gifted

Education News for 02-15-2013

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Local Education News

  • James tackles Akron, state issues in ‘State of the Schools’ speech (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • Akron Public Schools Superintendent David James gave his fifth annual “State of the Schools” address Thursday, detailing challenges stemming…Read more...

  • Normal school security routine returns Monday (Chillicothe Gazette)

    • The atmosphere at Chillicothe Middle and High School is expected to regain a sense of normalcy on Monday after a week of boosted police presence at the campus…Read more...

  • Findlay evaluations will look for gifted students (Findlay Courier)

    • Findlay City Schools Gifted Services is arranging evaluations of students in kindergarten through 12th grade to determine if they are gifted in the visual and performing arts areas of dance, drama, music and visual arts…Read more...

  • New internal assessments elicit cautious optimism for Toledo Public Schools (Toledo Blade)

    • As Toledo Public Schools found itself mired in public turmoil in recent months, with a search for a new superintendent, a state investigation that criticized attendance…Read more...

  • McDonald officials reject arming teachers (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • McDonald schools have hired local off-duty police officers who will rotate for an eight-hour shift daily to provide additional security at the schools…Read more...

Editorial

  • Question of adequacy (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • For more than 20 years two concepts have dominated the school-funding debate in Ohio: adequacy and equity. Equity points to a distribution issue…Read more...

Education News for 02-04-2013

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State Education News

  • Governor’s office says school funding plan is a redistribution of wealth, not attempt at adequacy (Akron Beacon Journal)

    • On Thursday, Gov. John Kasich’s education experts stood in front of images on a screen and said they had arrived at a school funding formula that ends the inequity among Ohio’s richest and poorest districts…Read more...

  • Gov. John Kasich's school funding plan might hold little new money for many Northeast Ohio districts (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

    • Northeast Ohio may not benefit as much as other parts of the state from Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to overhaul school funding, a Plain Dealer analysis shows…Read more...

  • Officials seek details of Kasich plan for gifted (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Compared to other states, Ohio’s support for gifted students has been among the best: Only one other state with comparable data gave more money for gifted programs in 2011…Read more...

  • Rules vague on suspending teachers for misconduct (Columbus Dispatch)

    • After being arrested and charged with assault, domestic violence and disorderly conduct, a Westerville teacher paid bond and left jail. Eight days later, when students returned to school from winter break…Read more...

  • Only limit on new voucher is the budget (Columbus Dispatch)

    • Nearly half of Ohio’s 1.8 million elementary and secondary students could qualify in the coming years for tax-funded tuition to private schools under Gov. John Kasich’s plan to expand the state’s voucher program…Read more...

  • Incentives plan raises questions (Columbus Dispatch)

    • The same component of Gov. John Kasich’s school-funding plan that would empower districts to add performance pay incentives for teachers also could push districts to trim teachers from the payrolls…Read more...

  • Public schools would incur some cost of voucher expansion (Dayton Daily News)

    • An adviser for Gov. John Kasich on Friday provided more funding details about his controversial plan to expand the school voucher program in Ohio…Read more...

  • Area school chiefs greet Kasich plan with optimism (Findlay Courier)

    • Gov. John Kasich's school-funding plan was met with optimism and apprehension Friday as area superintendents said they are eager to find out the specifics of the overhaul, which will see the state spend $15.1 billion on schools over the next two years…Read more...

  • Should schools consider arming staff? (Marion Star)

    • Imagine this scenario. A man with a gun enters a school, intent on killing. A locked door doesn’t stop him. He gets through security efforts and starts shooting…Read more...

  • Bullying study: It does get better for gay, bisexual teens (Youngstown Vindicator)

    • It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence…Read more...

Local Education News

  • Ex-cop ready to serve if schools sign on to his idea (Cincinnati Enquirer)

    • There has been plenty of talk but little else since Butler County’s sheriff publicly floated the idea of retired cops working as armed substitute teachers…Read more...

