Education News for 02-25-2013

State Education News

• 'Bad apples' mean end of tutor program (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Last year, Telina Crooms’ young daughters spent their Saturdays at the Price Hill Recreation Center doing crafts, learning yoga, listening to classical music and, most importantly, learning math at a popular Price Hill tutoring program…Read more...

• Kasich education proposals aim to cut regulations (Columbus Dispatch)

Gov. John Kasich’s proposed school-funding plan and voucher expansion have received plenty of attention, but he also wants a variety of other education-policy changes…Read more...

• Here’s what the federal budget cuts mean (Columbus Dispatch)

Title I money, which goes to the neediest school districts, would decrease by $725 million during the next year, potentially eliminating support to some 2,700 schools serving 1.2 million students…Read more...

• Cuts might be bad, but no one is panicking yet (Columbus Dispatch)

Congress has less than a week to undo scheduled spending cuts of $1.2 trillion over the next decade, but the halls of the Capitol didn’t just lack urgency last week…Read more...

• GED test, cost to change in 2014 (Hamilton Journal-News)

Impending changes to the General Educational Development test, or GED, make 2013 an important year for students who want to pass the exam and achieve his or her Ohio High School Equivalence Diploma…Read more...

• Open enrollment to face state review (Zanesville Times-Recorder)

A program that allows students to attend any participating school district in the state will be reviewed for the first time in 20 years amid consensus the tax dollars involved make winners of some districts and losers of others…Read more...

Local Education News

• State transportation subsidies put schools on the road to tax increases (Akron Beacon Journal)

Area school superintendents say they are alarmed by Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to keep the transportation budget unchanged at a time when fuel and equipment costs…Read more...

• Reynoldsburg students learning while doing in Capstone program (Columbus Dispatch)

The students base their research projects on problems they want to solve: A solar-powered cellphone charger. A hydroponic system that helps low-income families…Read more...

• Mentors at Ohio State help Latino youth (Columbus Dispatch)

At age 15, Martin Perez found himself working in a tortilla factory on Columbus’ West Side — 247 miles from his family home in Michigan…Read more...

• Columbus school board gave Harris all the power (Columbus Dispatch)

If it looks like the Columbus Board of Education hasn’t been paying close attention to the details of running a $1 billion-a-year enterprise, it’s by design…Read more...

• District eyes cuts, transportation fees (Springfield News-Sun)

Urbana City School board members are reviewing about $650,000 in potential cuts and possibly closing a school building as part of $1 million in spending reductions by the 2013- 2014 school year…Read more...

• Local teachers learn to be 'First Responders' (WKYC)

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's "Active Shooter Training for Educators" will be held in the Cleveland area all-day Monday in Valley View…Read more...

• Youngstown schools spent $7 million on substitute teachers over the last five years (Youngstown Vindicator)

THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS SPENT NEARLY $7 million on substitute teachers the last five years, with more than three more months left in this school year…Read more...

Editorial

• CCS plan addresses urgent challenges (Canton Repository)

The restructuring plan for Canton City Schools that Superintendent Adrian Allison unveiled last week will aggressively tackle two urgent challenges facing the district…Read more...

• Catching charter-school cheaters (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Recent criminal charges filed against officials at Cleveland's Lion of Judah Academy charter school for allegedly shifting $1.2 million…Read more...

• Don't rush for schools chief (Columbus Dispatch)

Conducting a search right now for a new superintendent of Columbus City Schools poses serious challenges: What top-notch executive would leap…Read more...

• Support technology education (Marion Star)

Earlier this week we published a story about middle school students taking part in a robot competition. Young teens and tweens from across the county spent the day testing their machines in competition with each other…Read more...

“Teaching Isn’t Really a Profession”

As an educator for the past four decades there is very little in the way of conversation that I haven’t discussed about what it is to be a teacher. In these discussions, over all of these years, there is one position taken by many people which always gives me cause to think less of the person with whom I am having the discussion. It forces me to question their bias on the subject. The statement that sets me off is usually some variation of,”teaching isn’t really a profession”.

