Statewide Stories of the Day

Kasich signs legislation for schools, work force (Dispatch)

Gov. John Kasich signed wide-ranging education and work-force development legislation yesterday that will implement a third-grade reading guarantee, a tougher evaluation system for schools starting next year and a requirement that schools provide tutoring and other intervention to struggling readers. The new law also will change the way teachers are evaluated and tested. Kasich signed Senate Bill 316 on location at the Fifth Third Bank Madisonville Operations Center in Cincinnati, surrounded by business executives and lawmakers. Read more...

Gov. John Kasich signs third grade reading guarantee bill into law (Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS - Gov. John Kasich on Monday signed a bill that steps up public education standards across Ohio and includes a requirement that some third-graders be held back if they cannot read at grade level. The third grade reading guarantee was the hot-button topic in Senate Bill 316, a multi-faceted education and workforce development bill that the Republican governor signed in Cincinnati. Kasich said he doesn't intend the new law to be a form of punishment for 8- and 9-year-old boys and girls who want to move on to the fourth grade. Read more...

Third-graders could be held back (Enquirer)

New education reforms Gov. John Kasich signed into law Monday prompted mixed emotions – excitement and apprehension – among Cincinnati-area parents and educators. Senate Bill 316 will, among other things, cause some third-graders to be held back if they cannot read on grade level. The bill also would encourage public schools to adopt more online classes, and cause teachers who have two negative evaluations to get more training and take subject-matter tests to keep their jobs. Read more...

Governor signs education bill (Blade)

MADISONVILLE - Gov. John Kasich has signed a sweeping education bill that seeks to strengthen ties between the state's employers and public schools and makes dozens of other policy changes. Mr. Kasich gave final approval to the bill Monday at Fifth Third Bank's operations center in Madisonville. Under the measure, Ohio third graders lagging in reading skills face the possibility of being held back for up to two school years as they get academic help. Read more...

Ohio Education Reforms Signed Into Law (ONN)

SPRINGFIELD - Gov. John Kasich signed an education bill on Monday that seeks to strengthen ties between the state's employers and public schools and makes dozens of other policy changes. Kasich said the centerpiece of Senate Bill 316 will focus on making sure elementary school kids read at a satisfactory level before they pass to the next grade level, reported ONN's Lot Tan. "The worst thing we can do is to have social advancement because you're stealing a kid's future," said Kasich. Read more...

Ohio agency heads told to plan for no growth or a cut in next state budget (Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS - State agency heads will be lucky if they get to keep current funding levels when Gov. John Kasich rolls out the next state budget in the spring. That's the tone being set by a budget guidance document released Monday by Kasich's administration that asks state agencies to plan a pair of scenarios for the 2014-15 budget -- one where they see no growth in funding and a second in which agencies are hit with a 10 percent cut in general revenue funds. Read more...

Governor signs education portion of budget update, with his tougher reading (Ohio Public Radio)

Now that Gov. John Kasich has signed the idea into law, Ohio schools will be told not to let third graders move onto fourth grade, unless they’ve shown they can read. At a signing ceremony today in Cincinnati, the governor noted the law tells schools to spot non-readers earlier in elementary school and provide tutoring and other special help…to get them up to speed. The new law provides $13 million to local schools to help them pay for special reading programs, but some education activists contend that’s nowhere near enough money. Read more...

Local Issues

Rossford board OKs audit to seek ways to save (Blade)

Rossford Schools will have a performance audit done by the Ohio state auditor in an effort to find ways to save money. The board of education agreed to the audit last week after hearing a presentation by Derek Merrin, a performance analyst for the auditor's office. Mr. Merrin said the purpose of a performance audit was to find savings for local governments and school districts. Recommendations could be ignored or implemented any way the school board liked. Read more...

Granville considers pay-to-participate for school activities (Newark Advocate)

GRANVILLE - A pay-to-participate policy for Granville Schools this year might include an increase in the high school student activity fee, the addition of a middle-school activity fee and still another charge for each sport, club or activity. Serious discussion of such a policy, first brought up in March when the board approved a Reduction In Force resolution laying off several staff members, began at Monday night's board of education meeting. No action was taken. Read more...

