Has Barack Obama been reading The Gadfly?

Mike Lafferty , Terry Ryan / September 24, 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's head-turning education speech in Dayton Sept. 9 was notable for stepping away from several planks dear to traditional Democratic thinking. The national audience surely paid attention. But did his fellow Democrats in the Buckeye State? Doubling spending on charter schools, promoting performance pay for teachers, and removing poor teachers from the classroom may not be new ideas. But they are light years away from what Democratic lawmakers in Ohio-and Gov. Ted Strickland-have been advocating for the last decade.

Case in point: only one elected Democrat from the General Assembly has ever supported legislation that could be called charter-school friendly, and she-a Daytonian-became a pariah in her party and ultimately bolted for the GOP. Yet, Sen. Obama sounded as if he may have snagged an advance copy of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's new five-point plan to boost Ohio schools, Accelerating Student Learning in Ohio: Five Policy Recommendations for Strengthening Public Education in the Buckeye State (see here).

The report calls on state policymakers to:

1. Create world-class standards and stronger accountability mechanisms. Ohio needs to build on its progress by aligning its K-12 standards with the knowledge and skills needed for success in post-secondary education and today's global economy and by benchmarking its standards against high-performing states and nations.
2. Ensure that funding is fairly allocated among all children and schools. To ensure that monies are allocated fairly, efficiently, and accountably, and are targeted at the differing needs

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   Has Barack Obama been reading The Gadfly?

The push for diagnostic testing

September 24, 2008

Ohio is in the midst of a debate about how best to use its student assessments and ever- increasing amounts of student-achievement data to improve student performance. The data is used by the state for accountability purposes, but how can this data also be used to improve teaching and learning in all schools?

We know from high-performing schools and high-performing teachers that the effective use of data is one of the keys to consistently improving student achievement (see here). Over the past decade, Ohio has made solid steps to assess students in reading and math by requiring students to be tested in grades three through eight, as well as pass the Ohio Graduation Test. To supplement this achievement testing, the state also requires diagnostic testing for kindergarten through second grade in reading, math, and writing. For grade three, the state requires all schools designated in "improvement status" to offer writing diagnostic tests. Schools that do not meet federal AYP requirements must administer state-developed diagnostic tests. These diagnostic-testing efforts are supplemented by Project SOAR, a pilot project led by Battelle for Kids (see here). Developed in 2001-02, Project SOAR is currently working in 92 Ohio school districts.

Diagnostic testing refers to using testing tools and achievement data to inform teaching so as to gear it toward the actual learning needs of students. Diagnostic testing can be used to focus on areas involving students with special needs (called

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The push for diagnostic testing

Strickland slashes state budget, while state board asks for more

Emmy L. Partin / September 24, 2008

Facing constitutional requirements for a balanced budget, Gov. Ted Strickland earlier this month announced $540 million in cuts to the state budget, which ends June 30, 2009 (see here). These cuts come on top of $733 million in cuts made earlier this year and on the heels of Strickland's and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher's Wall Street Journal op-ed talking up Ohio's economy (see here). In this round of cuts Strickland "held harmless" a few state expenditures like basic per-pupil funding to schools, Medicaid, and the state prison system. Agencies were directed to submit this week their plans for meeting the budget reduction.

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) had to carve $26 million from its spending. Having reduced $101 million from its budget already this year (see here) and without the ability to cut direct funding to schools, the department achieved the savings by trimming 4.75 percent from most General Revenue Fund line items, including early childhood education funding, and making deeper cuts to line items for literacy professional development (15.54 percent or $2.2 million) and educator preparation (16.74 percent or $201,000), among others (see here). In the coming week, ODE will share information with schools about the specific impacts of these budget cuts.

Also due to the Governor this month were agency budget proposals for FY2010-2011. Anticipating a further downturn in Ohio's economy, the governor asked all agencies to submit two budgets for

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Strickland slashes state budget, while state board asks for more

More ideas for funding Ohio's schools

Emmy L. Partin / September 24, 2008

At its meeting this month, the State Board of Education's school funding subcommittee approved for dissemination a draft of Toward Recommendations for School Funding Reform in Ohio (see here). The recommendations-18 of them-tackle how much to spend on K-12 education and how to allocate it-including such Gadfly-sanctioned ideas as Weighted Student Funding (see here)-but do not address tax policies and where the money will come from, as those are decisions that fall largely to the legislature. Interested parties may submit comments about the draft here.

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More ideas for funding Ohio's schools

Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21st Century

September 24, 2008

Public Broadcast System
Aired Sept. 15 on WOSU

Ohio stood out on Sept. 15 when PBS aired Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21^st Century. The special's host, Judy Woodruff, used four Ohio schools to describe the current state of American education. Viewers should have come away feeling uncomfortable.

PBS visited Belpre High School in the eastern Ohio community of Belpre; Olentangy High School near Powell, north of Columbus; Pleasant Hill Academy in Cincinnati; and Metro High School in Columbus. Also included was the Harlem Children's Zone, an organization that provides social and educational services to thousands of children in Harlem in New York City. Woodruff posed five questions:

• In today's global economy, are U.S. students ready to compete with those around the world?
• What's the best way to get teachers into the schools and keep them there?
• Are schools giving all our kids the skills that they need to succeed?
• Is all of this testing doing any good?
• What's the best and fairest way to fund our schools?

National experts, including Fordham president Chester E. Finn, Jr., provided some answers. Several striking points were made about the American education system. Students just are not ready to compete with their peers around the world. Particularly troubling was a segment concerning a Finnish student visiting the blue-ribbon Olentangy High School. She told the interviewer her studies were easy, and her junior year in the Buckeye State wouldn't even count toward her diploma

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Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21st Century

Guide to 21st Century Skills, Education, and Competitiveness

September 24, 2008

Partnership for 21^st Century Skills
Sept. 2008

Over the past 40 years there have been substantial shifts in the economy away from manufacturing toward the service sector. We're already well into this new economy and employers are demanding workers who can handle complexity, effectively communicate, manage information, and work in teams. The Guide (see here)-from the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, a collaboration of organizations and businesses-argues that, while the United States has addressed the education achievement gap domestically, the country has not addressed closing the gap between American students and students in other countries. To do that, American students must excel in the old core subjects-reading, writing, and math. Additionally, students will need to know how to take control of their learning and be able to learn and innovate throughout their careers.

But it's not all student-centered. Making it work will require tough standards, realistic assessments, demanding curriculum, better instruction, and constant professional development, all of which education reformers have been calling for (see here).

Key policy recommendations in the Guide include establishing infrastructure (for example, creating an office of 21^st Century Skills in the U.S. Department of Education), funding $2 billion in education research and development, as well as enacting a national workforce development policy. Specific state and local recommendations are also provided.

Nine states (Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) have signed on with the Partnership to push these new

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Guide to 21st Century Skills, Education, and Competitiveness