Teachers to the legislative rescue

We brought HB555 to your attention quite some time ago. Yet another vehicle for school "reform". It was mothballed, but now appears to be getting a dust-off according to Gongwer, and readied for lame duck action

The House Education Committee is scheduled to meet on three days in the week following the election, and the chairman said Thursday the yet-to-be-completed report card rating bill will be top priority during lame duck.

With meetings set for the afternoons of Nov. 13-15, Chairman Rep. Gerald Stebelton (R-Lancaster) said it is possible the committee will hear other bills, but the main focus will be on legislation to revamp the state's grade cards for school districts and buildings.

Rep. Stebelton introduced a placeholder bill during the summer (HB 555) that currently contains language stating the General Assembly's intent to put in place a system by Dec. 31. He said Thursday, however, the bill is not "totally completed yet."

"The subject matter of 555 is the highest priority (for lame duck)," he said in an interview. "We've had a lot of negotiations and there's still a lot of moving parts."

Mr. Stebelton said he is hopeful the legislature can reach consensus with the governor's office in time to have the bill passed by the end of the year as intended. He has been working with administration officials, the Department of Education and the Senate, he said.

Rep Stableton would be wise to wait just a short while, he might have some actual educators join him in the state legislature, who can help guide him to better policy, instead of creating a mess like this one

Reading Guarantee: Mr. Sawyers said the department is asking for a change during lame duck session to the third-grade guarantee, specifically to a requirement that students with a reading deficiency be assigned to a teacher with a "reading endorsement."

Because teachers with such a certification are few and far between, the agency wants clarification that would align the requirement of a high-performing teacher with the reading endorsement for the time being because acquiring the training for the title requires 12 to 16 semester hours of college credit, he said.

"It's not practical that between January of 2013 - if they're not already in a fall semester someplace - between January and then when they will start again in August that we're going to have this mad rush of people going out to get this reading endorsement (and) that can actually complete 12 to 18 semester hours of credit," Mr. Sawyers said.

"There's got to be an alternative, ultimately, that's put in place for fall (2013), so we're proposing to the General Assembly, what could that alternative be?"

Oh dear. We wrote about the mixed messages and policy mess the legislature has caused with this, so it's good to see ODE acknowledge the problems too. But, these are the kinds of problems that simply would not occur if legislatures with no education experience or background listened to those who have, and hopefully come January, that will include a number of colleagues.

The diminished power of the press

The governor wasn't the only big loser last night. In fact, he probably wasn't even the biggest loser. That accolade might well be laid at the door of Ohio's print media. In usual tradition, each of Ohio's major newspapers made their endorsements to both fanfare and derision, but as the State Troopers Association notes not so ironically on the Facebook page

Ohio State Troopers Association (O.S.T.A.)
Newspaper Endorsements: Building a Better Ohio trumpeted the endorsements of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Columbus Dispatch. A review of the clout of these endorsements discloses the Dispatch endorsement produced a 36/64% vote against Issue #2 in Franklin County. The Plain Dealer did even worse, helping Issue #2 to a better than two to one thumping and the Cincinnati Enquirer endorsement preceded a 42/58% vote against Issue #2.

Is it any wonder that the printed media is looking so economically unstable. The real endorsements were found in the millions of social network pages that served as a peoples press.

Quite. But that is not all. Plunderbund, in their long SB5 reaction piece makes mention of this too

The irrelevancy of newspaper endorsements

Building a Better Ohio made much to do about getting the endorsements of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Columbus Dispatch.

Here’s the splits on Issue 2 for those counties:

Cuyahoga: 31% (endorsed position)/69% (against endorsed position).
Franklin: 36%/64%.
Hamilton: 42%/58%.
The Dispatch and Plain Dealer saw their endorsed position perform substantially worse in their home counties than they did overall. How is endorsing a position that is opposed by roughly two-thirds of your customer base smart business?

Let’s also not forget that it was many of these media outlets who called labor “foolish” for risking an all-or-nothing political gamble on a referendum campaign, even as polls at the time showed them with twenty-point leads. That was the main argument for a compromise… because Issue 2 was too divisive. Issue 2 won by almost the same margin as Ted Strickland did against Ken Blackwell in 2006. Nobody called Strickland’s election “divisive” with those numbers.

Keep in mind, there wasn’t a single newspaper in Ohio that endorsed Issue 3, either. There is nothing in the 2011 results to suggest that these endorsement brought about anything but cancelled subscriptions.

We raised this question, with the Editor of the Dispatch, Ben Marrison, about newspapers making endorsements and how they might cause readers to question the partiality of the Dispatch's reporting. The reply

@jointhefutureOH Newsroom doesn't make endorsements. We just write stories.

We replied "@dispatcheditor Yeah, but do you think readers really make a distinction? Newspapers should get out of the endorsement biz, and just report."

Given that newspaper endorsements no longer appear to carry any influence, and rightly run the risk of alienating readers, subscribers, advertisers and raising doubt on the partiality of reporting, should newspaper endorsements be cast into the dustbin of history? We believe they should be.

Kasich makes false claims to state workers

As signature collection for the SB5 repeal effort gets under way today , it comes as no surprise that the Kasich administration has begun to use its position to propagandize state employees

On one front, the governor ordered Department of Administrative Services Director Robert Blair to issue a letter to the state's 57,520 employees that highlights "key facts" of Senate Bill 5 and included an endorsement from Blair of the switch to a merit-based pay system.

Plunderbund has a copy of the letter, and debunks some of the false claims it makes.

Apr 21 2011 DAS Dir Blair Re SB5