Education News for 12-12-2012

State Education News

• School-grading system incomplete (Columbus Dispatch)

Ohio lawmakers are expected to approve a new grading system today for determining how well schools…Read more...

• Hubbard and Liberty sharing a treasurer (Youngstown Vindicator)

The Hubbard school district has agreed to a temporary sharing of its treasurer with Liberty schools. The neighboring districts came to an arrangement after James Wilson…Read more...

Local Education News

• Cleveland Metropolitan School District may auction off headquarters (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

With Cuyahoga County well into its real estate consolidation, another public body will seek bidders for prime property in downtown Cleveland…Read more...

• Arlington Schools: No raises for administrators, nonunion staff (Columbus Dispatch)

School administrators and nonunion staff members in the Upper Arlington district won’t receive salary raises next year…Read more...

• Board curious about auditor (Columbus Dispatch)

With possible criminal referrals looming from a data-rigging probe that started with the Columbus City Schools’ internal auditor…Read more...

• Ledgemont Schools drastically cut busing (Willoughby News Herald)

When many Ledgemont School District students head back to school after the holiday break they won’t be riding in a school bus…Read more...

• Judge denies motion to suppress accused Chardon shooter's statements (Willoughby News Herald)

A Geauga County Common Pleas Court judge has denied Thomas Lane III’s motion to suppress statements he made to sheriff’s deputies and Chardon police after the Chardon High School shootings…Read more...

• Youngstown prepares to meet third grade challenge (Youngstown Vindicator)

The city school district is training teachers and testing students to try to prepare for a law that would require students to be retained in third grade if they aren’t reading at grade level…Read more...

Education News for 07-11-2012

Statewide Stories of the Day

• State schools chief gets praise, not raise (Dispatch)

After a year on the job, Ohio schools Superintendent Stan W. Heffner won’t get a raise, but the state Board of Education approves of the job he’s doing. “From his appointment as interim superintendent, Stan has led the department with professionalism, objectivity and commitment to ensuring the highest quality of education for all Ohio’s children,” board President Debe Terhar noted on Heffner’s first evaluation. The 19-member board met privately with Heffner during its annual retreat this week in Columbus. Read more...

Local Issues

• Partnership talks fail between EOPA, TPS (Blade)

There will be no collaboration on a Head Start grant application between Toledo Public Schools and the Economic Opportunity Planning Association of Greater Toledo, which currently administers the program locally. "There will not be a formal partnership between the two organizations," states a letter from Jerome Pecko, Toledo Public Schools superintendent, to Jim Powell, EOPA chief executive officer, dated Tuesday. Mr. Powell did not return calls seeking comment. Read more...

• O-G teachers get contract, small raises (Lima News)

OTTAWA — Ottawa-Glandorf teachers will get minimal raises during the next three years, but other concessions will keep the district from suffering financially. The school board approved the three-year contract with the Ottawa-Glandorf Classroom Teachers Association on Tuesday. Teachers previously ratified the deal that was largely hammered out in one meeting. “I think the teachers came to the table with a real good understanding of where the district is at financially,” Superintendent Kevin Brinkman said. Read more...

• Grant to help feed 1,000 CPS students (Enquirer)

EAST WESTWOOD — The Walmart Foundation Tuesday donated $50,000 to a local non-profit group to combat child hunger. The money was awarded to the local Childhood Food Solutions and will fund a summer’s worth of weekly take-home food bags for 1,000 Cincinnati Public elementary school students – 600 at Roll Hill Academy in East Westwood and 400 at Ethel M. Taylor school in North Fairmount. Both have high number of students living in poverty. Read more...

• Students say school’s too easy (Dayton Daily News)

Millions of students across the country aren’t being challenged enough in the classroom, according to a report released Tuesday by the Center for American Progress. The nonpartisan research and educational institute analyzed three years’ worth of student survey data (2009-11) from the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress. Among the findings: 37 percent of fourth-graders reported their math work was “too easy.” More than a third of high school seniors said they hardly write about what they’ve read in class. Read more...

Schedule Conflicts

As most people know, the majority of public school teachers are paid based on salary schedules. Most (but not all) contain a number of “steps” (years of experience) and “lanes” (education levels). Teachers are placed in one lane (based on their degree) and proceed up the steps as they accrue years on the job. Within most districts, these two factors determine the raises that teachers receive.

Salary schedules receive a great deal of attention in our education debates. One argument that has been making the rounds for some time is that we should attract and retain “talent” in the teaching profession by increasing starting salaries and/or the size of raises teachers receive during their first few years (when test-based productivity gains are largest). One common proposal (see here and here) for doing so is reallocating salary from the “top” of salary schedules (the salaries paid to more experienced teachers) down to the “bottom” (novice teachers’ salaries). As a highly simplified example, instead of paying starting teachers $40,000 and teachers with 15 years of experience $80,000, we could pay first-year teachers $50,000 and their experienced counterparts $70,000. This general idea is sometimes called “frontloading,” as it concentrates salary expenditures at the “front” of schedules.

