A bill introduced by Ohio State Representatives Hite and Dubois would make it official state policy for educators, school boards, and administrators to model ethical behavior for students.
Talk about an exercise in bureaucratic redundancy. Despite a few isolated and rare incidents, there doesn't seem to be a major morality crisis among educators in the Buckeye State. (Though it seems??England??has been giving the issue a lot of attention.)
??If passed, the full bill would mandate:
-The establishment of a task force to craft standards for?? professional development of leadership character ethics.
-That an annual statewide summit on leader ship character ethics be held.
-Every educator to complete three hours of professional ethics development annually and create a personal plan to model such characteristics.
-That the Dept of Ed would need to notate on local report cards if a district is in compliance with these requirements.
-The instruction of leadership ethics standards at teacher colleges.
I can think of many other types of coursework needed in teacher colleges other than ethics standards. The current Pathwise/Praxis system utilized by Ohio (and covered extensively in teacher colleges) already addresses proper professional behavior and ethics.
How about mandating courses in data-driven instruction? Advanced statistics for understanding and utilizing such data? Deeper understanding of pedagogy or best practice???
In his testimony before the House Education Committee, Rep Hite did not address, nor was he questioned about, the cost of implementing such legislation. (The annual summit and task force have to bear some cost and the education department would have to collect data on ethics development from each district.) This is a state that can no longer afford social studies assessments, has eliminated state funding for teacher value-added training, and faces at least a $1 billion hole in the current two-year budget but somehow would be expected to cough up cash to pay for these ???character ethics standards'.
Seems like a waste of resources and money in a time when the state can't spare either.