Teachers upset over contract talks swarm Brecksville-Broadview Heights School Board meeting (WEWS 5 ABC)

BRECKSVILLE - Teachers wearing red shirts overwhelmed the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Board of Education meeting Monday night. Hundreds of teachers, unhappy with contract negotiations, tried to pack into the board room with a capacity for only 50. They came to show solidarity for their union and to hear the board's financial report. The board was reluctant to move or postpone the meeting, so the fire marshal was called to clear out the standing room only crowd. Read more...

Budget situation better for Mansfield City Schools (News-Journal)

MANSFIELD - Mansfield City Schools officials hope the district will soon be off the state's financial concern watch list. They believe the district has turned the corner and could be off the list by September. The district was declared in a state of fiscal watch in 2006, meaning financial problems could threaten the school's ability to operate. The designation is the middle marker between caution and fiscal emergency. Read more...

Lakota approves open enrollment (Enquirer)

The Lakota Board of Education approved at its regularly scheduled meeting Monday the hiring of a new assistant superintendent and a new open enrollment policy, which allows children of Lakota employees who don’t live in the school district to attend Lakota schools. Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia recommended Robb Vogelmann, who was named principal at Liberty Junior School three years ago, for the district’s open assistant superintendent position. Read more...

'Project Love' sees girl graduation success (WKYC 3 NBC)

CLEVELAND - Some would have given up on them but not Project Love. Five years ago, then-Collinwood High School Principal Deborah Moore identified the eighth grade girls entering the school at greatest risk for dropping out in the next year. According to the Ohio Department of Education, Collinwood High School had a graduation rate of 52.7 percent in 2009-2010, lower than the overall Cleveland Metropolitan School District average of 62.8 percent. Read more...

The backlash against high-stakes testing is growing. JTF recently signed the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing, which simply states

WHEREAS, our nation's future well-being relies on a high-quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, and strengthens the nation's social and economic well-being; and

WHEREAS, our nation's school systems have been spending growing amounts of time, money and energy on high-stakes standardized testing, in which student performance on standardized tests is used to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators and schools; and

WHEREAS, the over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools by hampering educators' efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and deep subject-matter knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy; and

WHEREAS, it is widely recognized that standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness; and

WHEREAS, the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession, and undermining school climate; and

WHEREAS, high-stakes standardized testing has negative effects for students from all backgrounds, and especially for low-income students, English language learners, children of color, and those with disabilities; and WHEREAS, the culture and structure of the systems in which students learn must change in order to foster engaging school experiences that promote joy in learning, depth of thought and breadth of knowledge for students; therefore be it RESOLVED, that [your organization name] calls on the governor, state legislature and state education boards and administrators to reexamine public school accountability systems in this state, and to develop a system based on multiple forms of assessment which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools; and RESOLVED, that join the Future calls on the U.S. Congress and Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the "No Child Left Behind Act," reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.

We joined 290 other organizations and almost 8,000 individuals in doing so. This growing movement is starting to have an effect. CNN

Welcome to the world of high-stakes standardized testing.

“I find it the most absurd thing in the world. I don’t know anyone who thinks they’re valid,” said Principal Anna Allanbrook at Public School 146 in Brooklyn, New York. “So the morale is down because teachers are worried that people who don’t really know their work will make decisions about their jobs.”
[...]
Across the country, teachers, principals and parents are pushing back against the test results carrying so much weight. More than 1,400 New York principals signed onto a letter to the state education commissioner that said the tests are deeply flawed. The outgoing Education Commissioner in Texas called standardized testing “the heart of the vampire.” Jenny LaCoste-Caputo of the Texas Association of School Administrators said, “This one test has become the single measure for a student’s success, for a school’s success, and that’s what is absolutely wrong.”

The Wall Street Journal reports

The increasing role of standardized testing in U.S. classrooms is triggering pockets of rebellion across the country from school officials, teachers and parents who say the system is stifling teaching and learning.

The increasing role of standardized testing in classrooms is triggering pockets of rebellion across the U.S. from school officials, teachers and parents. Stephanie Banchero has details on The News Hub. Photo: Brandon Kruse for The Wall Street Journal.

In Texas, some 400 local school boards—more than one-third of the state's total—have adopted a resolution this year asking lawmakers to scale back testing. In Everett, Wash., more than 500 children skipped state exams in protest earlier this month. A national coalition of parents and civil-rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, signed a petition in April asking Congress to reduce federal testing mandates.

