Emboldened and empowered by newly elected Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, efforts to dismantle New Mexico’s many strong education policies are now underway. Last week, as the state’s legislative session ended, lawmakers took their first big step in rolling back years of laudable progress made by former education secretaries Hanna Skandera and Christopher Ruszkowski and many others. They passed a bill that, when signed by the governor, will scrap New Mexico’s great A–F school rating system and replace it with a series of “text labels” designed to obfuscate school performance.

Implementing this law will be a big mistake that will harm New Mexico’s most vulnerable students.

ESSA requires states to annually identify their lowest performing schools, which are then subject to intervention. There is no explicit mandate, however, to assign ratings to schools beyond those identified for intervention and those not. States that publish A–F grades and the like are choosing to do so voluntarily.

Nevertheless, in a 2017 analysis, Mike Petrilli and I found that thirty-five states, including New Mexico, took it upon themselves to create easy-to-understand annual school ratings. And for good reason. A–F grades, five-star systems, and user-friendly numerical models provide clear signals to parents, citizens, and educators about the quality of a school and can nudge systems toward improvement.

Other models fall short of this standard. Text labels that are easy to understand have some merit, but these often fail to communicate clearly. And systems that offer numerous data points with no bottom line (for example, “data dashboards”) or that employ murky text labels do neither. They’re Orwellian and keep interested parties in the dark about current school quality.

Sadly, New Mexico’s new school ratings will fall into the lattermost category—ruining one of the best systems in the country and turning it into one of the worst. Taking the place of intuitive letter grades would be the following five categories:

• Targeted Support School
• Comprehensive Support School
• More Rigorous Intervention School
• New Mexico Spotlight School
• Traditional Support School

I listed these in a random order—and did so intentionally. Which label is best? Which is worst? It is of course impossible to tell. New Mexico has branded these “spotlight” designations, which as my colleague Dale Chu quipped recently, is grimly ironic.

In that same essay, Dale shares an illuminating anecdote about his time as a state assistant superintendent:

When I was in Indiana, we inherited an equally enigmatic word salad system. Try sorting these correctly: Academic Watch; Academic Progress; Commendable Progress; Academic Probation; Exemplary Progress. At the public hearing we held prior to switching to an A–F system, a local superintendent testified that the jargon-filled approach was preferable precisely because it was more difficult for parents and other key stakeholders to understand!

The change in New Mexico will have similar effects: Parents will have a harder time determining which schools are good and which are bad. Administrators of bad programs will have an easier time escaping blame, while those at strong ones will find it difficult to get the recognition they deserve. And students will suffer—languishing in poorly performing schools through no fault of their own.

New Mexico has long had some of the worst student outcomes in America. Over a period of eight years, leaders toiled to pass reforms that positioned New Mexico to finally give its students the schools they deserve. The state’s new leadership wants to reverse and roll back all of this progress, and this is merely the beginning. They also plan retreat on teacher quality, school turnarounds, testing, and charter schools.

It’s important that these reversals are not successful.

Running a charter school involves more than an independent leader and an alternative learning atmosphere for students—charter quality is supported by several layers of oversight and supervision, even before schools open their doors. The application and approval process, or the “charter school pipeline,” is facilitated by state and local authorizers, who review the goals and strategies of each new proposed school and regularly check in on the progress of existing schools. To better understand the environment authorizers face, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) recently conducted a study of thousands of recent charter school applications, examining those that were approved and those that weren’t.

Researchers collected nearly 3,000 charter school applications from authorizers and state departments of education in twenty states over a five-year period (fall 2013–spring 2018), a number which includes appeals and reapplications from operators whose proposals were initially denied. While the sample does not include every charter application, the participating authorizers oversee 81 percent of all existing charter schools in these states. They then coded each application across 180 different variables, including school type, features, applicant characteristics, and more.

