Buckeye state policymakers are currently mulling over recommendations from Achieve, Inc. to create a "world-class education system in Ohio" (see here). As we have a new governor and many new lawmakers, it may be worth reminding our state leaders that this isn't the first time Achieve has made recommendations for reforming Ohio's public education system. In fact, there are still lessons to be learned from the first Achieve report.

In March 1999, the governor and state superintendent were new to their jobs and the General Assembly was in its last session before major turnover due to term limits. Achieve released a report to provide these leaders with a candid assessment of Ohio's reform strategy and to identify those components that "must receive high priority if Ohio's ambitious education goals are going to be realized." And, for the most part, leadership stepped up to the plate.

The recommendations that Ohio has adopted from the 1999 report include:

• establishing clear and measurable academic content standards;
• requiring a more rigorous academic curriculum for all students;
• putting in place an accountability system that links curriculum with assessment (although Fordham's report on state proficiency testing, released today, shows that Ohio still has work to do on this front as the state has set the bar far too low on its annual assessments);
• disaggregating student data; and 
• joining the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

It was no small task to make these changes. But for the progress made, one can't help but wonder how much closer we'd be to that "world-class education system" if Ohio had addressed other important issues in the 1999 report:

• Dealing with persistently failing schools. Achieve called on the state to intervene in low-performing schools and even recommended closing schools that were beyond fixing. Ohio is still trying to deal with failing schools-district and charter schools-and it is still struggling to find ways to close persistently failing schools and to find better options for the children in these failed schools.

• Empowering principals. Achieve recognized that principals play a critical role in school improvement and called on the state Department of Education to provide leadership development to principals. Achieve called for school leaders to become "agents of change" for school and student performance and even encouraged them to have some say over school resources. The state has taken small steps toward building principals' capacity and increasing their autonomy but there is still a very long way to go-a sentiment strongly echoed in Achieve's 2007 report.

• Establishing end-of-course exams linked to college entrance requirements. Achieve asserted that linked standards would better motivate university-bound students and would, over time, enable universities to scale back the resources committed to remedial instruction. Consider the money Ohio could save on remedial college coursework if all students graduated truly ready for college. The Ohio Core is a long step in the right direction, but it will not be fully implemented until the graduating class of 2013.

At September's State Board of Education meeting, President Jennifer Sheets made clear that the board's highest priority is looking to Achieve's recommendations and "developing a comprehensive, seamless pre-kindergarten through post-secondary education system." Governor Strickland revealed recently that he would like schools to have a structure giving more authority and autonomy to principals (see here). And by moving the chancellor of the Board of Regents under his control and instituting the University System of Ohio, he has shown that he is not afraid of challenging the status quo.

These leaders have certainly recognized the importance and value of the recommendations put forth by Achieve this year, but they should not lose sight of the unfinished work laid out by Achieve eight years ago.

Here's a question making the rounds of Ohio education policymakers: What's this "PIE Network" we keep hearing about? No, it's not a recipe bank for your favorite blueberry, rhubarb, or apple pie, but rather the Policy Innovation in Education (PIE) Network, a new national, nonpartisan forum for policymakers and civic leaders to access innovative ideas that advance equity and achievement in education.

Four national education organizations launched the PIE Network late last year: the Center for American Progress; the Center for Reinventing Public Education, Education Sector, and the national arm of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Together, these organizations span the ideological spectrum-with officials from the Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations among their leaders. Yet, they find consensus on most of the pressing issues in education. It is the hope of the four organizations that a national network can provide cover for policymakers on both sides of the legislative aisle to forge solutions to our educational problems. It is piloting this idea in five states, including Ohio.

Earlier this year, the PIE Network hosted a daylong symposium in Columbus on education reform in partnership with the Ohio Grantmakers Forum. Last month it held its first national "summit" in Chicago, focusing on transforming low-performing schools. Chicago schools CEO Arne Duncan and former Blair Administration official Sir Michael Barber keynoted the event, which also featured roundtable discussions on teacher quality, school funding and interventions for failing schools.

The PIE Network is now planning its next steps. For more information on the initiative, briefs on some of the most promising innovations in education policy and to sign up for its brand-new newsletter, go to http://www.edpolicyinnovation.net/.

Many students get a little queasy walking into math class so Granville schools are especially happy to have Sue Hoben on the high school teaching staff. Students actually seek out her algebra and trigonometry classes.

"It takes a lot of patience to teach math. It takes hearing it again and again and again. Once you get their confidence up, it's amazing what they can do," the 23-year veteran teacher told The Gadfly. "Kids who walk in thinking they're lousy, walk out thinking, ‘I finally got it.'"

