Top 5 Ed stories of 2011

2011 has been a tumultuous year for education policy in Ohio. With a new administration and single party control of all the legislative levers, we have witnessed a lot of corporate education reform ideas rushed, with little discussion, into reality. We thought we would reflect on what has happened, and bring you our 5 top education stories of 2011.

5. Two Heads Are Worse Than One

The year started with Deborah Delisle as the State Superintendent, but pressure from the Governor and a board of education stacked with tea party activists, saw her quickly ousted.

"Last Friday, it was made known to me by two members of the governor's staff that my tenure was limited," Delisle said during the board's monthly meeting in Columbus. "They said they have the votes to replace me."

It was supposed to be a quick one-two step. Oust Delisle, install the Education Czar Bob Sommers. Somewhere along the line, for reasons still not wholly clear, there was a misstep and suddenly the administration was left scrambling to fill this critical roll. Candidates dropped out quickly and no new candidates from either far nor wide stepped forward. Almost by default, with one foot out the door, interim Superintendent Stan Heffner was appointed.

Heffner's first job was to implement the newly passed budget an axe staff to make up for a $6.3 million shortfall

“If we’re going to sponsor up to 20 schools and if we’re going to engage in the additional activities that House Bill 153 has charged us with, then there I already have an under-staffed office.”

He also still has Education Czar Sommers looking over his shoulder. It can't be easy working at ODE these days, not with greatly increased mandates, reduced budgets and two bosses.

4. Who me? Cheat?

With the rapid proliferation and implementation of corporate education policies came news of other corporate behaviors. Cheating.

The year started with serious questions being raised of the darling of corporate education reform, Michele Rhee, as evidence came to light that much of her success may have been a consequence of cheating. This was quickly surpassed by a massive cheating scandal unfolding in Atlanta

State investigators have uncovered a decade of systemic cheating in the Atlanta Public Schools and conclude that Superintendent Beverly Hall knew or should have known about it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

In a report that Gov. Nathan Deal planned to release today, the investigators name nearly 180 educators, including more than three dozen principals, as participants in cheating on state curriculum tests, officials said over the weekend. The investigators obtained scores of confessions.

New Jersey also fell under the shadow of suspicion

The Department of Education has ordered an investigation of 34 schools for possible cheating after an analysis of standardized test scores revealed irregularities.

It seems wherever one finds high stakes corporate education policies in effect, we find corporate types of behavior to bolster performance. With similar polices going into effect in Ohio, how long before these headlines hit home?

3. Not So Fast, Huffman

In one of the most audacious moves of the year, State Rep Matt Huffman threw up a legislative Hail Mary, in the hopes that the 1% could make a spectacular catch in the end zone. His bill, HB136 sought to privatize public education in Ohio, transferring hundreds of millions of dollars intended for public education to private schools. After blowing through committee on a party line vote, the radical nature of the bill caused the impossible to happen. Everyone in the education community in Ohio suddenly started to publicly oppose the effort. For a state where people can't agree on lunch, let alone education policy, this was unprecedented and caused Huffman to backtrack. HB136 looks dead for now, with the Hail Mary pass batted down, Huffman may still try for a field goal in the new year.

It's at this point we had to pause and consider. In which order should we place our top two stories? It was a very difficuly choice.

2. Senate Bill 5

If SB5 would have passed, it would have been the number one story. But having been resoundingly defeated it should put to bed the notion of dismantling collective bargaining rights in Ohio for at least another generation. The passage and subsequent repeal of SB5 was the most hotly contested political issue of 2011. In a campaign that went from protests and lock-outs at the Statehouse to signature collections in every neighborhood, to a $50 million campaign, each and every step of the way citizen efforts ate away the small portion of political capital governor Kasich had. The repercussions of SB5 will ripple through 2012, with the fight sure to continue for control of the legislature, but its defeat means it will not have lasting direct policy implications.

In any ordinary year, each of those stories would be huge news and carry great consequence for public education in Ohio, but there is one other story that will have a severe lasting impact on the state's education system.

1. To Be Continued...

A doomsday bill for public ed

Innovation Ohio follow up on the news that the public school privatization bill (HB136) is going to change, with some interesting new analysis on what some of the proposed changes might mean

Huffman admitted that in its current form, HB 136 could create a potential “doomsday scenario” for Ohio’s public schools. He said that estimates of the bill’s cost to public schools—$500 million just to pay for students who already attend private schools, and nearly $1 billion in lost revenue once the bill was fully phased in—were “valid.”

The good news is that Huffman announced that a scaled back version of HB 136 would either be introduced as a new bill or rolled into a new education plan Gov. Kasich is expected to submit next year.

The bad news is that even this “scaled back” version would cost districts up to $76.5 million, effectively doubling the cost of private school vouchers from last year.

And many of Huffman’s proposed changes would still present public schools with massive problems.

Take his proposal to cap the amount of state money any district could lose at $4,500 per student, for example.

Under this proposal, locally raised property taxes would still be sent to private schools. Why? Because the $4,500 per pupil in state money Huffman cites is a phantom figure. Its what a district might get before “deductions” for Charter Schools, Open Enrollment, and other voucher programs. Last year, for example, the state provided public school districts with $6.5 billion—which equated to nearly $3,800 for each of the 1.75 million children in those districts. But after “deductions” for charters, vouchers, and open enrollment, that $3,800 shrunk to roughly $3,200. So if districts get $3,200 per pupil from the state—but could lost up to $4,500 per pupil for private school vouchers—they would still lose money. And that would require the schools to either cut programs or seek more funding from taxpayers through local levies.

You can read the whole piece here.

HB136 is dead, but will return

HB136 is dead. But a watered down version is likely to reappear in the form of another bill, or tucked quietly inside a bigger bill dealing with the new school funding formula. That was the message delivered by it's sponsor Rep Matt Huffman at a news conference yesterday.

Huffman said he'll change the funding mechanism so that no voucher will be worth more than the amount of per-pupil state aid that the home district receives. In a high-wealth district, that could be as little as a few hundred dollars.

"The practical effect is that not a lot of students from that district will use them," he acknowledged.

Huffman also said he'll limit the number of available vouchers to 1 percent of the home district's enrollment, which is roughly how many he expected would participate.

Statewide, that would be up to 17,000 students - far fewer than would have been possible in the original version of the bill.

He also will change the eligibility guidelines, tying them to the income levels that qualify children for state health coverage. And he will eliminate a provision that would have allowed families to spend unused voucher money on private high schools or college.

We'd speculate that it is unlikely that this new framework would appear in a bigger bill dealing with the funding formula. With over 300 school districts continuing to oppose this privatization plan in any form, a funding formula bill having its own issues, is not going to be a welcoming place for a contentious piece of legislation to be tucked inside.

Whatever the final form and function of this privatization proposal, it remains a terrible policy to transfer public monies to private schools at the expense of the majority of students. Even more so in light of recent revelations of ODE's inability to perform its basic oversight and accountability functions of private schools already receiving tax dollars.