Dramatically improving schools in Columbus by 2020

Terry Ryan / February 20, 2013

On Monday CEE-Trust’s Ethan Gray and I provided ideas to the Columbus Education Commission on ways that city could improve its schools. The following provides more details for some of the recommendations offered at that time.

Terry Ryan and KidsOhio.org’s Mark Real join Columbus Education Commission members listening to CEE-Trust’s Ethan Gray present at the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Main Branch on February 18, 2013.

Like much of urban America, Columbus urgently needs more high performing schools for its children, especially its poor and minority children. In 2011-12, nearly 30,000 (just under 50 percent) of all Columbus students attended failing schools (D or F on the state rating system). Within the Columbus City Schools, 60 of 117 buildings have been designated by the state as “persistently low-performing” – meaning they had been rated “academic emergency” or “academic watch” for at least two of the last three years. The city’s charter schools are equally troubled with 28 out of 59 being rated D or F by the state in 2012. In contrast, only 3,500 students attended schools with grades of A or A+.

Yet, turning around failed schools is nearly impossible, despite the best of intentions. Both charter and traditional district schools are stubbornly resistant to significant change—the kind that might actually make a difference, which generally

» Continued

Dramatically improving schools in Columbus by 2020

Problem-solvers, optimists wanted: A Q&A with KIPP Journey’s Hannah Powell Tuney

Ellen Belcher / February 20, 2013

There is no harder job than running a successful school building for high-poverty students; nor a more important job. Yet, there are school leaders across the state and the nation who do it day-in and day-out, and too few get recognized for their great work. We are fortunate that some of these leaders work in the charter schools that Fordham sponsors and it is our privilege to tell a little bit of their stories and the impact they are having on students in Ohio. This Q&A with Hannah Powell Tuney, the executive director of KIPP: Central Ohio, is the third of our seven-part series on school leadership. (Please see our previous Q&As with Dr. Glenda Brown, Andy Boy, and Judy Hennessey.) KIPP, which stands for Knowledge is Power Program, is a national network of high-performing, urban charter schools. KIPP Journey Academy, located in Columbus, is Ohio’s first KIPP charter school.  Powell Tuney leads KIPP Journey, which serves 300 students, 91 percent black and 100 percent economically disadvantaged. In 2011-12, the school received a B (“Effective”) rating from the state.

Hannah Powell Tuney became the leader at Columbus’ KIPP Journey Academy when she was just 27. It was December, and the school had been open for only three months. Her predecessor had abruptly resigned.

Less than three years later, in June 2011, Powell Tuney was chosen to direct KIPP Central Ohio’s efforts to grow from just one school

» Continued

Problem-solvers, optimists wanted: A Q&A with KIPP Journey’s Hannah Powell Tuney

Charter system for counting, funding students a model for districts

Emmy L. Partin / February 20, 2013

Last week Ohio Auditor of State Dave Yost reported that nine school districts manipulated student attendance data to improve their academic performance results. In response to these findings, Yost offered up thirteen recommendations for reforming Ohio’s system of reporting student enrollment. In an op-ed in Saturday’s Columbus Dispatch, he outlined his primary recommendation: Schools should count students and report enrollment more frequently than once per year.  Specifically, Yost said:

Ohio sends cash to local school systems based on the number of students in the school during Count Week in October each year. September doesn’t matter, and you don’t need to remember November — or January or February. Good attendance during one week locks in a year of state funding.

Money changes things. It drives behavior, frames decisions and affects thinking — sometimes in ways we don’t foresee or want. That’s one of the things I discovered during our statewide audit of attendance practices in schools.

Ohio should count kids every day, not once a year. A year-long financial incentive would drive attendance every day. The good news is that we know how to get the kids in school. Lining up the financial incentives with the goal of regular attendance would help keep the effort going.

Counting kids every day also would provide a penalty for “scrubbing” — the practice of artificially interrupting a child’s reported attendance, which removes his test scores from the school’s annual grade card. Under an every-day counting system, if the child isn’t

» Continued

Charter system for counting, funding students a model for districts

Moving Forward: A National Perspective on States’ Progress in Common Core Standards Implementation Planning

Aaron Churchill / February 20, 2013

Are states backtracking or pushing ahead with the implementation of the Common Core? Education First and Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) collaborated to develop Moving Forward which provides clues to states’ progress. Following-up on their summer 2011 survey of state education agency officials, Education First and the EPE Research Center conducted their second survey in summer 2012. The survey’s goal was to evaluate the progress in implementation within three key areas: teacher professional development, curriculum guides and instructional materials, and teacher-evaluation systems. The researchers found that (1) most states are making progress in implementation, (2) states are furthest along in teacher professional development to prepare teachers for these new academic standards, and (3) six states reported setbacks in implementation.

