Education News for 01-23-2013

State Education News

• State budget’s unknowns frighten advocates (Columbus Dispatch)

Faced with a “poker-faced” Kasich administration that won’t divulge new budget details until Feb. 4, a coalition of critics yesterday took a stab at things…Read more...

• Democrats want state school-board head out over Facebook post (Columbus Dispatch)

The head of the Ohio Democratic Party yesterday called for the resignation of Ohio Board of Education President Debe Terhar for a Facebook posting that appeared to compare…Read more...

• Columbus school board decides to assist review by mayor’s panel (Columbus Dispatch)

The Columbus Board of Education relented last night and decided to allow Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s Education Commission to conduct a management review of district non- academic operations — and without a written agreement…Read more...

Local Education News

• Referee will intervene in duct-taped students case (Canton Repository)

A referee is going to hear the case of a northeast Ohio teacher who may be fired over an allegation that she posted a Facebook photo of her students with their mouths covered with duct tape…Read more...

• After-school program takes holistic approach Chillicothe Gazette)

When the last school bell rings, things are just getting started at the Salvation Army’s after- school program…Read more...

• Schools sweat out decision to delay start due to cold (Columbus Dispatch)

The decision to delay classes at Canal Winchester schools in yesterday’s frigid weather wasn’t an easy one, Superintendent Jim Sotlar said…Read more...

• Bexley mayor rejects speed traps, student tax ideas (Columbus Dispatch)

Bexley’s mayor opposes the use of speed cameras and taxing students to help the city offset projected losses in state funding, both ideas proposed by a citizens group to raise new revenue…Read more...

• Finalists make pitch to RV public (Marion Star)

River Valley Local Schools gave the public a chance Tuesday evening to meet the finalists as it prepares to choose the district’s next superintendent…Read more...

• TPS won’t place levy renewal on spring ballot; Board cites too little time to mount solid campaign (Toledo Blade)

A Toledo Public Schools levy renewal won’t be on the May ballot after all. The Toledo Board of Education was set to vote Tuesday on a board finance committee recommendation…Read more...

• Youngstown school board discusses money woes (Youngstown Vindicator)

Schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn is meeting with his staff to devise recommendations to address a projected $48 million deficit by fiscal year 2017…Read more...

Editorial

• Uneasy money (Akron Beacon Journal)

Ohio schools will receive $38 million from the first distribution of the state’s tax on casino gambling. Have they hit the jackpot? Hardly. The amount boils down to about $21 per pupil…Read more...

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...

In the news: retesting teachers

Sparked by the recent revelations of the impact of Ohio's new teacher retesting law, and our call for it to be repealed, a number of media outlets followed up with some mainstream stories

NBC4i ran a short segment

The Columbus Dispatch also ran a good article

The law says teachers can’t be made to pay, but it doesn’t say who will. Ohio uses the Praxis series of exams to test teachers’ knowledge of the subjects they teach. The cost per test ranges from $50 to more than $100, depending on the subject.

“It’s your tax dollars at work,” said Rhonda Johnson, president of the Columbus Education Association.

Teachers groups have been critical of the retesting idea since Gov. John Kasich pitched it. Johnson said the tests won’t measure teacher effectiveness, and they won’t help anyone improve. The real beneficiary of the retesting law will be the testing company, she said.

“Keep weighing the pig. Let’s not feed him anymore. Let’s not do anything but weigh the pig and see if anything changes,” Johnson said.

Robert Sommers, Kasich’s education adviser, has said that retesting is necessary to ensure educators who work in struggling schools are competent in the subjects they teach.

Mark Hill, president of the Worthington Education Association, said the retesting program “ creates a disincentive for teachers to go and take the toughest jobs. We’re punishing them. Why would they ever take that chance?”

As you know, according to the Ohio Department of Education, which Heffner heads, these tests should NOT be used in this manner

Successful completion of required tests is designed to ensure that candidates for licensure have acquired the minimal knowledge necessary for entry-level positions.
The Praxis II tests are not designed to predict performance on the job nor can passing the licensure examination(s) guarantee good teaching.

Can Superintendent Heffner really be clueless about his own department's expert view?

There is no basis for this law, and we maintain that the legislature must act swiftly to repeal it.

