Education News for 11-27-2012

State Education News

• Kasich offers Coleman help with school reform (Columbus Dispatch)

Gov. John Kasich pledged to assist Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman with efforts to reform the city’s school system, much like the support he gave this year to Cleveland…Read more...

• New buildings may doom school levies in elections (Dayton Daily News)

Voters who approved bond issues in recent years to build new schools rejected requests for new operating levies in those same districts earlier this month…Read more...

• Title IX 40th anniversary: High school, college athletes, coaches see benefits and challenges (Willoughby News Herald)

As an All-Ohio volleyball player at Lake Catholic High School as well as a University of Florida recruit, Abby Detering has felt the effects of Title IX. And she likes what the future holds…Read more...

Local Education News

• Bomb threat holds up Dublin classes (Columbus Dispatch)

Dublin school officials took the unusual step of delaying the start of school throughout the district yesterday after emails said there were bombs in several buildings…Read more...

• Free school lunch numbers continue to rise (Hamilton Journal-News)

During the past decade, the percentage of students participating in the Free and Reduced Lunch program has nearly doubled in some Butler County school districts…Read more...

• Reynoldsburg Police Pull Dare Officer Out Of Schools (WBNS)

The new administration at the Reynoldsburg Police Department has decided to implement term limits for its school resource officer…Read more...

• Teens steal iPads, laptops (WEWS)

Eleven iPads were stolen from an Akron middle school…Read more...

Ohio's Draft Waiver for NCLB

The Ohio Department of Education has a draft waiver for NCLB. The headline making change is to move away from the current school ranking system to a letter grade (A-f). Other proposals in the draft include:

• Changing the current differentiated accountability system to identify and support the lowest performing Title 1 schools.
• Greater flexibility in the use of federal professional development funds as a trade off with the higher standards and transparency in the accountability system.
• Schools and districts will need to complete fewer forms and reports to use federal dollars.
• Focusing on low-achieving schools to ensure compliance with reform models and mandates, including those in the state budget (HB 153).
• Ensuring a system of rewards and recognitions exist for districts and schools that meet designated achievement levels or levels of expected growth.
• Improving federally approved Differentiated Accountability Model and ensuring that it aligns with state accountability system and consequence.
• Phasing out the Highly Qualified Teachers measure on report card and as data used to determine equitable distribution of teachers and replacing it with four evaluation effectiveness ratings.
• Continuing to expand and provide technical support for school-wide pooling of funds in eligible buildings and expanding transferability to allow schools in improvement status to transfer Title funding.
• Optional flexibility to permit community learning centers to use 21st century funds in supporting expanded learning time during the school day in addition to non-school hours, according to the draft.

Further information can be found here at the ODE website.

Kasich looks funny on a horse

NBC4 had an excellent segment on Governor Kasich signing the bill that will bring Teach for America to Ohio.

It was this quote that causes us to pause.

"The cavalry is coming. They're going to ride on white horses with white hats in to our schools,"

This displays a level of contempt for teachers and public education that is hard to fathom. Maybe it's just a rhetorical flourish from a Governor known to misspeak often, but it does conjure up imagery that seems out of place.

If TFA are wearing "white hats", riding on "white horses", then who exactly are we supposed to assume are dressed in black? What exactly are the cavalry riding to the rescue of? The war on public education isn't going on in the classrooms, it's going on in the halls of the statehouse where legislators are busy slashing the budgets of public education.

The Governor seems to have called in the wrong cavalry and sent them to the wrong place.

Reference for the title here.