Re: Decade in Review

February 10, 2010

In Gadfly’s January 8^th “Decade in Review,” I noticed a minor inaccuracy concerning the September 1999 entry about school facilities. The tobacco settlement provided only $2.5 billion of the Rebuilding Ohio Schools initiative I launched in the fall of 1999. I proposed a 12-year, $10.2 billion plan to rebuild all of Ohio's schools. This initiative was approved by the legislature and by the time I left office more than $6.2 billion had been appropriated for school construction. It utilized the tobacco settlement monies plus bond and general fund dollars. This effort should be mentioned as an overall initiative rather than the tobacco settlement. It has been by far the largest school construction program in Ohio's history and addressed a big part of the findings from the DeRolph decision by funding the poorest school districts first and giving them a much higher percentage of state participation.

Bob Taft
Governor of Ohio (1999-2007)
Distinguished Research Associate, University of Dayton

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Re: Decade in Review

Social studies, history standards debate finally heating up

Mike Lafferty / February 10, 2010

Interest is building over how best to teach history to Ohio’s public school kids. Largely ignored thus far by the media, the draft social studies standards – read, history – have been noticed by the education and history community.

In fact, they’ve been so noticed that the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) has taken the comments it has received on the original draft and is using the input to modify the draft and re-release it in coming weeks. “We’ve got some really good feedback. We’re going to post again. We will have another loop for feedback,” said ODE Associate Superintendent Stan Heffner.

The State Board of Education must approve the standards by its June meeting.

Some opponents to the first draft were concerned with moving early American history from the fifth to the fourth grade, and limiting high school American history to what happened from the 1870s onward.

At their most basic, the proposals from ODE would change when certain periods of history are taught and the way it is taught. These kinds of changes are taking place in other states, too. In North Carolina, for example, some worry whether high school students will get enough American history.

In Texas, well, it’s all about history and religion, and whether Indians and Hispanics are included, and even whether America is a hip hop or country western nation (here and here). In the Lone Star State people have their knives out. But it’s

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Social studies, history standards debate finally heating up

Is Ohio's value-added system broken?

February 10, 2010

In 2008, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released data showing that more than 80 percent of Ohio schools achieved “below expected growth” in fifth-grade reading. A year later, ODE data showed that 98 percent of schools made “above expected growth” in sixth-grade reading. What’s going on here?

What could possibly have accounted for such a spike in school performance from one year to the next? Well, nothing really, except a flawed system for measuring student progress. What’s disturbing, however, is that administrators and policymakers are using these poorly calculated statistics to make real decisions that impact schools, teachers, and students.

Skewed curves and yo-yos

Although ODE first made value-added data available in 2007, state officials admitted at the time that the methodology needed some tweaking and improvements. While no consequences were attached to the first year of data, policymakers and educators eagerly awaited the official release of data in year two.

That year (2007-08 – see Figure 1) revealed that buildings were being classified in a statistically odd way. Some tests showed a disproportionately high number of schools with students achieving above expected yearly growth (green on the chart) and two tests showed disproportionately high numbers of schools falling below expected growth (red).

Figure 1 

According to a normal statistical distribution (a bell curve), a high number of schools should achieve “average” growth (yellow), with smaller numbers of schools achieving below expected and above expected growth. The actual

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Is Ohio's value-added system broken?

Every bit counts: Ohio could gain tens of millions under revised Title I formula

Jamie Davies O'Leary / February 10, 2010

Ohio is facing roughly an $8 billion deficit as it heads into a new biennium, so it should come as no surprise that Governor Strickland is lobbying for whatever federal money might be available to help fill the hole. The Buckeye State is not alone. As the New York Times reminds us, many states will see staggering deficits in their education budgets as early as the end of this school year as one-time stimulus money dries up.

Last week Strickland pushed Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to approve Ohio’s Race to the Top application. On the one hand, Strickland’s effort here seems futile: Duncan alleges RttT is an apolitical competitive grant program with a “very high bar;” and there are hundreds of reviewers deciding which applications are of merit. Such a request seems a little misplaced (unless we’re in the dark and RttT awards will be based on politics).

Still, even though Ohio’s application may be less than sterling (especially as it comes to support for charter schools and school turnarounds), you can’t blame Strickland for trying to get badly needed dollars for Ohio’s schools. It is in the interest of Ohio’s children, especially the neediest among them in urban and rural schools, for the state’s leaders to advocate for more federal K-12 funds, and to capitalize on existing federal funding streams.

A recent report from Center for American Progress, Bitter Pill, Better Formula, lays

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Every bit counts: Ohio could gain tens of millions under revised Title I formula

Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers' Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas

Jamie Davies O'Leary / February 10, 2010

Learning Point Associates & Public Agenda
Jane Goggshall, Amber Ott, & Molly Lasagna
January 2010 

What happens when teachers and policymakers don’t see eye to eye? On issues like performance pay, standardized tests, teacher tenure, and termination, there is a rift between what many teachers and decision-makers think, and this report argues that addressing it is necessary if there’s any hope to build enough support and legitimacy to truly change the teaching profession. 

The third release from the Retaining Teacher Talent study, this report presents survey data from 890 public school teachers and six focus groups, and highlights where teachers’ opinions parallel or depart from what policymakers and researchers think. Where they are at odds is perhaps most interesting. The vast majority of teachers (92 percent) say that student engagement in coursework is an excellent or good measure of their effectiveness; meanwhile, only 56 percent say standardized test scores are a good or excellent indicator of teacher success. (In fact, “too much testing” was the most frequently cited drawback of teaching, ahead of discipline problems and low salary.)