Their findings highlight the diversity in charter school models both within states and between states. Across nineteen different school models, ranging from military to international to special education, approval rates vary widely. The Diverse by Design (consciously promoting diversity, inclusion, and cultural awareness) and Classical (or liberal arts) models see approval rates around 60 percent, while less than a quarter of Gifted and Single Sex models get approved. Different models are often more or less popular in particular regions—for example, 33 percent of applications in Washington, D.C., were for Hybrid models (combination online and in person), while authorizers in Connecticut and Maryland received no Hybrid applications. One universal trend is that the No Excuses model (high expectations, strict behavioral codes) has become less popular, dropping in both number of proposals and approval rate since 2013.

NACSA’s report also identifies a shift in the types of operators proposing new charters. Over the last five years, the proportion of applications from for-profit operators (Education Management Organizations, or EMOs) have decreased by half, from 21 percent to just 10 percent. Non-profits (Charter Management Organizations, or CMOs) and unaffiliated operators each gained 5 percent of the share of applications as a result. But at the same time, 61 percent of approved schools were under the auspices of CMOs or EMOs.

Additionally, the majority of applications did not identify any external financial support—a commitment of at least $50,000 from incubators, philanthropists, or community partnerships. Those that had such backing enjoyed a much higher approval rate (up to 56 percent, compared to an average of 38 percent without any support).

The authors draw some important implications for charter school authorizers based on these findings. Perhaps most importantly, they stress that authorizers should ensure they have the capacity to review proposals for many different school models; the broad spread in approval rates may imply that authorizers are more comfortable with and likely to approve some types more than others. Second, they encourage authorizers to play an active role in the community by listening to the needs and desires of families, shepherding potential new schools through the approval process, and fostering connections between new schools and philanthropists or community leaders.

This report does not examine the quality of any of these applications; doing so would provide a great deal more information about the landscape authorizers face and some insight into why proposals for certain models or operators are less “successful” than others. Still, NACSA’s overview of recent trends in the charter school pipeline is a valuable start in what the researchers call our “north star”: “Creating more great schools for children.”

SOURCE: “Reinvigorating the Pipeline: Insights Into Proposed and Approved Charter Schools,” The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (March 2019).

Decades of research show increases in teacher diversity, encouraging for a profession that’s long been disproportionately white and female. But some recent entries have undermined this trend by suggesting that millennial teachers are becoming less diverse relative to America’s workforce. In a new study, Brookings researchers Michael Hanson and Diane Quintero look at these issues by examining how diversity has fluctuated with age across three generations.

They analyzed six sets of American Community Survey results between 1990 and 2015. Teachers were then grouped into one of three generations determined by their birth year: baby boomers (born 1946–64), Generation Xers (born 1965–79), and millennials (born 1980–96). They calculated the percentage of nonwhite teachers and the percentage of nonwhite full-time college-educated workers for each generation, and how that percentage changed as individuals in each generation aged and more diverse teachers entered the workforce later in their lives and careers.

Hanson and Quintero find that, yes, millennial teachers are less diverse than Generation Xers, but also that this may be because millennials are still very young. Their data show that the diversity of the teacher workforce increases as it ages, regardless of generation. In other words, young educators are less diverse than old ones. This is in part caused by nonwhite teachers enter the field later, on average, than their white counterparts: 29.8 and 28.4 years of age, respectively. Hanson and Quintero speculate that this might be caused in part by nonwhite teachers being more likely to enter the profession through alternate certification programs rather than traditional teacher preparatory programs. Diversity peaks in the late 30s and 40s, yet the oldest millennial teacher is just thirty-nine. Diversity among Gen Xers educators trended similarly.

However students and the college-educated workforce are becoming more diverse more rapidly than teachers. A previous Brookings report found that in 2060 white children will make up only 34 percent of the student body. Closing the racial gap in that time would require around one million white teachers to leave the profession and for 600,000 Hispanic and 300,000 black teachers to replace them. And compared to all college-graduated full-time workers, Hansen and Quintero observe that the proportion of white teachers are more than 10 percentage points higher than the proportion in other field. This gap is considerably larger than it was for baby boomers and Gen Xers, which were 7 and 3 percentage points, respectively. 

