Education News for 03-11-2013

State Education News

• Race to Top grants not worth costs, officials say (Columbus Dispatch)

Requirements tied to federal Race to the Top education grants have become more work than the money is worth, some Ohio school districts say…Read more...

• In some classrooms, social media welcome (Columbus Dispatch)

Jordan Shapiro’s class last week delved into a weighty discussion of Plato’s allegory of the cave and shifting perceptions of reality…Read more...

• Ohio first to target K-3 in voucher program (Dayton Daily News)

Ohio may become the first state in the nation to offer publicly funded vouchers to K-3 students whose schools fail to hit the bar in reading…Read more...

• Emails show data scrubbing analyzed in ’08 (Toledo Blade)

It is well-documented that the Ohio Department of Education long knew — or should have known — about extensive data scrubbing at urban Ohio school districts…Read more...

• Superintendents to testify about state funding (Zanesville Times-Recorder)

After losing $500,000 from state funding budget cuts in the past two years, Morgan Local Schools Superintendent Lori Snyder-Lowe fears what’s to come from other budget modifications…Read more...

Local Education News

• Schools receive their report cards (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Excellent is the rating for the Oak Hills Local School District. The Ohio Department of Education recently released its Ohio Report Card ratings…Read more...

• Dublin chooses new superintendent from suburban Cleveland (Columbus Dispatch)

Dublin schools announced today that Todd Hoadley will be the district’s next superintendent…Read more...

• Amherst schools up security; $250,000 system to include panic button, telephones in every classroom (Lorain Morning Journal)

Amherst schools will upgrade its security system for the next school year to include a panic button in every building and telephones in every classroom…Read more...

• Monroe mulls $740K in savings (Middletown Journal)

Monroe schools could save $740,000 over the next two years by reducing teacher positions, negotiating salary freezes, raising employee health care contributions and eliminating two active buses, according to the results of a year-long performance…Read more...

• Community backs new city schools plan (Youngstown Vindicator)

Many in the community support city schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn’s plan to restructure schools in an effort to boost student choice, cut costs and bolster achievement — although some questions remain…Read more...

Editorial

• School districts to state - We need stable funding (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Last month, Gov. John Kasich made waves with his school-funding proposal. The waves have not ceased ... and local districts are still bobbing up and down in rather deep troughs…Read more...

• How about an Ohio school funding formula do-over (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Any proposal to change the inequitable way Ohio funds its public schools is sure to sow confusion and dissension. Funding formulas are complicated things…Read more...

• Youngstown school board gets warning from oversight panel (Youngstown Vindicator)

Youngstown schools Superinten- dent Connie Hathorn is seeking a renewal of his contract that expires in July 2014. The chairwoman of the state-appointed Academic Distress Commission…Read more...

How long one teacher took to become great

A great piece in the Washington Post

A few weeks ago I flew into Buffalo, New York, rented a car, and drove down to northeastern Ohio for a high school class reunion — the 55th — for students I’d taught when they were 9th graders in 1952.

They told me stories about myself, some of which I wish they’d kept to themselves, but what they had to say got me thinking about the teacher I once was.

I have a lousy memory, but it’s good enough to tell me that, notwithstanding assurances that I was their favorite teacher (what else could they say?), I hadn’t really been a good one.

I certainly wasn’t a good teacher in 1952. No first-year teacher is a good teacher.

I wasn’t a good teacher in 1958 either. Some people thought I was; they had spoken sufficiently highly of me to prompt a superintendent from a distant, upscale school district to come and spend an entire day in my classes, then offer me a considerable raise if I’d come and teach in his district.

I did. But I can clearly recall leaning against the wall outside my room during a class change and saying to Bill Donelly, the teacher from the room next door, “There has to be more to it than this.”

The “this” was what I was doing — following the standard practice of assigning textbook reading as homework, then, next day, telling kids my version of what the textbook had covered. Pop quizzes and exams told me how much they remembered. (According to reunion attendees, not much.)

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Blind eyes and cruel intentions

Research has long shown the achievement gap to be dominated by poverty and the differences in income. It is remarkable then, that the Dispatch would publish an 800 plus word article on the achievement gap, and not once in the entire article mention poverty. This is important, because just like the Dispatch, the state plan to grade schools based upon closing this achievement gap also does not address the issue of poverty either. Somehow, simply wishing the gap to be closed is good enough policy, when coupled with punishment for the schools when the miracles fail to happen.

A recent paper, titled "Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence" from the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy had this to say

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers and the promotion of competition, are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school than those from more advantaged families. Because these policy initiatives do not directly address the educational challenges experienced by disadvantaged students, they have contributed little -- and are not likely to contribute much in the future -- to raising overall student achievement or to reducing achievement and educational attainment gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Moreover, such policies have the potential to do serious harm. Addressing the educational challenges faced by children from disadvantaged families will require a broader and bolder approach to education policy than the recent efforts to reform schools.

These bolder, broader efforts would require sacrifices beyond the school walls, and prove politically difficult for law makers to confront. This in part explains why Ohio is the only state in the country that does not have a school funding formula, let alone a constitutional one.

What it doesn't explain however, is Republican policy to make the poverty situation worse by trying to enact budget measures like slashing food stamps

From food stamps to child tax credits and Social Service block grants, House Republicans began rolling out a new wave of domestic budget cuts Monday but less for debt reduction — and more to sustain future Pentagon spending without relying on new taxes.

A policy that would ensure more students go to school hungry is particularly cruel.

