My Top 3 Education Stories in Ohio for 2012 -2013

My Ohio predictions from last year, if nothing else, proved that I should not make prognostication a full-time career.  That being said, I think developments at the state level have the potential to be more interesting than at the national level.  That is not necessarily a good thing, as we will see in my top three stories.

The Worst Education Scandal in Ohio History – I have already written about the Columbus City Schools attendance scandal once, but I have a feeling there will be many more coming over the next several weeks.  Auditor of State David Yost is already conducting a statewide investigation of attendance practices.  Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien is looking into criminal charges because of the truancy cases that were thrown out because of the deleted records.  No doubt Attorney General Mike DeWine will be heard from in due course.  I do not agree with the author of Plunderbund very often, but I do here when he says “this is going to be big.”  It will be big because of the number of careers it will claim (Lockland’s Superintendent is already on suspension).  It will be big because of the number of districts that I believe will be discovered scrubbing their attendance data.  It will be big because of the numbers of students who will be discovered not just falling through the cracks, but rather being shoved through them.  But the biggest aspect of this scandal may well be the timing of it.  The recent resignation of State Superintendent Stan Heffner was not related to the attendance scandal (He had his own separate scandal!), but his successor will have this scandal at the top of his or her agenda.  The Ohio Department of Education has often been criticized for its inability to enforce its regulations.  A 2008 report appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer detailing similar practices being done in Cleveland, and the ODE’s response was to shrug its shoulders claiming it didn’t have the technology to follow up on the allegations.  Apparently that has been a problem for quite some time.  However, those days might be coming to a rather swift end.  Why?  Because of story number 2 . . .

It’s John Kasich’s Turn at Education Reform – When he was running for Governor, John Kasich promised to immediately do away Governor Ted Strickland’s “evidence based” funding model for education.  With the blessing of his colleagues in the General Assembly, Governor Kasich kept that promise.  But instead of putting in his own formula in place, he went back to a scaled-down of what previous Republican administrations had done with a time-table of having new plan by the summer of 2012.  In a testament to the complexity of school funding in Ohio, that time-table met a rather quick and unceremonious end (I believe that is what led to my miss on the consolidation story from last year.).   Well time is now running out.  Under state law the next biennial budget is due to the General Assembly in February, 2013 and Governor Kasich has promised a new funding formula with a greater emphasis on money following students will be in it (A possible blueprint was just introduced in that state up north).  In my relatively short career, I have learned that these budget processes are watched with fear and trembling by teachers and administrators alike.  This one will be no different.  After Senate Bill 5 there are not many teachers who will hopeful for better days in this new budget.  In addition to that Governor Kasich now gets to name the successor to Superintendent Heffner, whom he also named after forcing out Susan Tave Zelman shortly after taking office.  The politics of the moment have given Governor Kasich an opportunity not just to name the next Superintendent but to possibly remake the ODE entirely.  There is enough time between now and February to put money in the budget for more regulatory power.  He can give the new Superintendent a mandate to clean house and provide the financial backing with which to do it. Add that change along with a new funding formula, and you have the potential for the most sweeping changes in Ohio education since the DeRolph ruling.

The Common Core is Already Here and Still Coming – While Governor Kasich eliminated the financial part of his predecessor’s education reform, he hardly touched the academic part of the plan.  Much of that is due to the role Common Core plays in the new standards.  Under Strickland, Ohio became one of the 46 states to adopt the Common Core standards for English Language Arts and for Mathematics.  With the adoption of the standards come new computerized exams in those subject areas, developed at a much lower cost than what Ohio was doing alone (for fewer tests!).  Ohio’s continuing membership in Common Core was sealed with the granting of a No Child Left Behind Waiver and Ohio’s winning of a Race to the Top grant.  What you may not realize is that part of the new standards is already here and has been taught for the last year.  School districts across the state began teaching the new standards in grades K – 2 last school year.  There is no testing in those grades (may that never happen!), but last year’s kindergartners will be in the third grade when the new exams start in 2015.  Grades 11 and 12 are also free to implement Common Core, since they are not currently tested either (that also changes when end-of-course exams begin for high school courses in 2015).  So this issue that has been outside of the mainstream is already well on its way to full implementation with 25% of Ohio students learning under its standards already.  Yet you probably haven’t heard much about it in the mainstream media and won’t hear much more for at least another year.  Go figure.