These findings are concerning, at best, especially given the ample evidence that same-race teachers boost the outcomes of minority students. States, districts, and teacher-training programs should therefore look for ways to recruit, hire, and retain more high-quality educators of color. Other industries are doing it. Why can’t education?

SOURCE: Michael Hansen and Diana Quintero, “The Diversity Gap for Public School Teachers Is Actually Growing across Generations,” Brookings Institution (March 2019).

One of the talking points in the never-ending debate over what Ohio students should have to achieve to graduate centers on personalization. The Ohio Department of Education even released a statement last fall saying that “schools will have the flexibility to support their students’ passions” under the state board’s recommended graduation requirements. But, tempting as it may be, the goal of personalization shouldn’t be accomplished by undermining the assessment system. That fails the equity test that asserts that all students, no matter their interests or backgrounds, need to exit high school with the competencies necessary for adult success.

Still, within certain confines, allowing high school students to tailor their education to individual needs and interests is a worthy goal. What can be done to allow for more customization? The answer lies not in undoing assessments, but rather in state course requirements. Though they haven’t been subject to much debate, slimming them down would create more opportunities for young people to customize their education in ways that don’t compromise standards.

Current course requirements

To graduate high school, state law requires students to earn at least twenty course credits, a.k.a. “units,” which are defined as 120 hours of instruction—essentially, a year-long course.[1] Among these credits, students must complete four credits in both English and math; three credits in both science and social studies; five electives chosen from a variety of areas; and one-half credit in both health and physical education.[2] Save for various exceptions, statute also prescribes specific courses in most content-areas.[3] For example, within social studies, students must take 0.5 credits of both U.S. history and U.S. government, and starting with the class of 2021, 0.5 credits of world history and civilizations. State law also requires instruction in economics and financial literacy in the other social studies courses, though no “unit” requirement is given for these topics.

That’s a mouthful. So let’s see how these requirements play out in a student schedule. The table below presents a conventional seven-period day, assuming that an eighth period is used for lunch or study hall. For the sake of illustration, this hypothetical student is interested in a technical career and wants to dive deep into courses in the IT field. He also loves playing in the school orchestra and, during his senior year, hears about a terrific work-based learning opportunity with a local employer.

Table 1 shows what his schedule might look like. You’ll notice that there isn’t much room to go beyond the state-required courses, especially given the work-based learning opportunity. He also faces some tough choices. For instance, should he sacrifice a fourth year of Spanish—perhaps working towards fluency—or take another IT course such as computer programming? And what to do about orchestra?

Table 1: An illustration of a student schedule with current state-required courses highlighted

* Indicates a state end-of-course exam associated with the course. † Indicates a course is used to meet the state’s elective requirement.

A scaled back version of course requirements

Now let’s see what this student’s schedule might look like under leaner requirements. Under this framework, the state would only require the following: four credits of English, three credits of math, and two credits each of social studies and science. This would allow for the type of schedule displayed in table 2. By carefully removing a few state-required courses, totaling four credits, the course-taking possibilities open considerably. Our hypothetical student now has room for two additional career-oriented courses—in IT, perhaps, or another field that piques his interest—and he doesn’t have to sacrifice orchestra in his senior year.

Table 2: An illustration of a student schedule with proposed state-required courses highlighted

Thinking about benefits and costs

If lawmakers pared down state-required courses, it would leave more time for high school students to pursue what interests them. This could benefit young people who might be more inspired to learn in courses that have more purpose and relevance to them. More specialized coursework could also solidify students’ math and literacy skills when they’re applied in other settings. It might also help to curb dropout rates. Last, while the example above focuses on a career-technical student, high achievers could also benefit from the enhanced flexibility. For instance, one could imagine an exceptionally gifted writer who gains little from the third state-required science course and would benefit more by loading up on literature and humanities courses. And though it wouldn’t require a statutory change, another possible way to open up the schedules of high achievers is for schools to more strongly encourage them to take required courses while in middle school.

