Education News for 07-30-2012

Statewide Stories of the Day

• Sending more money to classroom part of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's plan to revamp school funding (Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS — Jon Ritchie might just be the future of Ohio education. Since 2007, Ritchie has pulled double duty as superintendent of both the Orrville Local School District and the Rittman Local School District, a pair of rural districts in Wayne County connected by an 11-mile stretch of Ohio 57. This school year, Ritchie is adding Southeastern Local School District to his growing portfolio -- a move enlarging his fiefdom to 4,297 students spread across three Wayne County districts and his pay by $24,000, to $127,000. Read more...

• Auditors investigating how schools, ODE report attendance (Dayton Daily News)

The state auditor’s office is launching a statewide investigation into how school districts, charter schools and the Ohio Department of Education report student attendance data after questionable practices surfaced in three districts. “It appears that attendance report rigging is not a localized problem with Columbus Public Schools, but that it may be more systemic – and that raises the question of what role ODE played during the time that false reports were made by multiple schools,” Auditor Dave Yost wrote in a letter sent Thursday to the Ohio Board of Education. Read more...

• Students can choose when, where, how to learn (News-Sun)

Students will be able to customize their education through a new blended learning model that Springfield district officials think will attract more students and better prepare them for jobs and college. Blended learning allows students to choose from several available options — including the traditional high school classes, post-secondary college courses and the district’s online school — to complete their required courses and desired electives, said David Estrop, superintendent of the Springfield City School District. Read more...

• Lottery windfall won't appear in school budgets (News-Journal)

Higher-than-expected state lottery profits last year do not equal a windfall for Ohio's schools this year, according to three major public education associations. The Ohio Lottery Commission recently released results for the past fiscal year, which ended June 30. Sales surpassed $2.7 billion, and that led to a profit of $771 million, well above the $717.5 million that had been budgeted for schools. By law, all Ohio Lottery profits must be directed toward kindergarten through 12th grade public education, so Ohio's schools are looking at a bump of $50 million for the upcoming school year, right? Read more...

Local Issues

• Lakota recalls teachers for upcoming school year (Journal-News)

LIBERTY TWP. — Three months after their job cuts were approved, about 50 teachers within Lakota Local Schools are coming back for another year. Over recent months, the Lakota school board has approved to recall 53 teachers throughout the district — including on the early childhood, elementary, junior and high school levels — effective July 1, according to school board reports. Marla Niebling, Lakota’s assistant director of human resources, said the teachers were hired back at their same level of pay. Read more...

• TPS, state on opposite sides of data issue (Blade)

Finger-pointing has begun as the investigation into possible school data manipulation rapidly escalates. Officials within Toledo Public Schools say, both publicly and in private, that the Ohio Department of Education has never made it clear that the practice of retroactively withdrawing and re-enrolling habitually truant students was prohibited, and say the department seems to have condoned the practices by remaining silent during similar situations. Education department officials, meanwhile, say the law and their guidance couldn't have been more straightforward. Read more...

• Delphos adds online school option (Lima News)

DELPHOS — Nikki Fetzer watched her children's grades improve since enrolling in the online school Ohio Connections Academy. She no longer worried about bullies and always knew where her son and daughter were. It was perfect, except her son couldn't play football for his hometown school, Delphos Jefferson. Neither children could participate in other extras and would not receive a diploma from the school. Next month, the two will be Wildcats again, thanks to a new online option at the high school. Read more...

• Southern Ohio Academy open for student enrollment (Daily Times)

The Southern Ohio Academy is now accepting students in grades 7-12 to begin their first school year of online classes for non-traditional, at-risk students. The not-for-profit Academy is a collaborative effort of Bloom Vernon, Clay, Green, Manchester, Minford, Northwest, Oak Hill, Scioto County Career Technical Center, South Central Ohio Educational Service Center, Valley, Washington Nile, and Wheelersburg schools. Its curriculum is provided by the Virtual Community School of Ohio. Read more...

• Busing officials, school district ready for a better start (Middletown Journal)

MIDDLETOWN — Coming off a disastrous start to last school year, representatives of the Petermann Ltd. bus company and the Middletown City School District expect the second year of a five-year $15.1 million contract to be a lot better. Due to re-routing of the entire school district prior to the start of last school year and an addition of 130 school-of-choice students to the district within 36 hours of the first day of school, bus route delays of three or more hours occurred on the first day of school last year. Read more...

