Gov. Strickland needs to make up his mind about what to do with persistently failing schools in Ohio. Most recently, Strickland's position seemed to indicate that closure was out of the question. As Gongwer News Service reported, Strickland referenced the state constitution as his primary justification.
"Gov. Strickland said a failed Senate amendment, that would have applied the same closure standards for both charters and traditional public schools would have violated the constitutional requirement to provide a free education for Ohio's students."I think chronically failing public schools should be reorganized, closed, the leadership should be changed," he said. "So I'm not willing to let public schools off the hook either, but the fact is that it's not possible to actually close a public school because the state is constitutionally required to maintain public schools for the students of our state." (see here for more on this, and Strickland's conversation with Secretary Duncan about charters).
However, it wasn't long ago that Strickland was proposing legislation to shut down entire school districts for non-compliance. During his January State of the State Address, he said, "In short, if a school district fails, we will shut it down." School accountability is one of Strickland's six pillars for reforming Ohio's school system, with "revoking the school district's charter and shutting down the district" listed as the fourth possible consequence for district non-compliance.
Normally, I wouldn't spend a Friday morning pointing out inconsistencies like this, just for spite. But given that one of the five main criteria for winning Race to the Top (RttT) dollars is how well a state can turn around struggling schools (for how Ohio ranks according to the other criteria, see Terry's earlier post), not having a clear stance on what to do with failing schools could put Ohio at a comparative disadvantage. The New Teacher Project (TNTP) just issued a report to help states interpret the RttT guidelines and see how well they fare according to the give criteria. Overall, TNTP considers Ohio to be competitive, but notice where our weakness lies.
Eligibility Requirements | Standards & Assessment | Data to Support Instruction | Great Teachers and Leaders | Turning Around Struggling Schools | |
Ohio | Meets criteria | Meets criteria | Partially meets criteria | Partially meets criteria | Minimally meets or does not meet criteria |
Strickland needs to make up his mind on this, and quickly.