  • Groveport schools could try new option for levy (Columbus Dispatch)

    • To solve long-term budget problems, Groveport Madison school leaders have proposed a tax-levy approach that few districts in the state have pursued…Read more...

  • Schools ‘cautiously optimistic’ about Kasich’s funding plan (Middletown Journal)

    • While Butler County school officials are still awaiting more detailed figures next week, overall reaction has been positive to Gov. John Kasich’s new model for school funding…Read more...

  • Tecumseh teachers earn grant support (Springfield News-Sun)

    • Eleven Tecumseh teachers will receive grants to assist with innovative projects for their classrooms that don’t fit in the district’s budge…Read more...

Editorial

  • Finally, a real response to DeRolph (Canton Repository)

    • Mountains of number crunching will necessarily follow the unveiling of Gov. John Kasich’s school funding plan…Read more...

  • Call for early learning funding is good news - and good business (Cincinnati Enquirer)

    • About 90 percent of a child’s brain development happens by the age of 5. About 90 percent of public spending on education goes to the years after age 5…Read more...

  • A Playbook For Ohio Education Initiatives (I Teach Bay)

    • This is Super Bowl Weekend. Analysts have spent two weeks dissecting every possible factor that could impact the performance of either team in the big game…Read more...

Note to teachers: Thanks for loving our kids

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Dear Teachers,

This is the first of much correspondence you'll receive from us this year.

We'll write to beg for an extension on our children's math assignment.

"Soccer practice went late last night and there was no time for homework and we're sure you'll understand because it's Jake's first year in select and it really matters."

We'll scribble a note to ask that you move our sensitive Lucy away from domineering Evelyn - but not near chatty Suzy and as far away as possible from mean Renee.

We will write to remind you of our children's orthodontist appointments, allergy shots, physical therapy sessions for the torn ACL, early dismissals every Thursday so we can get them to ballet classes on the other side of town.

And please note that Aaron will be gone the entire week after Thanksgiving since we couldn't schedule our winter vacation any other time.

We'll email a request for extra science homework for our Anthony, who you'll recall is gifted. But could you lighten up on that weekly vocabulary list? Asking fifth-graders to remember eight definitions every week is just too stressful.

[readon2 url="http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110818/COL01/108190332/Note-teachers-Thanks-loving-our-kids?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CColumnists%7Cp"]Continue reading (the pay off is great) ...[/readon2]

Is Gifted Education a Bright Idea?

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I keep getting struck wondering wether it's the measurements that are the problem, rather than the measured outcomes. Maybe it's harder to measure progress than looking at some test results. Either way, this interesting report adds another question mark to the idea of using high stakes testing to make high stakes decisions with teaching careers. If we can't adequately measure progress with the brightest students, taught by the best teachers, that doesn't say a lot about the whole ill-concieved enterprise.

A new working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Mass., evaluated the effectiveness of both in-class gifted programs and magnet schools for more than 8,000 middle school students in an unnamed Southwestern school district of more than 200,000 students.

The University of Houston researchers who conducted the study found that students in these programs were more likely than other students to do in-depth coursework with top teachers and high-performing peers. Yet students who barely met the 5th grade cutoff criteria to enter the gifted programs fared no better academically in 7th grade, after a year and a half in the program, than did similarly high-potential students who just missed qualifying for gifted identification.

"You're getting these better teachers; you're getting these higher-achieving students paired up with you," said Scott A. Imberman, an economics professor and a study coauthor. "To our surprise, what happened was very little."

Here's the paper.

Is Gifted Education a Bright Idea?

Hilliard Schools Budget

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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.

    Sommers sweats gifted student question

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    The reckless budget includes moving $60 million for gifted student services into a larger pot of state aid with no spending requirements. As budgets are slashed across the board the clear ramification of this will be the wholesale elimination of gifted student programs around the state, as districts use this money for general revenue and operating purposes.

    This is proving to be politically difficult for the administration. One the one hand it wants to claim it cares about excellence in education, but the realities, with examples like this, are running contrary.

    These difficulties can be seen and heard in this interview with the administration's education czar, Mr. Sommers