Education may not be making the national political scene (whatever Palin’s personal opinions) but it’s far from off the states’ radar, reports the National Conference of State Legislatures. In fact, fifteen states have dozens of referendums, constitutional amendments or citizen initiatives dealing with education on the November ballot. The topics range from upping funding sources with more slot machines to scrapping education staples affirmative action and bilingual education. But before we call up the Gates Foundation and tell them to reconsider Ed in ‘08, consider this. It takes months for these kinds of proposals to make it onto the ballot. And the economy is still a hard act to upstage at this point, despite the lure of more casinos. EdWeek has the whole list of topics.

So says Checker Finn in today’s Columbus Dispatch. For some good advice about education in Ohio, and beyond, see here and here.

In Chicago today, students boycott school to protest their lack of learning.

Gadfly doesn’t like it.

This front-page Wall Street Journal article reports on the financial woes of the states, which are in the midst of a budget crunch due to the ailing economy and falling tax revenue. No doubt that means budget cuts ahead for public schools, at least in some states and some districts.

If recent history is any guide, though, this pain will be short-lived. When good times are here again, school spending will see a healthy rise, outpacing inflation by a significant measure. But will recent history be a guide?

As I mentioned in last week’s Gadfly editorial, over the long-term at least, it seems unlikely that school spending can continue its fast clip forever. Everyone knows that the Baby Boomers are about to retire en masse, putting a huge strain on public resources. Meanwhile, the percentage of households with school-age children is dropping precipitously, down to about one in four today. That means that advocates for increased school spending will have to convince people with no direct stake in the schools to keep opening their wallets, even while they’re getting hit with the social security and health care bills of the Boomers. Oh, and did I mention that more and more of education spending is going to pay for the retirement and health care bills of former teachers, rather than educating today’s students? This all sounds like a tough sell to me.

Reformers have generally failed to force the public school system to worry about “efficiency” and “cost-benefit analyses”—but these broader societal trends are going to force the issue. And the sooner we figure out how to “do more with less,” the better.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush talks education.

Checker takes to the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed pages to communicate to Ohioans this message: Wake up.

Checker laments in today’s Ohio Education Gadfly that policymakers in Fordham’s home state have gone soft on education.

A post from guest blogger and Fordham Vice President for Ohio Programs & Policy Terry Ryan.

Ohio’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Susan Zelman, announced to her staff today that she will be stepping down as state superintendent. She is leaving after several months of public, and sometimes nasty, tussling with Governor Strickland and his emerging agenda for Ohio’s K-12 education. Dr. Zelman will be missed, and now speculation turns to her possible successor. Scott Elliott of the Dayton Daily News has listed on his blog four possible candidates (including the Governor’s wife). He is seeking suggestions on other names to consider; if you have any insights here please share with Scott and his readers.

I’m encouraged this morning reading this article about Idaho’s work in crafting standardized performance evaluations for teachers. Apparently, some are hoping it paves the way for pay-for-performance plans for teachers (another good thing).

To be sure, recent reports indicate that teacher evaluations are pretty poor on the whole. I’ve had the opportunity over the years to take a look at some of these evaluations, particularly those in urban school districts, and concur that they can be pretty embarrassing, often treating “personal hygiene” on the same plane as “teacher knowledge of subject”—that is, if the latter is even included.

To be fair, there are some fantastic evaluation instruments out there for assessing teachers’ skills and knowledge. The Teacher Advancement Program, for instance, has one they use as part of their professional development and performance-based pay program. It’s a research-based rubric that includes nearly 20 indicators (such as teacher content knowledge, teacher knowledge of students, academic feedback, and use of problem solving skills)—each one with corresponding benchmarks that operationalize what it means to be exemplary, proficient, or needing improvement. Let’s hope the potato state can be a model for other states/districts interested in overhauling their teacher evaluations so that they actually serve to help teachers serve students.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was supposed to be the education governor of California. Since becoming the Golden State’s chief executive, the former Hollywood action star has vowed to bring the same kind of leadership and muscle to education reform as he once brought to the big screen. Daniel Weintraub, in an excellent article in the current issue of Education Next, however, shows Schwarzenegger has been a dismal failure.

The reason:  The Terminator has been tamed by California’s powerful teachers unions. Weintraub, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, demonstrates that the massive California Teachers Association (CTA) and the feisty California Federation of Teachers (CFA) have successfully blocked almost every major Schwarzenegger initiative. The governor has been reduced to playing defense. He has vetoed countless bills sent to him by the teachers unions’ allies in the Democrat-controlled legislature. Thus, Schwarzenegger has succeeded in protecting California’s effective system of standards, testing, and accountability from being eroded. But he has failed to go on the political offensive, forging the broad-based consensus necessary for overhauling the state’s public schools.

Weintraub concedes that Schwarzenegger’s heart is in the right place. He has good ideas. Schwarzenegger knows what needs to be done to bring about meaningful reform—devolve greater power and authority to local school districts; provide much more flexibility in state education spending; make teaching a true profession by giving teachers more pay and training, while holding them accountable for classroom performance; grant principals the ability to hire and fire their teaching staffs; concentrate on narrowing the achievement gap between students from low-income families and those living in affluent, suburban neighborhoods; and enforce stricter accountability across the board, from county superintendents to principals to educators. The problem with Schwarzenegger is not his policy goals; rather, it is his will—or the lack of it.