In recent weeks, the protest spread to Florida, where two school boards, including Palm Beach County, signed on to a petition similar to the one in Texas. A parent in a third, Broward County, on Tuesday formally requested that school officials support the movement.

The efforts are a response to the spread of mandatory testing in the past decade. Proponents say the exams are needed to ensure students are learning and teachers' effectiveness is measured. Critics say schools are spending disproportionate time and resources on the tests at the expense of more-creative learning. They also contend the results weigh too heavily in decisions on student advancement, teacher pay and the fate of schools judged to have failed.

"They've turned a generation of kids into test-taking machines who are lacking creative-thinking ability," said Debbie Shaw, whose two children attend Palm Beach schools. She said she intends to enroll her younger child in a private school next year because she is so angered by Florida's "insane" testing regime.

the reason this backlas is growing is in part because stories and experiences like this are becoming mainstream

Other than the pep rally, teachers spent the week prior to the testing in meetings being lectured on the importance of test security, the protocols that would be our bible for the next two weeks, and on just exactly what would happen to us if these rules were not followed. The plans outlined what would happen from the moment the students entered the classroom until the last test was signed back into our testing coordinator. We were instructed to go over the plans, ask any questions we had and be prepared in the weeks to come. Due to the fact that our school was under scrutiny for previous allegations of cheating, we were warned that any negligence in conforming our classrooms and ourselves to these guidelines would result in an investigation and strict consequences.

I planned lessons throughout the meetings and graded papers in the background, only contributing my thoughts in areas which I found to be egregiously unreasonable or unjust. For example, lined paper for scrap paper, smiling at students (this is what they say is “coaching”), and allowing students to stand and stretch during testing would absolutely not be tolerated. As I listened to these rules, I pictured my bubbly bunch of eight year olds' faces. Then, the real bomb was dropped: Absolutely no bathroom breaks during testing unless the child was showing physical signs of distress. In addition, we also needed to prevent multiple bathroom trips by determining how badly each child had to use the restroom. Well, any teacher knows that once one student has “an emergency,” they all have emergencies. How am I to be the judge of the content of each child's bladder? To this I was told it would be easier to deal with angry parents of a child who had wet themselves, than to have to explain the situation to the monitors from central offices.

I decided that I'd be escorted out by authorities before I let nervous eight year old test-takers wet themselves on my watch. Are we that afraid of losing our jobs that we relinquish our humanity? Are we that desperate to prove that we are not cheating on these McTests that we deny children their basic needs? This is the “pinnacle” of insanity. This is the “pinnacle” of what an era of high-stakes testing is doing to our children and to our educators.

As testing was underway I became more and more irritated with not only the rules, but the fact that teachers’ discretion was being undermined by outsiders claiming to be experts on data, but not on children. Who are these people moving chairs from place to place around my room to see my test administration from multiple angles? Why are these strangers writing pages of notes on the condition of my classroom and my position in the room? The thought crossed my mind of just throwing the pile of test booklets in the air and screaming of its insanity, but what good would that do? I wouldn’t be allowed to finish the year with my students who had to put their science projects on the back burner for the two-week testing period. I would never get to see how they turned out if I was punished for breaching test security. I had already been scolded for allowing children to read books after they finished the test, as well as for allowing them to go to the bathroom. I decided to not push any further.

After being stalked throughout the building for two weeks in order to ensure that I would not change any test answers and spied on from just beyond my classroom door, my anxiety and disgust became overwhelming. After being witness to little children crying with anxiety and acting out in resistance and being forced to sit for hours completing endless assessments that they would most likely never see the results of, my faith in public education was diminishing. Why are teachers subject to this level of disrespect and distrust? Why are students subject to this much of a loss of real learning time?

Every day, more and more evidence comes out that challenges the reliability and validity of test results and demonstrates the unfairness of using these results to evaluate teachers. But I will comply with the rules and regulations--if for nothing else than to see my students' science projects and to see how much more they will accomplish this year; I am committed to my students and their learning even as I am opposed to the insane high-stakes testing regime that has been imposed on them. I will not, however, allow my students or myself to be de-humanized in the process.

How much longer can we allow our schools to feed the high-stakes testing machine rather than feed students’ imperative to learn? How much longer can we let testing replace teaching and learning? And how much longer can we remain silent throughout it all?

Education News for 06-26-2012

High Stakes Testing Backlash