Mixed messages from legislature

Greg Mild at Plunderbund delves into the 3rd grade reading guarantee and discovers that it's provisions could potentially cost teachers $17,000 out of their own pocket.

The same Ohio legislators who sought to reduce teacher compensation through Senate Bill 5 last year and who have cut public school funding (including to the Ohio Department of Education), included a requirement in the 3rd Grade Guarantee that will cost individual teachers over $17,000 each — most likely an out-of-pocket expense.
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Absent the revisions (where was ODE when this law was being passed in the first place?), all teachers working with students who fall under this law’s provisions will be required to have a reading endorsement as part of their teaching license.

Greg goes on to detail the costs.

But, let's back away from the details for a moment to look at the underlying policy itself. If the legislature truly believes that licensure is not one of the best ways to measure a teachers effectiveness, why then are they relying upon a license in the case of the 3rd grade reading guarantee?

Why are they not instead mandating that a principal assigns the most highly rated teacher to the task of providing 3rd grade reading remediation, rather than some potential slacker with a license?

Talk about mixed messages. Why would any teacher bother to go to the time and expense of getting this license, when there is clear policy that it bares no relationship to pay in the eyes on the legislature?

Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has just published their report "Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales: Variation and Change in State Standards for Reading and Mathematics, 2005-2009"

This research looked at the following issues

How do states’ 2009 standards for proficient performance compare with one another when mapped onto the NAEP scale? There is wide variation among state proficiency standards.
Most states’ proficiency standards are at or below NAEP’s definition of Basic performance.

How do the 2009 NAEP scale equivalents of state standards compare with those estimated for 2007 and 2005? For those states that made substantive changes in their assessments between 2007 and 2009 most moved toward more rigorous standards as measured by NAEP.
For those states that made substantive changes in their assessments between 2005 and 2009, changes in the rigor of states’ standards as measured by NAEP were mixed but showed more decreases than increases in the rigor of their standards.

Does NAEP corroborate a state’s changes in the proportion of students meeting the state’s standard for proficiency from 2007 to 2009? From 2005 to 2009? Changes in the proportion of students meeting states’ standards for proficiency between 2007 and 2009 are not corroborated by the proportion of students meeting proficiency, as measured by NAEP, in at least half of the states in the comparison sample.
Results of comparisons between changes in the proportion of students meeting states’ standards for proficiency between 2005 and 2009 and the proportion of students meeting proficiency, as measured by NAEP, were mixed.

The full report can be found here (PDF). We've pulled out some of the graphs that show Ohio's performance vs the rest of the country for each of the 4th and 8th grade reading and math achievement levels.

New Poll shows high support for SB5 opponents

A new poll recently conducted by Fallon Research & Communications, Inc. shows that labor opponents of SB5 are regarded highly by the electorate.

Unions that represent police officers and firefighters are the most popular in the survey, with an overall favorable rating of 70% and an unfavorable rating of just 22%, while the remaining 8% have mixed opinions or were unsure.
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Among the specific types of unions tested in the survey, results for teachers’ unions provided the most intriguing insights. Overall, 56% of Ohio voters surveyed said they have favorable views of teachers’ unions, which is 8% higher than the favorable rating for general views of unions, and 34% said they have unfavorable opinions, which is 5% lower than the unfavorable rating for general views of unions. The remaining 10% have mixed opinions or were unsure. Teachers’ unions are most popular with 18 to 29 year-olds (71%), African-Americans (92%), union households (79%) and Democrats (74%). Teachers’ unions are least popular with non-union households (43% unfavorable) and Republicans (61%). Impressively, 57% of unaffiliated voters view teachers’ unions favorably, while just 31% view them unfavorably, which indicates high standing and, presumably, credibility with this vital segment of the electorate that is frequently the deciding factor in many local levy campaigns.

The full survey can be read below

Ohio Survey Results