Destroying what works for what doesn't

The NYT reported over the weekend on the decade long successful teacher evaluation system employed in Maryland

The Montgomery County Public Schools system here has a highly regarded program for evaluating teachers, providing them extra support if they are performing poorly and getting rid of those who do not improve.

The program, Peer Assistance and Review - known as PAR - uses several hundred senior teachers to mentor both newcomers and struggling veterans. If the mentoring does not work, the PAR panel - made up of eight teachers and eight principals - can vote to fire the teacher.
[...]

In the 11 years since PAR began, the panels have voted to fire 200 teachers, and 300 more have left rather than go through the PAR process, said Jerry D. Weast, the superintendent of the Montgomery County system, which enrolls 145,000 students, one-third of them from low-income families. In the 10 years before PAR, he said, five teachers were fired.

This successful system now seems to be unraveling. Struggling for funding the state participated in the Federal Race to the Top program, a condition of which was to abandon the PAR system and replace it high stakes student testing as a means to evaluate teachers.

So here is where things stand: Montgomery’s PAR program, which has worked beautifully for 11 years, is not acceptable. But the Maryland plan — which does not exist yet — meets federal standards.

Dr. Weast said a major failing of Race to the Top’s teacher-evaluation system is that it is being imposed from above rather than being developed by the teachers and administrators who will use it. “People don’t tear down what they help build,” he said.

The disaster this has caused is picked up in the Washington Post

Bogged down by political infighting, large gaps in technical know-how and regulatory hurdles, Maryland recently applied for a year’s extension to fully execute the evaluation system it has yet to develop.

“We knew this was going to be very difficult,” said state Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick, who is requesting that the evaluations not carry consequences for teachers and principals until 2013-14, so schools will have more time to train and experiment. “If it rolls out too soon, it won’t be done well, and there will be reactions from teachers that this is a half-baked idea.”
[...]
But the group quickly encountered the kind of questions that are vexing school systems nationwide: What is an effective teacher? Can standardized tests for students be fair measures for teachers? What can be used in place of tests in classes like kindergarten and music that don’t usually have them? And how do you isolate the impact of one teacher when students work with specialists or outside tutors?

These issues, and more, we have discussed at length here at JTF, as the Republican controlled Ohio General Assembly pushes to include similar SB5 mirroring policies into the State's budget. On top of the questionable application of high stakes testing as a means to evaluate teachers, the true cost of such a folly is becoming apparent

In 2003, the development of those tests would have cost the state $83.6 million. Look for that amount in Kasich’s or Batchelder’s budget — you won’t find it. This would be the kind of thing we might use one-time money on, if only that was something that was appropriate to do in a budget.

And that amount is chump change compared to the annual cost of administering the assessments. The current allocation to implement those 17 existing tests is approximately $56 million, an amount equal to approximately $25 per student – the amount charged to a district for a replacement test.

If you’ve started to calculate how that adds up, you’ll need to know the number of students taking these tests — 1,744,969 in 2009-2010. Now we can start calculating the total cost:

1,744,969 students x $25 per test x 7 tests = $305,369,575

So, the Ohio proposed solution is expensive to implement, has highly questionable outcomes, little support from professionals in education, embroiled in partisan politics, ill-though,t all with little consultation and rushed.

What could go wrong?

Why We Care

• S.B. 5 is a jobs killer. It will only weaken the Middle Class by destroying good, working-class jobs that families and communities depend on.
• S.B. 5 will hurt businesses. Stores, gas stations, restaurants and other merchants in communities across the state will be forced to lay off workers. Or worse, they’ll have to close their doors, because Middle Class Ohioans will no longer be able to afford to patronize those establishments.
• Public Employees are our neighbors. They are firefighters, cops, teachers, prison guards, snowplow drivers, and social workers, to name a few. But they are also coaches, athletic and band boosters, church members, volunteer firefighters and charitable givers.
• Public employees are taxpayers. Public employees pay their taxes just like everyone else. Every payday, they pay the same percentage of income tax as every working Ohioan.
• S.B. 5 won’t balance the budget. Even if EVERY state employee was fired, it would barely save the state one-fourth of its gaping $8 billion budget deficit.
• S.B. 5 is part of a larger agenda and public workers are scapegoats. It’s a fact! S.B. 5 won’t balance the budget. It’s clear that anti-worker forces are using this to harm the Middle Class and kill jobs and the union rights they depend on.