One of the reasons for his lack of testosterone is the state’s severe budget crunch. California’s education funding has been cut due to anemic tax revenues. Schwarzenegger has argued that it is unfair and unrealistic to ask the education establishment to accept painful, sweeping reforms as the state slashes spending by 3.5 to 4 billion dollars. I would argue that it’s not unrealistic or even unfair, just difficult.

And his tough talk notwithstanding, Schwarzenegger—at least, when it comes to education—has so far been mostly bark and very little bite. Most experts, including the governor’s chosen research panel which recently published its much-lauded education policy recommendations, have stated that fixing California’s public schools is not a question of money. The system has enough to finance students’ needs. It’s a question of the right policy prescriptions. Schwarzenegger has some excellent ones, which would clearly go a long way toward improving the state’s public education. But all the good proposals in the world don’t amount to much if he is reluctant to spend precious political capital. That takes courage and leadership. Sadly, the Terminator is showing little of either.

Terry posted earlier today on the pressure mounting on attorney general Marc Dann to quit office in light of recent scandals.

He’s just resigned.

A post from guest blogger and Fordham Vice President for Ohio Programs & Policy Terry Ryan.

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is embroiled in serious scandals and faces impeachment. His own political party (the Democrats) has disowned him, and he is under intense pressure from the Governor, the statehouse, and the media to resign immediately.

We take no joy in Dann’s troubles, but his leaving office would raise some interesting questions. In September, Dann held a press conference to announce lawsuits aimed at closing two Dayton charter schools (he subsequently added two more schools). Dann cited the state’s charitable trust laws and alleged that the schools had violated their “charitable” missions as 501(c)3 organizations because they were underperforming academically (see Gadfly’s take on the first lawsuits.) One of the schools originally targeted by Dann has subsequently closed, but the second has vowed to fight the lawsuit. Oral arguments for that case are set for May 15 in Dayton.

If successful, this novel theory of trust law would effectively turn the state attorney general into a charter-school prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. Under Dann’s legal theory, his office would determine whether a school is successful or not, thereby usurping the regulatory authority of the General Assembly, the Ohio Department of Education, and individual charter school sponsors. If the AG gets this authority, observers wonder what would prevent him from determining that nonprofit colleges and universities aren’t up to snuff and should be closed? Or hospitals? Or any other nonprofit unloved by political supporters of the attorney general, whoever that might be? And why not then in other states, too?

Will the AG’s potential impeachment or resignation impact the Attorney General’s Office in this case? It’s far too early to tell, but one good thing that could come from this bad situation is a more thoughtful approach to dealing with troubled charters than having them killed off by a hard-charging AG.

Mississippi has passed legislation, and the governor has signed it, that would fire superintendents whose districts are labeled “underperforming” for two years straight. (Before it’s active, the law needs to be approved by the feds, for Civil Rights-related reasons that Education Week explains.) The Gadfly likes the law. I don’t.

Officials note that the Magnolia State is one of just three (in the company of Alabama and Florida) where some superintendents are elected. The thinking is this: Local elections for superintendent are easily corrupted because of their small turnouts; elected superintendents are more likely to make decisions based on politics, not on the interests of students; and elected superintendents, especially those supported by teachers’ unions, may fill the superintendent role for years without appreciably improving the classroom instruction of which they’re ostensibly in charge. (These concerns relate to few. Most superintendents in Mississippi are appointed.) Furthermore, advocates for the new law say, if the state holds teachers accountable, it should treat superintendents similarly.

Fair points, but points outweighed by the pitfalls of Mississippi’s new law. Pitfalls such as: There is no solid definition of “underperforming”; qualified candidates for superintendent positions will be dissuaded from taking open jobs in Mississippi; two years is not enough time to appreciably improve a failing school district; the law’s process for actually firing underperforming superintendents is complicated (see the Ed Week article); and voters are having their democratic voice overturned by the legislature.

To compare Mississippi’s new superintendent accountability with teacher accountability is to compare apples and rodents. Teachers in Mississippi who fail to drastically improve the test scores of their classrooms are not fired after two years—and neither should they be.

Prediction: The feds approve this law and after two or three years everyone in Mississippi hates it and the legislature tosses it out and why did we bother with this crude, top-down, hasty accountability system in the first place?

Photo by Flickr user nmcil.

After months of jockeying with control-freak governor Ted Strickland, Ohio state education superintendent Susan Tave Zelman is on her way out, perhaps to the University of Oregon as ed school dean.

She toughed it out for a while but the handwriting went onto the wall for her once key members of the state board of education decided that placating the governor was more important than retaining Dr. Z, as she is known at the Ohio Department of Education. It must also be said that she didn’t try very hard to placate him herself, seeming more determined to demonstrate independence than to make nice with Bob Taft’s successor and his agenda. She can, in truth, be ornery, strong-willed, and mercurial, in addition to very bright, boundlessly energetic, and quite creative. But there was no way that a principled educator with her track record could have accommodated the Strickland education agenda, such as it is. Much of it, alas, simply involves seizing control of the system and reorganizing the deck chairs rather than repositioning the ship.