Editorial

• Perception of state lottery support hurts Ohio schools (Newark Advocate)

It's been a recurring theme as Ohio's new casinos are rolled out: Public officials are seeing significantly smaller-than-projected profits from voter-approved casinos. Promises and reality, so far, don't measure up. In Licking County, skeptical elected officials actually refrained from building promised casino revenues into their budgets, warily adopting a "let's see how this really sorts out" posture. Long before casinos were approved for the Buckeye State, taxpayers similarly were enticed with promises of school financial support from promised slices of the state lottery profits pie. Read more...

• State auditor's look at student scores is well deserved (Plain Dealer)

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost's launch of a statewide investigation into possibly fraudulent attendance reporting by a number of traditional and charter schools is both wise and timely. So is his decision to broaden that investigation to include whether lapses in Ohio Department of Education oversight allowed this practice -- first reported by The Plain Dealer nearly four years ago -- to persist. Ohioans need to know how many districts have gamed the system and why the state's education overseers seemingly turned a blind eye to the matter. Read more...

Kasich manufacturing a funding crisis

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the Ohio Lottery recently announced that

it was transferring a record $771 million to the Ohio Department of Education to support kindergarten-through-12th grade education. The profit — which by law goes to schools — came from record lottery sales of $2.73 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30.

That sounds like great news for cash strapped school districts that have suffered from historically massive budget cuts enacted by the Governor and his legislature in the last biennium budget.

However, the good news is only surface deep. For every dollar of lottery money that flows into the schools, the state removes a dollar of funding. Something school administrators recently wrote the Governor about

The Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA), the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA) and the Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO) want to set the record straight about lottery profits and their link to school funding.
[...]
“While it is true that all Ohio Lottery profits are used by the state to fund education, the profit from increased sales was simply used to free up other state funds that had previously been set aside for schools, allowing more money to be transferred into the stateʼs rainy day fund,” said OSBA Executive Director Richard Lewis. “No increase in this yearʼs funding for school districts will be available as a result of these unexpected profits.”

BASA Executive Director Kirk Hamilton said, “The increase in lottery profits was positive news for the state of Ohio because of its recent devastating budget shortfall. However, we were disappointed to see reports implying that it is school districts that will benefit. In reality, when lottery profits exceed estimates, the total amount available for Ohio schools does not change.”

[...]
“We urge Gov. Kasich to use this ʻextraʼ state money from the increased lottery profits to restore the budget cuts to education that were included in the current state budget,” said OASBO Executive Director David Varda. “It should also be utilized to help fund schools in the future as Gov. Kasich develops a new school-funding formula.

So all that extra lottery money didn't go to schools at all, instead it went into the Governor's rainy day fund. This move is made all the more troubling when one considers the news out of Cleveland this week.

The Mayor and Cleveland schools will be requesting an massive 15 mils in their levy

The Cleveland School District and Mayor Frank Jackson will ask voters this fall to raise their school taxes by about 50 percent to make major changes aimed at pulling the district out of its academic and budget hole.

The 15-mill levy -- the first operating increase for the district since 1996 -- would give the district an estimated $77 million more a year to add to its $670 million operating budget and $1.1 billion total budget.

We have long pointed out that the real crisis with Cleveland schools was its funding.

As buzz about the tax spread Wednesday, some jaws dropped at the amount. "I hope they dispense Depends when they announce it," said Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek, "so that when homeowners crap their pants it doesn't get too messy."

A little graphic, but it captures the problem. A problem the MAyor never sought to address with the legislature when crafting his "Cleveland Plan" - that plan now looks downright ridiculous given this levy news. Stephen Dyer, at 10th period is sanguine about it

It looks like there is little hope that the much ballyhooed Cleveland Plan will ever reach its promise of turning around Cleveland's public school system. Cleveland's teachers made major concessions to the district, including giving up seniority as a means of determining pay. All so that kids might be able to be helped by the necessary, but expensive, wrap around services the Plan promised.

Now that it looks like it will take a miracle to see any of that. And Cleveland teachers' good-faith efforts and sacrifices are all that will ever come from this Plan, whose legacy appears to be resigned to shorter school days, reduced offerings and larger classes.

