due
A lot of changes have been legislated in education in recent years, and many of those changes due dates are almost upon us. Here is jus a sample of what we can expect and when, from Common Core and report cards to teacher evaluations.
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Next week we will begin to take a look at each of these and asses their merits and readiness.
From William Phillis, Ohio E & A
"The public common school," Horace Mann said, "is the Greatest Discovery made by man." It constitutes a social compact established for the benefit of all the children of all the people, community by community, across Ohio and across America. It has been the primary force for the common good in America.
Although a state system in Ohio, required to be thorough and efficient by constitutional decree, it is operated at the community level by elected boards of education-the fourth branch of government. In spite of inadequate levels of state funding through the decades, the public common school in Ohio and throughout the nation has nurtured this country to which millions and millions in every generation have migrated.
The public common school, typically, on a modest and constrained budget, has attempted to meet the individual needs of students. Programs for vocational/technical training, programs for those with disabilities and special needs, have been a part of the common school fabric. Typically, education options have been limited by the fiscal resources available to school districts.
In the past two decades, the political will to maintain and strengthen the public common school, and thus the social compact, the common good, has dwindled in a frenzied untested "quick fix" strategy that is fueled by many who want to take public money to the altar of the god of school choice.
The public common school system, due to the transfer of resources from the system to private choices, is less able to provide for choice; hence, students within the public common school system are being denied choices due to choice expansion outside the system.
The school funding measures in HB 59 (school funding level and non-formula school funding formula) are detrimental to most school districts while favoring the school choice movement. The state has the constitutional responsibility to maintain and nurture the common school system, not give it away.
The 130th General Assembly should put a moratorium on the expansion of school choice and establish a bipartisan, bicameral legislative research committee to study the current choice program.
Evidence is overwhelming, as yet more studies show that using value add to measure teacher quality is fraught with error.
Failing to account for how students are sorted into more- or less-rigorous classes—as well as the effect different tracks have on student learning—can lead to biased "value added" estimates of middle and high school teachers' ability to boost their students' standardized-test scores, the papers conclude.
"I think it suggests that we're making even more errors than we need to—and probably pretty large errors—when we're applying value-added to the middle school level," said Douglas N. Harris, an associate professor of economics at Tulane University in New Orleans, whose study examines the application of a value-added approach to middle school math scores.
High-school-level findings from a separate second study, by C. Kirabo Jackson, an associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., complement Mr. Harris' paper.
"At the elementary level, [value-added] is a pretty reliable measure, in terms of predicting how teachers will perform the following year," Mr. Jackson said. "At the high school level, it is quite a bit less reliable, so the scope for using this to improve student outcomes is much more limited."
The first study mentioned in this article concludes(emphasis ours)
A teacher of all lower track courses whose measured value-added is at the 50th percentile could increase her measured value-added to the 99th percentile simply by switching to all upper-track courses. We estimate that 75-95 percent of the bias is due to student sorting and the remainder due to test misalignment.
We also decompose the remaining bias into two parts, metric and multidimensionality misalignment, which work in opposite directions. Even after accounting for explicit tracking, the standard method for estimating teacher value-added may yield biased estimates.
The second study, replicates the findings and concludes
Unlike in elementary-school, value-added estimates are weak predictors of teachers’ future performance. Results indicate that either (a) teachers are less influential in high-school than in elementary-school, or (b) test-scores are a poor metric to measure teacher quality at the high-school level.
Corporate education reformers need to begin to address the science that is refuting their policies, the sooner this happens, the less damage is likely to be wrought.
Day one of the DNC convention in North Carolina included the release of the Democratic Party platform. The Washington Post has a rundown of all the education mentions, which include this section
We Democrats honor our nation’s teachers, who do a heroic job for their students every day. If we want high-quality education for all our kids, we must listen to the people who are on the front lines. The President has laid out a plan to prevent more teacher layoffs while attracting and rewarding great teachers. This includes raising standards for the programs that prepare our teachers, recognizing and rewarding good teaching, and retaining good teachers. We also believe in carefully crafted evaluation systems that give struggling teachers a chance to succeed and protect due process if another teacher has to be put in the classroom. We also recognize there is no substitute for a parent’s involvement in their child’s education.
Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland delivered a stemwinder of a speech
Strickland led off by lambasting Romney’s opposition to the 2008 auto rescue, which was especially critical to Ohio’s industrial economy.
“If he had had his way, devastation would have cascaded from Michigan to Ohio and across the nation,” Strickland said.
But far more than a simple policy speech, Strickland portrayed Romney as a morally suspect and deeply un-American villain willing to do anything to make a dollar no matter who was hurt. His Caribbean holdings and past use of a Swiss bank account drew the toughest condemnation.
“Mitt Romney has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport,” Strickland said. “It summers on the beaches of the Cayman Islands and winters on the slopes of the Swiss Alps. In Matthew, chapter 6, verse 21, the scriptures teach us that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. My friends, any man who aspires to be our president should keep both his treasure and his heart in the United States of America.”
The highlight of the evening for the gathered Democrats was a speech by First Lady Michelle Obama, that brought tears and applause from most in attendance
Here's the word cloud of her speech
Day one of the DNC convention then, saw the Democrats strike back at the Republicans, whose own convention has produced little bounce in the polls.
Yesterday was the filing deadline for candidates wishing to run for the Ohio General Assembly. We had looked earlier at the impact of incumbents of the Ohio House of Representatives voting for SB5 would have on their reelection chances.
Such a swing, could put a halt to the Governors radical agenda and turn the remaining 2 years of his first term into a lame duck effort.
Now some of this calculation is complicated by the recent redistricting, but as Gongwer notes, the 2012 elections are shaping up to be a continuation of the fight over SB5
House Democrats, for example, noted that a number of educators have filed to run and Speaker Batchelder said the GOP newcomers include an ample amount of businesspeople.
[...]
Rep. Debbie Phillips (D-Athens), the House Democratic Caucus Campaign co-chair, said 2002 Teacher of the Year Maureen Reedy, who is seeking the open 24th House District seat in Franklin County, is among at least 10 teachers running for the House as Democrats.
"State budget cuts and the unfair attacks in SB5 have put educators and our children's education directly in the crosshairs of the Republican's anti-middle class agenda and teachers are standing up, fighting back and getting involved," Rep. Phillips said in a release. "We are very excited to have so many great teachers running for office. They are trusted and well known in their communities, which are two key components of electoral success."
While some candidates might have a difficult task ahead of them due to the gerrymandering of districts, the overwhelming rejection of SB5 is likely to create some very sharp contrasts for voters to decide upon.
A retired teacher sent this short note to us about the dangers of SB5 removing due process protections. Yet andother reason why SB5 is unfair.
Without due process rights anyone can find themselves in this same situation because of an argument with the principal, because of age or health concerns, or because of assigning a student a grade that disagrees with a parent's assessment. Negotiating working conditions, and not just salary, improves our professional contributions, improves our advocacy for students, and improves our health and safety on the job, as well as the health and safety of our students.
Kim Cellar
Retired teacher
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