Delivering lower costs, higher quality

Innovation Ohio recently published a study that showed that states, like Ohio, that had collective bargaining for educators produced lower costs and higher quality than states that had weaker collective bargaining laws.

In fact, research shows that eliminating or effectively crippling the state’s collective bargaining system will be as likely to add to state and local budget woes as cure the
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According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Ohio’s kindergarten, elementary, middle school and high school teachers saw their salaries, on average, drop 3.8% between 2008 and 2009, the latest year BLS’s Occupational Employment Statistics are available. The national average was a 2% increase.
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Even though states that limit teachers’ rights to collectively bargain make up less than one-third of all the states, they make up half of the top 10 salary increases in the contiguous 48 states, with reduced teachers’ rights states taking the top three spots (Wyoming at 11.2%, Texas at 7% and Louisiana at 5.9%).
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In Education Week’s annual K-12 Student Achievement rankings, NO reduced teachers’ rights states scored in the top 10 states. In fact, the top 13 K-12 Achievement states were all states that require collective bargaining for its teachers. Meanwhile, Ohio scored better than 75% of the reduced teachers’ rights states on the K-12 Achievement measure.

While none of the top 10 achieving states were reduced teachers’ rights states, they did make up 7 of the bottom 10 K-12 Achievement states. That means that almost half of all reduced teachers’ rights states ranked in the bottom 10 states on their students’ achievement.

The results revealed by this report should come as no surprise to anyone who has been involved in, or observed, the collective bargaining process across Ohio's school districts. Teachers and education support professionals have consistently demonstrasted a commitment not only to delivering a quality education to their students, but to the communities they serve. Eliminating this important voice eliminates the ability to deliver these results.

Starving America’s Public Schools

Critics of America’s public schools always seem to start from the premise that the pre-kindergarten-through-12th-grade public education system in this country is failing or in crisis.

This crisis mentality is in stark contrast to years of survey research showing that Americans generally give high marks to their local schools. Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup surveys have found that the populace holds their neighborhood schools in high regard; in fact, this year’s survey found that “Americans, and parents in particular, evaluate their community schools more positively than in any year since” the survey started.

How could there be such a disconnect between a national narrative about public education and opinions about local schools? The two contradictory narratives draw on completely different sources of evidence.

Read the report.

[readon2 url="http://www.ourfuture.org/report/2011104111/starving-america-s-public-schools"]Read more...[/readon2]

School Cuts Hurt Kids. . . 

. . . By Increasing Class Size

. . . By Eliminating Critical Classes

. . . By Eliminating Great Teachers

SB5 solves exactly zero problems, creates many more

Simple:

Ohio's teachers unions are fighting the proposal, arguing that by 2014, all schools will implement some type of new evaluation system through Race to the Top or the federal Teacher Incentive Fund grants.

"Everything they want to get out of an evaluation system that is linked to student performance will come out of the two federal programs," said Darold Johnson, an Ohio Federation of Teachers lobbyist. "If you are talking about pay, compensation and evaluations, that is all going to happen in the time frame. We don't need Senate Bill 5 for that. We don't need it in the budget."

If the system is developed locally, with teachers and administrators working together, it will be easier to implement, Johnson said.

It only gets hard once you have decided to go down a path that doesn't involve broad consultation, not listening to classroom teachers, and relies on eliminating collective bargaining in order to pursue corporate reform solutions that don't work.

SB5 and its companion provisions in the budget were never designed to solve education problems, they were designed to address a partisan political agenda - with public education, and classroom teachers, the victim of that fight.

Hilliard Schools Budget

Hilliard schools have a 6.9-mill property tax levy on the May 3rd ballot. According to the Superintendent, Dale McVey

Should Issue 7 fail, the district will make nearly $4 million in cuts in order to balance our budget for the 2011-12 school year. The list of cuts was designed to spread this difficult situation across the entire district; it takes into account the $6.5 million in recent reductions that Hilliard Schools has already made and includes:

• eliminating all middle school athletic programs;
• eliminating gifted instruction;
• eliminating fifth grade band and strings programs;
• eliminating transportation services for field trips, daycare services and FOCUS (gifted) shuttles;
• eliminating 51.5 administrative, certified and classified positions; and, reducing 247 classified positions.

Because of the Governors reckless budget, Hilliard City Schools may lose $5.2 million in Fiscal Year (FY) '12 (2011-12 school year) and $8.9 million in FY '13 (2012-13 school year). This would represent a 15.4 percent decrease in state foundation money for FY '12 and 26 percent in FY '13 according to the Superintendent.

If you live in the district, or want to help, visit www.forhilliardschools.org.
www.hilliardschools.org also has some information for you.