I lay little of the blame for this issue at Cleveland's feet. This is a state problem, as it has been for decades. When the state cuts school funding, which it did in the last budget by $1.8 billion (nearly $3 billion if all stimulus money's included), districts are forced to make impossible, desperate choices.

When will the public schools rise again and force the state to fulfill its constitutional obligations? Maybe if the levy fails, media and others will finally take note of the State's failure. But why should it.

Indeed, the Mayor should have asked the Governor for funding as part of his plan, and the Governor given record lottery profits that are supposed to benefit the schools, ought to be ensuring that all that excess profit actually does go to the schools. Students and communities are being massively short changed.

We have a school funding crisis in Ohio, and there is literally no need for it to be happening. The state has both the constitutional responsibility, and the means to address it, it is simply refusing to do so.

Education News for 07-20-2012

Statewide Stories of the Day

• Liberty school officials, state financial panel discuss budget (Vindicator)

LIBERTY - Almost a year after the school district was placed in fiscal emergency, school officials met with the state-appointed financial oversight committee Wednesday. Chairman Roger Nehls and his committee discussed appropriations and expenditures with Liberty Superintendent Stan Watson and Treasurer Jim Wilson. The committee went through budget items from the previous school year as well as items for the upcoming year, said Nehls. The district spent approximately $15.5 million from its general fund by the end of fiscal year 2012. Read more...

• School groups warn of lottery windfall hurdle (Newark Advocate)

Higher-than-expected state lottery profits in the past fiscal year do not equal a windfall for Ohio's schools this year, according to three major public education associations. Earlier this month, the Ohio Lottery Commission released results for this past fiscal year, which concluded June 30. Sales surpassed $2.7 billion, and that led to a profit of $771 million, well above the $717.5 million that had been budgeted for schools. By law, all Ohio Lottery profits must be directed toward K-12 public education. Read more...

• Taxing sales to fund schools? Expect hefty hike (Repository)

COLUMBUS — As Ohio considers new ways to pay for public schools, legislative analysts said Wednesday one option is to replace local property tax revenue with an increase in the state sales tax, but they cautioned that it might be a risky move. To raise the more than $9.9 billion that’s needed, policymakers would need to more than double the sales tax rate — from 5.5 cents on the dollar to 13.2 cents. It’s one of many ideas being kicked around by an Ohio House subcommittee laying the groundwork for a new state funding formula for schools. Read more...

Local Issues

• Johnstown retracts decision on busing to private schools (Newark Advocate)

JOHNSTOWN - More than a month after it passed a resolution deeming busing for some non-public school students impractical, the Johnstown-Monroe School Board retracted its decision at its Wednesday meeting. The board will work with Northridge Local Schools and administrators from private schools in Newark and Granville to attempt to find another solution, board president Roger Montgomery said. This past school year, Johnstown had about 35 students the district bused to private schools, including Granville Christian Academy. Read more...

• Cleveland schools seek big tax increase in November to carry out transformation plans (Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland School District and Mayor Frank Jackson will ask voters this fall to raise their school taxes by about 50 percent to make major changes aimed at pulling the district out of its academic and budget hole. The 15-mill levy -- the first operating increase for the district since 1996 -- would give the district an estimated $77 million more a year to add to its $670 million operating budget and $1.1 billion total budget. It would also provide $5.5 million to go to charter schools that partner with the district, making it the first local tax in Ohio to go to charters. Read more...

• Board to vote on eliminating positions (News-Sun)

Northwestern board members are expected to vote tonight on a controversial decision to eliminate a position championed by some families. The board will decide whether to eliminate the family liaison and middle school principal positions to prepare for the move from three to two buildings when Northwestern opens its new schools next fall, said Superintendent Tony Orr. The board will vote at 6 p.m. tonight in the auditorium at Northwestern High School. Read more...

Editorial

• Schools cut costs by sharing (Tribune Chronicle)

The idea of shared school administrations is taking hold near and far. If school districts in Trumbull and Mahoning counties don't figure out ways to share these duties, local teachers and students will continue to get shortchanged. Nearby, Grand Valley and Pymatuning Valley school districts in southern Ashtabula County have opened discussions on sharing a superintendent beginning this fall. Pymatuning Valley Superintendent Alex Geordan resigned to accept a job in Canfield, prompting the Board of Education to contact Grand Valley about sharing its superintendent. Read more...