Data released by the Census Department recently showed the percentage of Americans living in poverty is the highest in 15 years, with children feeling the rise most acutely. The news has direct implications for reformers intent on narrowing the academic achievement gap. As the NYT reported recently

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

“We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.

It is with some releif then that Ohio Democrats are proposing at least a modest restoration in funding for schools, after the savage cuts made by the previous budget

Ohio - Ohio House Democrats want to funnel tax dollars back to schools and local governments handed a whopping cut in Republican Gov. John Kasich's state budget passed last year.

House Minority Leader Armond Budish, a Beachood Democrat, and five Democratic members of the House Finance Committee appeared at a Statehouse news conference Monday morning calling for $400 million in additional funding for schools and local governments hit by cuts in the state's operating budget.

"The Kids and Communities First Fund will keep teachers in the classroom and police and firefighters on the streets in communities across Ohio," Budish said.

As long as policy makers and newspaper reporting ignore the very real problem of poverty and its connection to student achievement, we are deluding ourselves into thinking all we need to do is come up with a new test, or a new way to grade schools and everything will be A-ok.

Union members spotlight - day 5

This is the final day five of our week long spotlight on union members who have decided to run for the Ohio House of Representatives.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4

It should be noted that the districts listed below are new as a consequence of the legislative redistricting process that happened last year.

House district 88 - Bill Young (D)

Bill is a member of OEA and an award-winning Social Studies teacher. He will be facing incumbent Rep. Rex Damschroder in November. Damschroder was absent for the vote on SB5, but did vote for the budget bill which contained many similar provisions as SB5, while also deeply cutting education funding.

House district 95 - Jim Drake (D) and Charles Daniels (D)

This is the only race where two union members will face each other in a primary.
Jim Drake is a member of OEA. Jim is a twenty-year veteran high school teacher, He worked in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Education to implement the Ohio Entry-Year Teacher Program, and served as both vice-president and president of the St. Clairsville Education Association.

Jim is a member of the Ohio Foreign Language Association and has served on the OEA’s Fund for Children in Public Education State Council, Legislative Committee, and is the current chair of the Organizing Strategy Committee. He currently teaches Spanish at St. Clairsville High School. You can learn more about Jim, here.

Charles Daniels is a member of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA). You can follow Charles on Facebook, here.
Incumbent Jack Cera (D) is running for reeelction in district 95, so the incumbent of current District 93, Republican Andrew Thompson will be the primary opponent of the eventual Democratic primary winner. It will be no surprise ot learn that Rep. Thompson was a big supporter of SB5 and the budget which passed the buck to the schools and local governments.

House district 99 - John Patterson (D)

John is a member of OEA. since 1983 John taught U.S. History at Jefferson Area High School. While at Jefferson, John has coached girls basketball, boys baseball, golf, and for the past 12 seasons, boys’ cross-country. During this he has been very active in the Jefferson Area Teachers’ Association, and has been the chief negotiator for his union since the late 1980′s.
He will be facing incumbent Casey Kozlowski in November, one of the few Republicans to buck party pressure and vote against SB5. He did however for the budget.
You can learn more about John, here.

Monday we will turn our attention to union members who are running for the Ohio State Senate.

Union members spotlight - day 4

This is day four of our week long spotlight on union members who have decided to run for the Ohio general assembly.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

It should be noted that the districts listed below are new as a consequence of the legislative redistricting process that happened last year.

House district 72 - David Dilly (D)

David Dilly is a member of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). David is the current Coshocton County Recorder. He is running unopposed in the Democratic primary on March 6. Former District 91 incumbent Bill Hayes (R), who voted for SB5 and the budget bill will be his November opponent.

House district 76 - Mary O’Toole (R)

Mary is a member of OEA. With Incumbent Rep Sprague running for election in district 83, Mary is running in a 4 way Republican primary. She will face Tom Warren in the november election if she is succesful.
Learn more about Mary, here.

House district 81 - John Vanover (D)

John is another member of the united Steel workers. john has been involved in the USW rapid response political program, coordinated communications and legislative responses. He's running unopposed to face the extreme Rep Lynn Wachtmann who enthusiastically voted for SB5, and the budget bill (HB153).

House district 87 - Dennis Sterling (R)

Dennis is a member of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). A retired police officer after having served 27 years with the State Highway Patrol, the Dublin Police Department and the Fairborn Police Department. With a background of working for the Fraternal Order of Police, including 10 years of negotiating public safety contracts, Sterling said he plans to approach union negotiations with a "fair, reasonable and right attitude, and restore faith lost through Senate Bill 5". Dennis has also said "My goal is to try to get (local government funds) reinstated to pre-Gov. Kasich amounts," he said. "It needs to come back.".

His position draws a direct contrast to his Republican primary opponent Jeff McClain who voted for SB5 and cutting local budgets.

Tomorrow we will conclude our look at union members who are running for the State House of Representatives, then, on Monday, turn our attention to members running for the State Senate.

“Teaching Isn’t Really a Profession”

As an educator for the past four decades there is very little in the way of conversation that I haven’t discussed about what it is to be a teacher. In these discussions, over all of these years, there is one position taken by many people which always gives me cause to think less of the person with whom I am having the discussion. It forces me to question their bias on the subject. The statement that sets me off is usually some variation of,”teaching isn’t really a profession”.

The person at that point of the discussion would usually talk about the hours in the day and the weeks in the year that teachers work as if that had something to do with what a professional is. Ultimately, it always ends up with some comment about the idea that teachers belong to a UNION so they can’t be professionals.

I found two different definitions of Profession and neither mentions a disqualification of status because of time spent working or any union affiliation:

A calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation…

A vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science: the profession of teaching…

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