Why Join the Future exists

This piece provides as good a rationale as we have read for why Join the Future exists

"The public common school is the greatest discovery made by man," said Horace Mann. There is a direct link between public education and this nation's civility among citizens, its standard of living and its pivotal position in the world community. Multiple forces, such as the greed associated with for-profit education ventures, the philosophy that education is primarily a private benefit instead of a common good and that sectarian and other private purposes, should be supported from the public largess are unraveling the public common school system. A massive focused, committed offensive is required to preserve the public common school.

During the common school movement in the early and middle 19th century, there were strong forces that opposed the implementation of a tax-supported education system, free to all the children of all the people. Some of the opponents wanted tax money for their sectarian and private purposes. Others opposed tax funds used for the education of the children of others but tolerated public education so long as the public cost was minimal.

The common school movement was successful in spite of strong opposition because the proponents were united and totally committed to the concept that quality educational opportunities should be provided for all children via the public common school system. Thus, the constitutional provision for a thorough and efficient system of common schools was adopted by Ohioans in the mid-19th century. This provision prodded state officials in every generation to enhance educational opportunities within the state system.

The priority for improving the public system changed in Ohio in the early 1990s when the governor joined forces with a current for-profit charter school kingpin to start the voucher and charter school programs. These programs began as "pilots" and thus most local public school personnel and advocates tended to ignore these public policy changes. "This isn't my problem since it doesn't affect me" seemed to be the view. Now that charters and vouchers have grown to the point of extracting about $1 billion from school districts this year, some are becoming concerned that the public common school is unraveling; however, many within the public school community have withdrawn by indicating, "This isn't my problem. 'They' will have to fix it."

HB 59 is a prime exhibit that it is not being fixed. The entire public K-12 common school community must become involved in fixing the problem. "They" are not going to rid the mischief in HB 59 but "we", if, united in the cause of the public common school, determine to do so.

The expansion of choice and short-changing of public K-12 school districts, inherent in HB 59, demand a collective response, immediately.

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

State Board struggles to develop plan

This article in the Plain Dealer doesn't inspire confidence.

The state school board is fine-tuning parts of a model plan for evaluating teachers across Ohio, but has barely started on what promises to be the most controversial half -- measuring and using student academic performance in a teacher's rating.
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"Let's do the best we can on this initial one," said Thomas Gunlock, vice president of the state board and chairman of the board's Capacity Committee, which is working on the plan. "Call it Teacher Evaluation 1.0. The idea isn't that we think it's perfect. It would be an organic thing."

Organic. Moving on.

Representatives for Gov. John Kasich have also been meeting with teachers to discuss ways to evaluate teacher performance. Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said the governor's teacher liaison Sarah Dove has met with teachers 19 times this year, but has not yet presented any findings.

Nichols characterized the effort by the governor's representatives as a collaboration with the state board. Dove, he said, attended July's Capacity Committee meeting and plans to attend meetings this fall.

They are working at crossed purposes, because their purposes are not aligned. The Governor's office has been chasing a clear ideological agenda from day one, as is evidenced by this report from StateImpact.

We continue to advocate for major stakeholder inclusion in the design of a teacher evaluation system. Anything less will result in a system that has little buy-in, lacks credibility and will not have the sustainability everyone is seeking.

Sommers sweats gifted student question

The reckless budget includes moving $60 million for gifted student services into a larger pot of state aid with no spending requirements. As budgets are slashed across the board the clear ramification of this will be the wholesale elimination of gifted student programs around the state, as districts use this money for general revenue and operating purposes.

This is proving to be politically difficult for the administration. One the one hand it wants to claim it cares about excellence in education, but the realities, with examples like this, are running contrary.

These difficulties can be seen and heard in this interview with the administration's education czar, Mr. Sommers