Leaving “No Child” Behind

At the beginning of the school year, I listed my top three Ohio stories for the coming year.  The last of which was the question of whether or not Ohio was going apply for a waiver from No Child Left Behind.  When I updated the stories with my mid-term report, I wondered whether it was worth it to take the waiver deal knowing that the law will most likely get changed before 2014 anyway.

Time to stop wondering.  Ohio is going forward with a waiver application.

Of the three stated goals of Ohio’s application, the most laudable is the goal of closing achievement gaps between ethnic subgroups.  Unfortunately, in my six years of teaching so far I have taught exactly two Asian, two African-Americans, and no Latino students.  The effect of this goal on my school district could only be measured in relation to other schools, and how we bring our predominately white student body up to the level of the Asian subgroup that is in the lead.  What are not mentioned is what will happen with the students with a socioeconomic disadvantage, which makes up more than a third of our student population, and students with special needs.  I can’t imagine that those achievement gaps are not going to be addressed in the application.  The general idea of every student have the right to a quality education looks like it will be upheld at least on the surface.

The other two stated goals I am less enthusiastic about.  Taking away options for students in struggling schools does not make sense to me.  It sounds more like a bone being thrown to the Ohio Education Association.  The loss of the free tutoring was probably going to happen anyway, because as the Dispatch has noted, there had been some problems with the services anyway.  The changing of the grading system to letter grades is also not a huge deal, either, except for the promise by State Superintendent Heffner that there will be fewer A’s.

Many of the points of the application already fit in with Ohio’s Race to the Top program.  So, it looks like the Ohio Department of Education saw the waiver application as the next logical step.  That is good as far as it goes, but the Obama Administration has been notorious for hidden details, such as what we see in Obamacare.  The fact also remains that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the official name for No Child Left Behind) will be changed in 2013, regardless of whether Barack Obama is still the 44th president or Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum have become the 45th president.  The political parties are too close together in their philosophy, making this a nice piece of low-hanging fruit for the next Congress.  In light of these facts and the flaws of NCLB, smarter people than me like Mike Petrilli have wondered if the waiver process is worth it.  Then there is the open question as to whether this is even legal.

Ohio is well on its way to taking Arne Duncan’s deal.  Now, we’ll find out if the deal is actually a good one or not.

 

Standard Bearing

While it has been a couple of weeks since he made these remarks, I think what Ohio superintendent Stan Heffner said does warrant some notice.  In some respects his words are tough to swallow, especially in a district like mine which earned an Excellent with Distinction rating (equivalent to an A+) for the first time in its history this past year.  Yet when I look at the data he quoted in his speech on December 6 to the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, I can see why he said it.  If you have one set of standards that say more than half of your schools are A or A+ quality schools, and you have another set of standards saying that your schools are failing, and in some cases miserably, to get elementary students to read at grade level or to prepare high school students for college, then either your good set is too easy or the bad set is too hard.  Considering the large volume of data going well beyond what Mr. Heffner alluded to, the consensus would seem to be that the state standards are too easy.

What’s interesting is his answer to that is to expedite the standards revision from the Strickland Administration.  The funding model that went with it is being scrapped (however the process has hit some snags), but the content portion has by all appearances been left untouched by Mr. Heffner and Governor Kasich.  It may be the only thing Governor Kasich hasn’t touched in his first year in office.  The main points of this reform include:

• Adoption of Common Core Standards for reading and math at all grade levels.
• Expansion of testing to include end of course exams for core high school courses
• Require all students to take the ACT
• Implementing a new teacher evaluation program that has student test results as at least 50% of the evaluation.

This is all supposed to be in place by the fall of 2014.  In the meantime school districts have a balancing act to make as they continue to bear the burden of the current system.  They are still responsible for the current standards as the current assessments will continue for another two years, and then have to flip a switch and be ready for the new system for 2014-2015.  (Grades K-2 actually start on the new standards immediately as well as high school courses for grades 11 and 12.)  The question that hangs over everyone in Ohio, then is this one.  What happens if we find out these standards are also too easy? That question will undoubtedly be left for Governor Kasich’s successor.