This general antipathy among teachers toward testing, as well as toward eliminating teacher tenure (only nine percent view it as a “very effective” way to improve teacher quality), performance pay tied to test scores (just eight percent), and terminating poor performers (34 percent), threaten to undermine national and statewide efforts to improve the performance of the students who need it most.

What policies do teachers

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Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers' Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas

The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate

February 10, 2010

Alliance for Excellent Education
January 2010 

The commonly cited phrase that an investment in kids is an investment in our collective future is no understatement. This report by the Alliance for Excellent Education examines the potential impact of increased high school graduation rates on local economies, individual earnings, and home sales.

In 2008, an estimated 600,000 students from the fifty largest US cities and surrounding metropolitan areas made the decision to forego high school graduation. The authors, perhaps realizing that achieving a 100 percent graduation rate isn’t realistic, determine the economic impact of reducing that rate by just half (300,000 students).

The predicted gains are noteworthy. For the forty-five metropolitan areas included in the model, graduating 300,000 high school students would result in: $4.1 billion in additional earnings over the average year; 30,000 new jobs and increased local GDP by up to $5.3 billion by the midpoint of graduates’ careers; increased local and state tax revenues -- up to $536 million during an average year; and home purchases totaling $10.5 billion. All of this, from 300,000 additional high school diplomas.

For Columbus alone, the benefits would be $39 million in earnings and economic growth of $49 million. For Cleveland, earnings would increase by $52 million and overall economic growth by $66 million. These figures clearly spell out the benefits students and society as a whole would reap from increasing graduation rates.

Unfortunately, despite the obvious returns of reducing the dropout rate, Ohio’s fiscal

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The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate

Hopes, Fears and Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2009

February 10, 2010

Robin Lake, Ed.
Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington at Bothell
January 2010

This paper is the fifth of an annual series from the National Charter Research Project and provides a timely look at critical challenges facing charter sector (including a chapter by Fordham’s Terry Ryan). This series is best known for its yearly update on the charter landscape. 

Noteworthy is the considerable growth charters have experienced – charter enrollment nationwide grew from approximately 900,000 to more than 1,400,000 between 2004 to 2009 (an increase of 55 percent). Ryan’s chapter on the importance of strong school leaders is particularly relevant in light of the current administration’s efforts to turn around 5,000 of the country’s lowest-performing schools. He highlights the clear need for strong leadership in turnaround efforts, based on Fordham’s experience as a charter authorizer working to turn around a failing charter school in Dayton. Another interesting chapter looks into the relationship between unions and charters. The AFT represents about 80 charters nationwide, and while this is a relatively small number, it raises many interesting questions on the future relationship between charters and unions. The report also highlights the dilemma faced by high performing charters as they face a gap between test score achievement and college readiness.

Well worth the read as it covers a broad depth of topics as charter schools mature. You can find it here.

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Hopes, Fears and Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2009

Finding excellence in Canton, Ohio

Jamie Davies O'Leary / February 10, 2010

Yesterday morning I visited McGregor Elementary, a school in Canton, Ohio, serving students in preschool through sixth-grade, and doing it very well. The building sits practically across the street from the sprawling Timken Co. steel plant, nestled in a neighborhood you might describe as working class. Even if you’ve never been to a northeastern Ohio city, the surroundings immediately feel familiar. It reflects the quintessence of old industrial cities, the kind whose rapid job loss and demographic shifts leave them looking worn and a little forgotten. Read the full post here.

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Finding excellence in Canton, Ohio

Thumbs-up on Obama's k-12 education themes

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 10, 2010

On primary-secondary education, as on most topics, Mr. Obama stayed at 30,000 feet [in his State of the Union address]. The main themes he sounded, however, are fine: use federal education dollars to reward success, not failure; apply Arne Duncan’s “race to the top” reform priorities to the mega-bucks Elementary/Secondary Education Act; and keep a “competitive” element in this rather than simply distributing dollars via formula. All extremely hard to do but all worth doing…Four points here bear noting…Read it here.

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Thumbs-up on Obama's k-12 education themes

So that our readers can be snowed in, but not tuned out...

Terry M. Moe / February 10, 2010

• Don’t feel like reading through 41 Race to the Top applications? (We don’t blame you. Ohio’s alone was 263 pages.) WaPo’s Kevin Huffman breaks down which states make serious cases and those who don’t have a chance (interestingly, he doesn’t take on his home state of Ohio). If you’re an RttT reviewer, we’d still suggest reading those apps carefully—buzzword-based proposals aren’t the changes schools need. 
• One reason for the per-pupil spending gap between poor and affluent school districts is that wealthier schools tend to pay higher teacher salaries. This brief from the Center for Reinventing Public Education outlines four options administrators have to reduce this gap, without having to reassign teachers to poor schools. It also points out a sneaky Title I loophole that, if closed, could address teacher salary inequities.
• Cleveland ranks No. 1 in worst winter weather cities list, beating out Columbus, which ranked 8^th. Given Ohio leaders’ recent preoccupation with rating systems (Ohio’s RttT application focused on “5-1-4” – and no, that’s not a volleyball score or an area code; it means “from fifth to first in four years”) we think this winter ranking is suitable for another catchphrase. If our DC collegues weren’t buried under 14 feet of snow or out throwing snowballs, they’d probably protest these rankings. So might this guy.
• Unintended consequences are sometimes good. Public school choice programs not only increase educational choice—they can also increase property

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  So that our readers can be snowed in, but not tuned out...

The funniest education-related Super Bowl commercial

February 10, 2010

Curious as to how Fordham manages to churn out so much terrific education news and analysis in such a timely fashion? We employ a Gadfly of course. Watch this video to learn more.

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The funniest education-related Super Bowl commercial