But he’s recommended some repositioning, too, in ways that Dr. Z could not (and should not be expected to) stomach, much less preside over. Ohio’s standards and accountability system leaves much to be desired—but the Governor’s goal is to weaken it, not strengthen it. The state’s charter-school and voucher programs also have their flaws—but the Governor’s goal is to eliminate them, not fix them. Indeed, the only way Zelman could in conscience have stayed in Columbus was if she retained independent control of the education department. Once that became unrealistic, her fate was sealed. That’s a pity. I like her personally, admire her pluck and her what’s-good-for-the-kids-not-necessarily-the-grownups orientation and have enjoyed my various dealings with her. Far more important, Strickland is going to be freer to cripple these vitally important policy domains once she’s out of the way. We’ll miss you, Dr. Z, and the state owes you a far greater debt of gratitude than it’s ever likely to pay.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist stands with the state legislature, which just passed an anti-bullying law. “I’m against bullying, too,” he said.

And I’m against purposeless laws that waste everyone’s time.

Here in D.C., the politics of education reform seem tame compared to what our Fordham team in Ohio faces, a point made clear in this Columbus Education Association interview with Governor Ted Strickland. In outlining his “6 point plan” on education, Strickland continues the attack on charter schools that began during his campaign, calling them “destructive to our students and wasteful of our tax dollars,”* repeating his previous calls for “a moratorium on the creation of new charter schools,” and strongly hinting that if only he had a Democratic legislature he could truly kill the state’s charter (and voucher) program.

He’d also like to turn back the clock on accountability, arguing that “testing and assessment ought to be diagnostic,” and “teachers must have the freedom to teach without the fear of standardized test results communicating that you’re a bad teacher.”

Of course he’s genuflecting before the unions, so much so that this quote—which apparently addressed how teachers have influenced his life—seems like a comic Freudian slip about their role in his administration: “Teachers have incredible power and monumental influence. What’s most important... is that (teachers) need to be respected by the government.”

And what about the students, Governor?

We hope Democrats outside Ohio (e.g., Eduwonk) notice that he’s giving the party a bad name in education.

*Correction: The CEA wrote to tell us that their interview had erroneously attributed the Governor’s “destructive and wasteful” quote to charters rather than to vouchers. They have since corrected the interview.

Colorado lawmakers voted put forward a plan yesterday to align state academic standards with the ACT exam.

This seems wise. Most states have struggled to implement high-quality academic standards in the major subject areas, and in the few states that have raised the bar across the board—California, Massachusetts, Indiana—an exceptional amount of political cooperation was required. Certainly that’s not something most states can count on.

So why not adopt a set of clear, ready-made standards that have received the seal of approval from top universities across the land?

UPDATE: It should also be noted that the bill “laid out a multi-year collaborative process for state education officials” to develop K-12 grade-level standards based on the ACT content.

Ah, the vaunted “multi-year collaborative process for state education officials.” Just when you think they’ve figured out a way to cut through the red tape they wrap themselves up again.

It looks like Missouri will be the next state to adopt the big daddy of alternative certification programs, the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.

In Florida, where a state income tax is verboten, the housing crisis has had a particularly damaging effect on state revenues. Education is being hit hard. Piling on, today the St. Petersburg Times reports that “lackluster lottery sales” will hurt school budgets even more.

Lawmakers, already grappling with a drop in state tax collections, must finalize a 2008-09 state budget over the next three weeks. And they’re already planning to cut school spending for the first time in decades. The new forecast could mean deeper cuts. Lottery dollars account for about 5 percent of the state’s education spending.

Last year, the New York Times published a long piece about how lotteries are notoriously unreliable vehicles on which to base education funding. And they may actually make legislators less willing to devote dollars to schools because lawmakers sometimes believe (mistakenly) that their state lottery provides education a lot of support. In Florida, for example, the lottery accounts for only 5 percent of state education spending; in other states, the percentage is less.

Florida, though, is saddled with a particularly dubious class-size requirement, which is popular with citizens but costs the Sunshine State loads of money that could be better spent elsewhere. One wonders if the current budget crunch will cause some reevaluation of education priorities.

Florida’s governor rightly opposes this bone-headed bill.

The New York Times reports today that Idaho will set aside somewhere from $200,000 to $600,000 to fund a pilot program that will make chess education available to all second- and third-graders. The state will use a curriculum called First Move, which was developed by the Seattle-based nonprofit Foundation for Chess.

Third-grade teacher Deborah McCoy has already started teaching chess in her classroom and is quite pleased with the results. “So many kids spend their time plugged into video games, iPods, television and so they are more isolated,” she said. “They learn give and take in chess. There are courtesies that you follow. It has been really beneficial for them.”

You’d have to guess she’s mostly right about the benefits, though one wonders if it’s the state’s place to be experimenting like this with curricula. Once you start offering funding for niche subjects you risk opening the floodgates to every other hobbyist-lobbyist in the state.