The person at that point of the discussion would usually talk about the hours in the day and the weeks in the year that teachers work as if that had something to do with what a professional is. Ultimately, it always ends up with some comment about the idea that teachers belong to a UNION so they can’t be professionals.

I found two different definitions of Profession and neither mentions a disqualification of status because of time spent working or any union affiliation:

A calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation…

A vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science: the profession of teaching…

[readon2 url="http://tomwhitby.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/teaching-isnt-really-a-profession/"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Money Matters

In a topical follow up to our article on Ohio's lack of a school funding formula, The Shanker Institute adds this weight of evidence to the funding debate. We'd like to draw specific attention to the areas we have bolded.

Our new report, written by Rutgers professor Bruce Baker and entitled “Revisiting the Age-Old Question: Does Money Matter in Education?” reviews this body of evidence.

Contrary to the canned rhetoric flying around public discourse on education finance, high-quality research like that discussed in Baker’s review does not lend itself to broad, sweeping conclusions. Some things work and others don’t, and so the strength and consistency of the money/results relationship varies by how it’s spent, the students on whom it spent, and other factors. Sometimes effects are small, and sometimes they’re larger.

Nevertheless, on the whole, Baker’s review shows that there is a consistently positive effect of higher spending on achievement. Moreover, interventions that cost money, such as higher teacher salaries, have a proven track record of getting results, while state-level policies to increase the adequacy and equitability of school finance have also been shown to improve the level and distribution of student performance.

Finally, and most relevant to the current budget context, the common argument that we can reduce education funding without any harm to (and, some argue, actual improvement of) achievement outcomes has no basis in empirical evidence.

Without question, there is plenty of room for improvement in how we finance our public education system, and much to learn about how spending affects short- and long-term outcomes. But the fact that some people are not only arguing that money makes no difference, but also that reducing funding will cause no harm (and might even help), can only be described as a fantasy, dressed up with misleading graphs, unproven “off the shelf” cost-cutting measures and gigantic misinterpretations of the impressive body of evidence on this topic.

More funding will not solve all our problems, but, as Baker puts it, “sufficient financial resources are a necessary underlying condition for providing quality education.”

In other words, money matters.

The League of Women Voters of Ohio oppose HB136

In another blow to those seeking to privatize public education in Ohio, the non-partisan League of Women Voters of Ohio have come out in opposition to HB136

-The League believes that public money should be spent only on public schools that are accountable and responsive to tax payers and comply with standards that ensure a high quality education. Nonpublic schools are not accountable to the taxpayers through elected boards of education; are not required to “open their books” to ensure that the schools are fiscally responsible and that public funds are being spent to serve a public purpose; are not required to serve all students; and are not required to comply with the same operating, teacher licensure, performance, and accountability standards as public schools.

-In addition, Am. Sub. HB136 would divert public funds to private schools (and increase Ohio’s obligation to educate students in private schools) when state funding for public schools will decrease by $1.8 billion over the biennium (HB 153 – Amstutz), and many school districts are cutting programs, laying-off teachers, and preparing to ask voters to increase local taxes to support schools.

The League believes that public education is the cornerstone of our democratic government and prepares students to be active and informed citizens in our society. That is why securing and financing a high quality public education system based on meeting standards, accountable to the public, and available for all students, is so important.

The League also issued these other important points

• Am. Sub. HB 136 would divert limited state funds to participating private schools at a time when school districts are struggling to balance budgets and save education programs after losing $1.8 billion in state funds as a result of HB153 the biennial budget.
• Private schools are not responsive or accountable to elected boards of education. They are not required to "open their books" to ensure that the private schools are fiscally responsible and that public funds are being spent to serve a public purpose.
• Eligible students currently enrolled in eligible private schools could opt to be phased-into PACT, thus expanding the state's obligation to educate students who never attended public schools, at a time when overall state funding for school districts has decreased, and school districts are struggling to maintain the quality of their education programs.
• Am. Sub. HB 136 does not require private schools that accept public funds to participate in Ohio's accountability system for schools and be ranked along with other schools, or comply with all state education standards including academic, performance, and operating standards, or meet the requirements outlined in Chapter 3323 of the Ohio Revised Code, the Education of Children with Disabilities.