Good teaching is transferable, even to students in the toughest and lowest-achieving districts, said Hoben, who taught in a low-performing district in Michigan early in her career. "Once (students) feel like they can do it, they behave better, they want to do it. That part doesn't have to take a lot of money," she said.

Ohio can learn a lot from the United Kingdom. Both are former industrial powerhouses that are experiencing, firsthand, the pain of a shrinking manufacturing-based economy. Both see education as the key to navigating this change and in preparing all children for success in a globe-spanning knowledge- and innovation-based economy. Sir Michael Barber's book, Instruction to Deliver, offers many helpful insights for educators, policymakers, and lawmakers in the Buckeye State. Barber spent four years in the heart of Tony Blair's government. He played a pivotal role in redesigning the delivery of education in the U.K.

Barber also was the lead author of the recent Achieve, Inc. study "Creating a World-Class Education System in Ohio" (see here) and many of his most important insights are customized for Ohio in that report.

But his book goes further and offers some additional lessons for Ohio. The first is that radical reformers, and often the most successful, many times come from within the establishment. Barber began his career in education working for the National Union of Teachers but broke with the union when it boycotted the National Curriculum (standards) and national testing (accountability) in 1994. Barber lamented, "The union I worked for chose to turn back when it could have led the way forward."

Barber found a powerful ally for his standards and accountability agenda in Tony Blair. He also found a political leader who believed in the power of choice. Barber writes that as early as 1994 Blair made it known that "he would place himself firmly on the side of the consumer rather than the producer."

Barber, and this is another lesson that resonates in Ohio, believes "the central issue of modern politics is how to secure constantly improving performance across the public services-including education-without raising taxes." In short, public policy needs to be about doing more with the same or even less public money. For a state like Ohio, whose populace is getting older and poorer, this is an especially important lesson. Barber would likely add that this is a lesson that the Democrats in Ohio could do much with in their efforts to modernize public services. Labor in the UK, after all, came to power after decades of Conservative Party rule, in part, by taking conservative ideas and implementing them better than the Conservatives.

When it comes to student success, Ohio is kidding itself. Our state's precipitously low academic expectations leave students ill-prepared to compete in the global economy. This is the disturbing conclusion of several major, in-depth assessments of our students' academic performance.

Consider recently released data for Ohio on the Nation's Report Card (2007) that reports the scores for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)-often considered the "gold standard" for what students should know and be able to do in each grade level. There are striking differences between the levels of proficiency on Ohio's annual assessment and the NAEP. In fourth-grade reading, for example, 80 percent of students passed Ohio's Achievement Test but a meager 36 percent passed the national assessment. The findings were similar in fourth-grade math where 76 percent of students passed the Ohio test and only 46 percent passed the national assessment. While we may be performing relatively well on state accountability measures, we are failing to prepare students to meet national standards.

Also, consider recent findings from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's The Proficiency Illusion report released today that ranked the "proficiency cut scores" in 26 states-including the Buckeye State-in reading and math to determine how difficult it is to pass Ohio tests in comparison to other states. (A "proficiency cut score" is the minimum score a student must achieve in order to be considered proficient.) This report found that the difficulty of Ohio's proficiency cut scores in reading and math are generally below the median compared to the 25 other states in the study. In eighth-grade reading, Ohio ranked 21st among the 26 states analyzed and in math we ranked 19^th-with one being highest and 26 lowest. Simply put, we aren't setting the bar for our children at what can reasonably be termed proficient. We are aiming for mediocrity instead of excellence.

Up until now, Ohioans believed that their young people's academic performance was on an upward trajectory. They believed more children were making proficiency each year and they felt proficiency meant something. Unfortunately, it seems that trust may have been misplaced.

And it seems that there has been some finagling with the "cut scores" to determine who passes tests. Under intense political pressure from school districts and others, the Ohio Department of Education has reduced cut scores-particularly in mathematics-when too many students performed poorly. When in doubt, the bar has been lowered.

At the heart of the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB) is the call for all American school children to become "proficient" in reading and mathematics by 2014. Yet NCLB allows each state to craft its own definition of proficiency and to craft the tests that will measure it. And make no mistake, states are feeling serious pressure to meet this goal.

As a result, states-and Ohio is among them-have begun a "race to the middle" by setting low cut scores on less rigorous tests to bulk up the number of students deemed proficient. Thus, schools and school districts escape the embarrassment and sanctions associated with failing to get all children proficient by the federal deadline.

