State Education News

HB 555: What the New Ohio School Report Cards Could Look Like (State Impact Ohio)

Under a new, proposed school report-card system, Ohio schools would not get an overall grade on their performance for the next two school years,…Read more...

Nine schools held up for praise (Columbus Dispatch)

Photographs of smiling seniors at Eastmoor Academy fill boards Principal Alesia Gillison keeps on display at the high school on the East Side…Read more...

How High Poverty Schools Can Still Produce Excellent Students (State Impact Ohio)

Schools in high-poverty neighborhoods can produce excellent students, especially with the right leadership. At least that’s the finding of a new study commissioned by…Read more...

Local Education News

Lawyer denies he’s scaring school district witnesses (Columbus Dispatch)

A lawyer hired to help Columbus schools navigate their attendance-data scandal says he’s interviewing district employees in an “independent review of the facts.”…Read more...

2 principals suspended for not making abuse report (Columbus Dispatch)

Two Morrow County elementary-school principals were suspended after detectives found that they had not reported the possible sexual abuse of one of the school’s students…Read more...

Schools pay for parallel audit (Columbus Dispatch)

A lawyer hired to help Columbus schools navigate their attendance-data scandal says he’s interviewing district employees…Read more...

Schools faced with 2 options: Lorain looks at $3M loan or slipping into fiscal emergency (Lorain Morning Journal)

The Lorain City School District is weighing borrowing $3 million to finish out the school year, using its recently passed 4.8-mill levy as collateral, or allowing the district to slip in to fiscal emergency and get a no-interest loan from the state…Read more...

Millions spent annually on professional development to prepare for common core (Middletown Journal)

As Ohio’s educators prepare for the statewide roll-out of common teaching standards in 2014, school districts are spending millions of dollars annually on professional development…Read more...

Local charter school wins six-figure counseling grant (Springfield News-Sun)

When third-grade math scores plummeted and reading scores dropped last school year at the Springfield Academy of Excellence, Principal Edna Chapman realized that many of her 242 students have “exceptional needs that aren’t necessarily academic.” Read more...

Quarter of Youngstown's students attend charter school (Youngstown Vindicator)

A quarter of the students living within the city school district attend public charter shools…Read more...

Editorial

Duck watch (part 2) (Akron Beacon Journal)

The Ohio House Education Committee is conducting hearings this week on legislation to revamp the grading system for public schools and districts…Read more...

Deeper trouble (Columbus Dispatch)

The stakes in the already-alarming investigation of data-rigging in Columbus City Schools have been raised enormously…Read more...

Ohio Budget Watch parses the Governor's words on his forthcoming budget plans and how education policy might be affected. They appear to revolve around using Frank Jackson's SB5 "lite" plan

Teachers unions have made clear they are opposed to many of the reforms. The Governor also hinted at what is needed strategically for him to include the Cleveland reforms. Saying there are things Jackson needs to get done in order for him to move this reform package through the legislature is code for the need to line up support from African-American Democratic legislators from Cleveland. This support will be essential to giving the Governor cover in the form of “bipartisan support” as he essentially introduces a plan to brings back many of the provisions of SB5 that were rejected by voters in November. Also interesting in the Governor’s remarks were two references to Ohio’s “urban areas” rather than Cleveland, specifically. The Governor is often an open book, unable to keep secrets about his future plans. Perhaps he’s giving up a sneak preview about future plans to expand the Cleveland reforms statewide, once they’ve had a chance to demonstrate success. Or he’s planning to introduce a budget next week that will affect all urban districts? Time will tell, but it could be very interesting.

So it looks like we might have a re-hash of SB5 in an election year. This is probably not the sleeping legislative agenda that members of the General Assembly had in mind going into an election year. There is a reason we normally do budgets in non-election years. But John Kasich is not a normal Governor. Stay tuned.

It sure looks like Frank Jackson is going to force Republican lawmakers to religislate SB5, in an election year. The only question left is, will any Democrats be drawn into the suicide pact along with them?