Per finding one, the study reports that twenty-one states (including Ohio) have fully-developed plans in all three areas of implementation. This is a three-fold increase compared to 2011, when only seven states reported fully-developed plans in all three areas. Per finding two, the researchers found that thirty-seven states had fully-developed plans for teacher professional development while only thirty states had fully-developed plans for curriculum guides and teacher-evaluation systems. Per finding three, the study found that six states—Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin—backtracked in at least one of the three key implementation areas. Of these six states, Colorado, Connecticut, and Indiana reported setbacks in two of the three areas- all backtracking in teacher professional development and curriculum guides.

Whether the Common

» Continued

Moving Forward: A National Perspective on States’ Progress in Common Core Standards Implementation Planning

Principals’ Perceptions of Competition for Students in Milwaukee School

Angel Gonzalez / February 20, 2013

Education reformers often tout that school choice will create more competition, leading to better performance in both traditional and non-traditional schools. In spite of this, researchers have been unable to consistently show a correlation between competition and school performance, creating ammunition for those who oppose school choice. A part of the problem is how the topic is researched. In their report, Susanna Loeb and Matthew Kasman explain that researchers focus on specific aspects of competition (i.e. school density in an area, the transfer rates of students) without factoring the perceptions of the school leaders who are responsible for changing curriculum and instruction. Loeb and Kasman analyzed data and surveys from Milwaukee Public Schools to determine what affect a principal’s perception of competition and how those school leaders respond. 

The results are surprising- the researchers reported that the number of schools in an area had little correlation with the perception of competition.  Conversely, the principals did report a greater sense of competition when their student transfer rates were higher and when they taught low and high achieving students. One potential reason for this is that schools specifically designed to serve these students such as charters succeeded in drawing students from other schools. Unfortunately, the researchers also found that principals were more likely to respond to competition by adjusting their outreach policies rather than making adjustments to their curriculum and instruction.

In order to develop curriculum and instruction changes on the school level,

» Continued

Principals’ Perceptions of Competition for Students in Milwaukee School

Shuttered Public Schools: The Struggle to Bring Old Buildings New Life

Jeff Murray / February 20, 2013

In October, 2011, The Pew Charitable Trusts released a report called Closing Public Schools in Philadelphia: Lessons from Six Urban Districts, which looked at the process of school building closure in a number of urban districts to help inform the process of closure and repurposing of a potentially large number of buildings in Philadelphia. The process in Philadelphia was expected to take at least two years to complete.

And now a follow-up report has been released that looks at the reality of what happened in Philadelphia and a number of other cities after their “surplus” buildings were closed.  Shuttered Public Schools: The Struggle to Bring Old Buildings New Life looks at the realities of finding new uses for old school buildings in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tulsa and Washington as well as Philadelphia (where, over two years later, as many as 37 buildings still remain to be closed before they can even reach the “repurposing” stage).

Among the key findings:

• School districts are not typically set up to become real estate brokers, resulting in slow and problematic transactions;
• Many buildings remain unsold due to multiple difficulties including neighborhood resistance to change of use, the economic downturn, and size and age of buildings;
• Unsold/unleased buildings remain a drain on districts’ finances due to security and maintenance costs until they are either repurposed or sold.

Some good news for the charter sector: of the buildings sold or leased

» Continued

Shuttered Public Schools: The Struggle to Bring Old Buildings New Life

CANCELED: Fordham Institute's Michael Petrilli to visit Columbus and discuss latest book

February 20, 2013

CANCELED: Tuesday, February 26, 2013
5:30p.m. - 7 p.m. ET*
Columbus International High School» Continued

CANCELED: Fordham Institute's Michael Petrilli to visit Columbus and discuss latest book

Editor's Extras

Angel Gonzalez / February 20, 2013

Franklin City Schools Superintendent Arnol Elam distributed a letter to parents, asking them to campaign against Gov. Kasich funding plan. The Warren County prosecutor is now investigating Elam for using school funds to send out political materials.

Under Gov. Kasich new funding plan, schools districts will have more funds allocated to teach English Language Learners.

Next year Hilliard School District will open the Innovative Learning Center which will gather students in the district to offer specialized programs and video conference classes out to multiple schools.

Last week, Gov. Kasich’s top education advisers met with legislators to discuss their school reform plans.

» Continued

Editor's Extras