Education News for 08-02-2012

Statewide Stories of the Day

• Democrats want to view state auditor’s school-attendance investigation (Dispatch)

The Ohio Democratic Party asked state Auditor Dave Yost last week to turn over records into the investigation of school districts rigging their state report-card data. Yost, a Republican, charged yesterday that the Democratic Party is meddling in a continuing investigation. “It’s a partisan political organization that exists for the purpose of electing Democrats and harassing Republicans,” Yost said. “That doesn’t belong in the middle of this work.” Read more...

• TPS may reduce Nov. levy request (Blade)

Toledo Public Schools could reduce its upcoming levy request, after reports of a better-than-expected financial picture indicate projected deficits may be smaller than expected. The Toledo Board of Education is expected to call a special meeting Friday, during which TPS Treasurer Matt Cleland plans to propose a range of millage rates lower than the 6.9-mill new permanent levy request approved in May by the board. TPS ended the 2012 fiscal year on Tuesday with $8.58 million more than expected. The original projected surplus was $2.64 million. Read more...

• Lockland puts superintendent on leave (Enquirer)

Lockland’s school board late Wednesday placed longtime Superintendent Donna Hubbard on paid administrative leave. Hubbard has worked for the tiny Hamilton County school district for about 37 years. Board President Terry Gibson said the board thought it appropriate to put her on leave while it investigates allegations of enrollment practices that resulted in low-scoring students being coded as withdrawn from the schools, which state officials say resulted in artificially inflated test scores. Read more...

Local Issues

• Lake freezes teachers' pay, opens doors of new school (Blade)

MILLBURY - Lake Local Schools officials approved a contract Wednesday that freezes teachers' pay and increases their medical insurance cost, then proudly toured their new high school with members of the media. The glistening high school replaces the former building that was mostly destroyed by a tornado in June, 2010. The 144,000-square-foot facility that cost $25.5 million -- none of which came from local taxpayers -- features 28 classrooms and will house 450 students when classes start Aug. 21. Read more...

• Heights pledges to pay bill, demands preschool funds (Newark Advocate)

PATASKALA - Licking Heights officials reiterate that they intend to pay back the Licking County Educational Service Center the money the school district owes the center. In the meantime, district officials continue to press the ESC to release state funding, pegged at between $78,000 and $156,000 a year, that they contend should go to Heights' preschool students with special needs. "We're certainly looking at paying what's owed, but we still contend we need that (special needs preschool) unit funding they're blocking from the state.” Read more...

• North Olmsted offering before school care program (WOIO 19 CBS)

The North Olmsted Before School Care Program will be offered at two school locations for students in grades K - 3rd. Birch Primary School (24100 Palm Dr.) for Birch and Butternut students and Forest Primary School (28963 Tudor Dr.) for Forest and Spruce students. The program times are 7:30 a.m. - 8:50 a.m. on all days that school is in session. Cost of the program is $75.00 per quarter/per child. Students from Butternut and Spruce Primary Schools will be taken by district transportation to their school of attendance for the start of the regular school day. Read more...

• Councilman would vote for charter schools after abstention (Blade)

A Toledo councilman who abstained Tuesday on two votes involving requests for new charter schools to open in the city admitted he should have voted and now wants the chance to do so. That could clear the way for one of the schools to open downtown. "I needed further clarification on the rule because I made a mistake in not understanding this rule of council and at the time, I labored under the belief that I could abstain," Councilman Tyrone Riley said Wednesday. Read more...

Editorial

• Improve the system (Dispatch)

As allegations of attendance-report rigging by Columbus City Schools and other districts spread, many are wondering if the annual school report cards put out by the state can be trusted. After all, if some districts have doctored their attendance figures in ways that make their proficiency-test passing rates look better than they are, then voters who are asked to pass school levies have no way of judging if they’re getting what they’re paying for. Others have gone a step further and said that if some school officials feel it necessary to cheat in order to improve district report cards. Read more...

Education News for 07-31-2012

Statewide Stories of the Day

• State probe doesn't worry school chiefs (Courier)

Area superintendents said Monday they are not worried about their districts as Ohio's auditor expands an investigation into schools falsifying attendance records to improve their state report cards. "We're not concerned at all," Findlay Superintendent Dean Wittwer said. "We work extremely hard on our practices." The statewide review by Auditor Dave Yost comes after reports recently surfaced that staff, first at Columbus and Toledo schools, then at a suburban Cincinnati school, falsified attendance records. Read more...

• State TPS investigation update (WTVG 13 ABC)

Dr. Jerome Pecko was on vacation when new developments broke in the State investigation into whether TPS tweaked attendance numbers on the state tests. The Auditor's office has announced it will investigate ODE, since several school districts may have violated state regulations. Dr. Pecko tells 13abc, "I am pleased that the auditor is going to take a look at not only what the school districts are doing but also what is going on down in Columbus." TPS has hired a legal team to look into the case. TPS leaders believe the law is unclear on whether districts can throw out data. Read more...

• Kasich wants answers from inquiry into data manipulation at schools (Blade)

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on Monday that he wants answers on the investigation into school-data manipulation at two of the state's largest school systems — with one being Toledo Public Schools — as well as the Ohio Department of Education. "I know there are things in the paper now about the data affecting our schools. Got to get to the bottom of it," the governor told an audience of more than 200 people at the Toledo Rotary Club meeting in the ballroom of the downtown Park Inn. Read more...

• Teachers Retiring In Greater Numbers As Pensions Change (WBNS 10 CBS)

COLUMBUS - Some local school districts are seeing two or three times the usual number of teacher retirements. Cathy Williams said that she is one of many giving up her post. “I am retiring before I lose most of my pension," Williams said. Williams spent 35 years teaching, much of it at Champion Middle School in Columbus. She taught students who have special needs. "I am a caretaker. I am a nurse. I am a doctor, a lawyer, a judge,” Williams said. “I make sure that my students are protected.” Read more...