Teacher Town Hall Recap

Here's the video for the MSNBC Teacher Town Hall that occured over this weekend, in case you missed it

Part one:

Part two:

Here's a good recap of the event from the perspective of the pernicious effect billionaires like the Gates are having on public education discussions.

Mrs. Gates begins by acknowledging that good teaching cannot be reduced to a test score - or at least that this is often said. She then asserts that the half billion dollars they have spent on research in this area have uncovered a number of things that can be measured that allow us to predict which teachers will have the highest test scores. A great teacher is defined over and over again as one who made sure students "learned the material at the end of the year."

If you look closely at how she describes peer observations, the method at work is even clearer. Teachers tend to support peer observation, because it can be a valuable basis for collaboration, which yields many benefits to us beyond possible test score gains. But what does Melinda Gates say about it? It can be worthwhile, BUT: only the models of peer observation that have been proven to raise test scores should be used. And presumably we can count on the Gates Foundation to provide us with that information.

In spite of all the billions they have spent, it appears that the Gates Foundation is laboring under the same logical fallacy that doomed No Child Left Behind. In a way which employs circular reasoning, they have defined great teaching as that which results in the most gains on end of year tests, and then spent millions of dollars identifying indicators of teaching that will yield the best scores.

The most deceptive strategy is how they then try to pretend that these indicators are "multiple measures" of good teaching. In fact, these are simply indicators of teaching practices associated with higher test scores. In spite of Mrs. Gates' feint at the opening of her response, everything she describes, all these things that supposedly go beyond test scores - peer observations, student perceptions - are only deemed valid insofar as they are correlated with higher test scores.

Melinda Gates begins with the question "How do we know a teacher's making a difference in a student's life?" That is an excellent and complex question. However, when we look at her answer, we find she commits the logical fallacy known as "begging the question." One begs the question when one assumes something is true, when that is actually a part of what must be proven.

The question she begs is "what defines great teaching?" This is not answered by finding teaching methods associated with higher test scores. This question remains hanging over the entire school reform enterprise. Until we answer that question, we are devising complex mechanisms to elevate test scores assuming this will improve students' lives, when this is manifestly unproven. In fact, I would argue that many of the strategies used to boost scores are actually harmful to our students.

This episode should remind us of the crucial need to teach critical thinking in our schools - and apply such thinking to the dilemmas we face.

For more on the Gates Foundation you can read our 3 part series, "THE GATES FOUNDATION EXPOSED" Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Who profits with more testing?

If Ohio's new teacher merit pay framework survives intact in HB153, testing will become an even greater centerpiece of public education. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Schools, spent nearly $2 million to implement 52 tests, so that a new teacher evaluation system could be trialed. 52 tests! $2 million not spent on teaching.

At the center of this effort in North Carolina is the Eli Broad foundation.

Superintendent Peter Gorman may be the face of public education in Charlotte, but is a Los Angeles billionaire the power behind the scenes?

Locally and nationally, skeptics are questioning the clout wielded by Eli Broad. His foundation, which has helped put Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in the national spotlight, has also paid to train Gorman and the school board, and to help CMS hire administrators with a business bent.

This does all lead to an interesting question posed on the pages of the Washington Post today

In addition, who creates, scores, and maintains these tests? This promises to divert taxpayer dollars from the classroom to the testing companies. Handing public dollars over to private testing enterprises is outsourcing the intellectual work teachers train to do: evaluate students. It is a waste we cannot afford and promises further dumbing-down of our nation’s classrooms.

One might wonder if we are sending kids to school to learn or to simply take tests so we can "evaluate" teachers, and of course, hand over tax dollars to for-profit vampire testing companies.