So, what can be done to ensure that Ohio's children are prepared to compete with their peers in California, Connecticut, Canada, and China when applying for colleges and jobs? It's time for a serious discussion about national standards and a national achievement test that ensures that all states are held accountable to the same standards. And that these standards mean something. Local control of schools is a long-cherished American tradition. On this issue, it no longer serves the best interests of the nation's school children, although this is a tough political sell and it will take years to gain traction.

Ohioans, however, can control the expectations we set for students in our state and we ought to seriously consider increasing the rigor required to be considered proficient. Rethinking our cut scores and current assessments and better aligning them with national expectations is a must, even if it means not meeting the expectations of NCLB. At least we will be honest with ourselves and our students about how well they actually are prepared to take on the real world.

See also:

The Proficiency Illusion, authored by the Northwest Evaluation Association and commissioned by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, released October 4, 2007.

"Mind the measure: different yardsticks yield confusing picture of educational progress" from the Columbus Dispatch on Monday, October 1, 2007.

There is no question that an obesity epidemic is running rampant among Ohio school children-nearly 21 percent of Ohio's third graders are overweight. But what role, if any, should schools have in curbing this disturbing trend? There is a bill in the General Assembly that would restrict the sale of certain food and beverages in schools (see here)-pushing for milk, juice, and water-which is sure to irk the soft drink companies and many cash-strapped districts that bring in hundreds of thousand of dollars by signing exclusive contracts with them (see here). Others have successfully lobbied to have the state Board of Education adopt physical education standards by the end of the year, although schools aren't required to adopt them (see here). Now some schools are setting guidelines for party treats, asking parents to send carrots or stickers instead of cupcakes for birthdays (see here). Now if we could just get other schools to stop serving Doritos and Oreo Delight for lunch (see here).

Sugar Bunny of Spokane, Washington once enjoyed a contented life as the pet rabbit in Lori Peters's preschool class at the Community Building Children's Center. Then some animal rights activists apparently had issues with Sugar Bunny's lifestyle--so they stole him. They left, in the cage, fliers that railed against the Ringling Brothers Circus (although not explicitly its magicians), which had recently visited Spokane. The fliers contain mentions of PETA, but the group's spokeswoman, Daphna Nachminovitch, said her organization does not endorse bunny-nabbing, nor does it provide support or succor to bunny thieves. Still, that's little consolation to five-year-old Zion, who deeply misses Sugar Bunny: "Somebody stoled him. I'm sad." Peters encouraged her students to write songs ("We had a little rabbit. His name was Sugar Bunny. Sometimes we took him out and he ran around and sometimes he rested outside....") and draw pictures to remember their beloved friend, but she remains unsure whether they will be able to replace the rabbit. A teachable moment, to be sure.

"Pet rabbit stolen from Spokane preschool, anti-circus fliers left in cage," Associated Press, September 25, 2007

Things are changing at the St. Louis Public Schools. The special administrative board (which now oversees the city's schools; see here) replaced Kenneth Brostron, the district's longtime lawyer. An in-house lawyer--one who is much cheaper than Brostron and his firm--will begin work in October. For the past four years, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Public Schools has spent almost $11 million on legal fees. That's roughly $75 per student per year: twice as much--and in some cases 10 times as much--as what legal fees cost other school districts across the country. Of course, because of overregulation (not to mention our country's litigious culture) school districts are forced to spend huge amounts of precious time and money to protect against potentially devastating lawsuits. St. Louis, though, is a case-study in mismanagement. The real victims are the students. Last year alone, St. Louis Public Schools spent $2.8 million on legal fees but only $236,000 on new library books. Seems like Mound City's new school management won't tolerate such backward priorities.

"Spending millions on legal advice," by David Hunn and Steve Giegerich, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 23, 2007

When Superintendent Paul Vallas left Philadelphia to take over New Orleans' Recovery School District, he wasn't just changing cities--he was also changing worlds. With over 90 percent of the 12,000 students in the New Orleans district mired in poverty, Vallas says his schools must "begin to provide the type of services you would normally expect to be provided at home." This means serving three meals a day, for instance, and providing basic dental and eye care. Such paternalistic measures have been successful so far and helped bring the truancy rate down from 50 percent at the end of last school year to about 15 percent today. Parents, one assumes, finally see some value in getting their children to school. Vallas has managed to find some time for academics, too. He has recruited top-notch teachers, reduced class sizes, and replaced nearly every high-school principal. With local and national governments botching badly the recovery efforts, though, one wonders when Vallas will be able to shift roles from part-time parent to full-time educator. The sooner, of course, the better. 

"A Tamer of Schools Has Plan in New Orleans," by Adam Nossiter, New York Times, September 23, 2007