Local Issues

• Opposing sides debate how to solve Monroe fiscal emergency (Middletown Journal)

Both sides agree the Monroe School District has to deal with its financial issues. Why the problem exists and how it should be fixed appears to be where the two sides part. Placed in “fiscal emergency” by the state auditor’s office in May, and facing a $2.2 million operating deficit and a bond retirement debt of $3.1 million, Monroe schools will ask voters to approve a five year, 7.05-mill emergency property tax levy during the Aug. 7 special election. The levy will raise $2.5 million a year for the district. Read more...

• DPS to provide busing to fewer students (Dayton Daily News)

Dayton — Dayton Public Schools will bus about 3,000 fewer students this year than last under a plan district officials say should eliminate transportation problems, including late or sporadic bus service, that have plagued the district. That means more students will be walking to school after the district tightened eligibility requirements for bus service. The changes take effect with the start of school on Aug. 15. Last year, the school district transported students who live farther than 1.5 miles from their school. Read more...

• At Crayons to Computers, teachers shop for free (Enquirer)

Carmie Boesch looks forward to the days she gets to shop at Crayons to Computers. Besides picking out supplies for her Woodford Paideia Academy students, Boesch gets ideas from other educators shopping at the free store for teachers. And it saves her money. In the past two years Boesch has shopped for supplies that would have cost $5,300, said Robbie Atkinson, Crayons to Computers’ director of operations. Because her school is one of 258 in a 16-county region where 60 percent or more of the students qualify for free or reduced meals, she shops for free. Read more...

Editorial

• Diving Into How Students Learn Best (Education Week)

In a fortunate turn, advances in research and theory are emerging at a long-awaited moment in U.S. education: the agreement of 46 states and the District of Columbia to adopt the Common Core State Standards. The standards were developed with the recognition that global socioeconomic imperatives, combined with the dizzying pace of technological innovation, create new urgency for the development of engaging and challenging ways to educate our nation’s young people. Read more...

Education News for 01-13-2012

State Education News

• Ohio education in top 10 nationally despite a so-so grade – (Columbus Dispatch)

Ohio’s grade on a national report card this year slipped to a C-plus, down from a B-minus, but the state inched up to the 10th best school system in the nation. Ohio was 11th in last year’s report. For the fourth year, Maryland was the top-ranked state, earning the highest grade, a B-plus. The nation as a whole got a C, the same as last year’s report. Read More…

• Vice President Talks Education Cost – (Ohio News Network)

Vice President Joe Biden brought the administrations message of affordable education to students and faculty at Gahanna's Lincoln High School. "There was a bargain in place for the last 50 years that if you worked hard, played by the rules, you helped increase productivity in America, you got a piece of the action," Biden said. Read More…

Local Issues

• TPS eyeing Head Start management – (Fox-Toledo)

Toledo Public Schools are looking to get involved in a child's life even before they're enrolled in the district. Wednesday evening district board members gave the go ahead to Dr. Jerome Pecko to start researching whether the district would be able to assume management of the program. If all works out, Dr. Pecko says it will major, positive impact on kids before they ever start school. Read More…

• Publishing Co. sues TPS over copyright – (Toledo Blade)

A Worthington, Ohio-based publishing company has sued Toledo Public Schools in federal court, claiming the district "engaged in massive infringement" of its copyrighted work. Align, Assess, Achieve entered into a copyright license agreement with TPS for company books and materials that provide teacher guidance in meeting the Common Core education standards, a voluntary multistate effort to have uniform curriculum standards in schools. The company claims in its lawsuit, which it filed Jan. 6 in Columbus, that the agreement specified TPS could only use the works to prepare pacing guides for the teachers for whom the district had bought the company's book. Read More…

• Big cuts are coming to schools in Lorain City Schools – (WOIO-Cleveland)

Board of Education members in Lorain have approved close to $5 million in layoffs and program cuts. School officials are trying to reduce more than $10 million deficit for next year. In fact by the end of the year they will cut 150 more staff from Lorain City Schools and kindergarten will go to half days. The sports department will see big cuts as well. Read More…

• Cleveland schools encouraging students to seek financial aid for college – (Plain Dealer)

Filling out a college financial aid application can be intimidating, so the Cleveland schools are nudging students along gently - offering much more counseling than ever before. Read More…

• Defunct Legacy Academy $376K in arrears, audit says – (Vindicator)

The latest audit of a now-closed community school says the school owes more than $376,000 in taxes and Medicare costs. State Auditor Dave Yost’s office released on Thursday the audit of Legacy Academy for Leaders and the Arts, covering fiscal years 2006 through 2010. The school, which operated inside Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church on Oak Hill Avenue, closed last June, citing declining enrollment. Read More…

• Richmond Heights school officials finish investigation into Superintendent Linda Hardwick – (News Herald)

The Richmond Heights investigation of Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick has come to a close, although information is not ready to be released. Former board President Joshua Kaye — replaced by Linda Pliodzinskas this week — sent Hardwick a letter in December to inform her that discussion of her termination would soon take place. Read More…

Editorial

• First exam – (Akron Beacon Journal)

Ohio was one of 11 states and the District of Columbia that made big promises to win competitive grants in 2010 to reform their school systems. A full year of the four-year grants has been completed, which offers time enough to assess how well the states are delivering. Read More…

• Only time will tell who wins the $4 billion Race to the Top – (Vindicator)

After the first year, a Washing- ton assessment of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant program gives Ohio high marks on its participation. States and individual school districts had to compete for extra federal funding aimed at improving student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates and better preparing students for success in college and careers. Read More…