Now, there is a case for changes to salary schedules in many places – bargained and approved by teachers – including, perhaps, some degree of gradual frontloading (though the research in this area is underdeveloped at best). But there is a vocal group of advocates who assume an all-too-casual attitude about these changes. They seem to be operating on the mistaken assumption that salary schedules can be easily overhauled – just like that. We can drastically restructure them or just “move the money around” without problem or risk, if only unions and “bureaucrats” would get out of the way.**

Salary schedules aren’t just one-shot deals. When teachers and districts negotiate salaries, they don’t start with a blank slate. Schedules are, in many respects, evolving systems, which emerge over time as a result of continuous negotiation (and, in bargaining states, approval) by both parties.

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SB5 Merit Pay - teachers weigh in

Over the weekend, the Plain Dealer published an article that talked about the SB5 provisions for teacher evaluation.

Under Senate Bill 5, teacher performance would be weighed partly by a new set of standards being created by the state board of education that involve observing teachers in the classroom and evaluating their knowledge of the subject they teach and their teaching skills. But the biggest piece, which is far from complete, is developing a test that will gauge student academic growth over a school year or from year to year, said Ohio Department of Education spokesman Patrick Gallaway. Student achievement will be the biggest single metric in a teacher's evaluation, making up 50 percent of the final performance mark for each educator and determining whether he or she gets a raise, nothing, or potentially gets fired.

The new system would not affect current teacher contracts, which would remain in effect until they expire.

This would be a first in the nation statewide effort. Those us us with concerns are justified, based upon current research and trials

In recent years, school districts in Iowa, Texas, Minnesota, New York and elsewhere have experimented with pay-for-performance programs and many have not lasted beyond a few years. Most struggle to find an equitable way of providing raises to all while also handing out merit pay to some, Christie said.

Harvard economist Roland Fryer in March concluded that a $75 million pay-for-performance pilot program in New York City that started in 2007 did not increase student achievement.

A study from Vanderbilt University released last September that followed Nashville teachers eligible for merit pay from 2007 through 2009 also concluded that student academic achievement did not improve.

SB5 doesn't even set aside any money for merit pay, making the entire enterprise even more questionable in its goals. It just doesn't work, as these comments from teachers on Facebook point out

Have they come up with a plan on how merit is determined? Test scores won't work. The only grades that take the tests are 3-8 and 10. How will they determine the merit of teachers in K-2, 9, 11, and 12? Additionally, not all subjects are tested! How will teachers of non-tested subjects be evaluated? Talk about going into battle without a plan!!!!!
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‎.......and special education? That system assumes that 75% of the teachers are substandard. From my experience, the majority rock and the occasional teacher needs to go. We all know what will happen. Better schools will get even better teachers, while the worst schools get teachers who can't hack it anywhere else or are doing it our of charity. The thing is, only some of us see this as a problem..... Others (we know who).. think this is how American should be.
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What is ridiculous is that the way it is set up there will always be a bottom percent EVEN when every school has score increases. So, it is possible that a school could be getting 90% passage in assessment scores and be in the bottom 25% of the passage rate.
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What a crack up - districts will have to pay for merit pay from the money they save by not giving step raises. So - the question that just begs to be asked - When the district is already NOT paying step raises so the it can stay afloat, where in the hell is it going to get money for merit pay?
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the whole idea of merit pay is ridiculous for teachers, police, fire fighters, etc., and no system that is devised will be fair, because there is no easy way to measure "merit" (or even define it) for these particular professions...this will not lead to good things
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I am very worried about the state of special education. My son has the best teacher, she "gets" him. I worry that we won't have inclusive classrooms anymore and only the teachers who are in the botton 25% teaching the kids who need the most.
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My district wants to freeze all steps and base salaries....so according to this, there will be no money for merit pay....does this mean our teachers are going to suddenly become more highly motivated to receive, well, nothing?? What's going to happen?
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This is all so depressing. I never thought I'd see the day when I considered starting all over again. I love teaching, but all this political stuff is crap! No one besides other teachers understands the tremendous job that we undertake. As a Master's graduate in May I'm truly depressed at the teaching job prospects
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I have seen some very good teachers run off simply because someone in power did not like them - and that's with union protection. I can't imagine how it will be if this garbage goes through. Makes me very sad for our profession.
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My first teaching job 30 years ago was in a southern state. The only 2 questions the principal asked me were: "Did I see you went to school in Ohio" and "Can you start immediately?" He then went on to tell me how highly an Ohio education was thought of and that they grabbed Ohio grads whenever they could.
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A must-read for all is Diane Ravich's book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" discussing in detail how testing and school choice are undermining our public schools. She makes a clear and compelling case that applying a business model to schools is inappropriate and ineffective.
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Say goodbye to collaboration with colleagues.
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My district was rated "excellent with distinction". That means that we have amazing teachers in every building, at every level and in every subject. Yet only 25% of us will get raises for which probably 95% of us would otherwise qualify? ...