frustrations with some of reformers' catchiest feel-good phrases. Teachers are not so much against education reforms as we are downstream from them. We see the way well-meaning changes play out in our schools and classrooms, and often hear troubling subtexts in talking points that sound great on TV. Here are a few examples, along with tips on how to engage teachers in the real conversations that we should be having about these issues.

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Despite lay offs TFA circling in Cincinnati

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Cincinnati public schools are experiencing the full impact of the recently passed budget and it's provisions. The district reduced its general fund budget by $8.6 million to $458.6 million this year due to state funding cuts, and the end of 2012-13, the state will have reduced its funding to CPS by $55 million.

Naturally this is causing serious budget problems for a well performing large urban district, including lay-offs that were announced earlier in the year

Cincinnati’s School Superintendent announced Friday more than 200 staff positions will be cut next year to help the district balance its budget.

Mary Ronan said in a release the reductions include 158 teachers, 33 central office employees and 17 additional school-based workers.

According to the same article, CPS has been closing schools and reducing staff for the past decade. Since 2001-2002, more than 1,100 positions have been eliminated and 17 schools have been closed.

To alleviate some of this pressure, CPS has a permanent levy on the ballot this November. Polling shows this levy to be neck and neck.

But another provision in the state's budget is also rearing its head. Teach for America (TFA).

Teach for America wants to put its teachers in Cincinnati Public Schools, possibly as early next year.

But both parties must agree. So far, the district has remained non-committal.

"We're really just looking to see if districts are interested in partnering," said Ben Lindy, who is on Teach for America's site development team.

Lindy made a pitch to CPS board Wednesday. It was the first such outreach in Ohio since Gov. John Kasich signed a law in April allowing TFA to locate here.

It might raise some eyebrows, that at a time when the district is having to lay off highly qualified and experienced educators and their support professionals, TFA is circling with promises to fill classrooms with their under prepared, inexperienced amateurs. As we wrote a short time ago, it is literally harder to become a casino card dealer in Ohio than it is to be a TFA recruit.

Cincinnati would be better served passing their levy and ensuring that they continue to have classrooms staffed with experienced professionals that have helped guide CPS to its current creditable performance levels.