But concerns may also be raised. Students could use these newfound flexibilities in ways that don’t ensure a solid foundation in core academic areas. But that risk is ameliorated so long as Ohio maintains a robust assessment system that holds students accountable for meeting targets on end-of-course exams. In a somewhat similar vein, some analysts have suggested that states match requirements with the coursework expectations of flagship state universities. Shifting to a more bare-bones approach is not likely to guarantee such alignment. But a few things should be noted. First, Ohio’s current requirements don’t match every college’s expectations. For example, Ohio State University seeks two years of foreign language, and no such requirement exists for graduation. Second, while high school graduation standards should indeed be aligned to college and career readiness, they need not match those of top universities that a relatively small proportion of students attend. Third, any change in state minimum course requirements should continue to ensure that any student meeting them can gain admission into a two-year or technical college. Fourth, Ohio should maintain more stringent English and math course requirements—and assessments, too—so that students attending any type of college don’t end up in remediation.

* * *

Every student should exit high school competent in English, math, and citizenship. For those pursuing jobs right after high school, they also need to leave with technical skills that allow them to advance in their careers. Yet how students achieve these skills should be less prescriptive, allowing for more customization and flexibility. The quest for more personalization is commendable. We just need to start looking for those opportunities in the right places.

[1] State law provides for a competency-based approach to awarding credits, rather than a “seat time” determination.

[2] The half-credit physical education requirement is oddly defined as 120 hours in state law. Provided local board approval, students can meet this requirement via athletics, marching band, or JROTC.

[3] Examples of exceptions include an option for career-tech students to forgo Algebra II and take another math course. Based on parental consent, students in the classes of 2014–19 may meet alternative course requirements—though in practice, less than 1 percent of graduates use this option.

1. “Deterioration”? “Goosebumps”? Seriously, you guys? These ridiculous and meaningless scare words were used by actual legislators in discussing Ohio’s academic distress paradigm in an open forum. They were discussing a new bill to put a moratorium on the existing practice of sanctioning perpetually underperforming school districts yesterday. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/19/19) The sponsors of that new bill were also on the radio yesterday morning pleading their case to an extremely sympathetic audience of one: the host. I shouldn’t even have started listening when I saw that the name of the show—All Sides—was a giant honking misnomer for this segment (again), but I did. I finally stopped when the legislators showed their true colors and swept all accountability—including the testing and school report cards which underpin the academic distress paradigm—into one heap destined for the trash can marked “Threats to the Status Quo”. (WOSU-FM, Columbus, 3/19/19) In case you want to see the “deterioration” they were talking about, you can get a decent taste of it from this summary of yesterday’s meeting of the Lorain Academic Distress Commission. The only deterioration I am detecting is the descent of so-called adults into behavior that would embarrass even the most truculent toddler. Such actions of willful chaos should not be rewarded. (The Morning Journal, 3/19/19) 
2. We learned last week that Dayton City Schools has a lot of money. That includes a multi-million dollar surplus for this school year—over and above hundreds of millions in already-budgeted expenses—that the school board is still looking for ways to spend down. And the options are, apparently, limitless. Perhaps with that fact fresh in my mind, I regrettably did not register a great amount of enthusiasm for this latest news: Learn to Earn Dayton just got a $1 million grant (seems small in comparison) over three years (divide that by 3) to help schools in Dayton and Huber Heights (divide each of those 3 by 2 = drop in the bucket) to “expand academic support for students, community partnerships and parent involvement” (couldn’t the district use a fraction of their surplus for this?). But who am I to argue with Learn to Earn or Mark Zuckerberg? Congrats to everyone. (Dayton Daily News, 3/19/19)

3. I believe this is what is known as a “turn up for the books” (look it up): Well-known supporter of interdistrict open enrollment Ron Iarussi (look that up too), has a problem on his hands. The new-ish supe of Marion City Schools has an influx of local residents with Kindergarten-age children as well as a steady stream of Kindergartners arriving via open enrollment from other districts. I guess it’s a good problem to have, but it sounds like something may have to give. (Marion Star, 3/19/19)

4. Finally today, from the Mixed Bag Department, a bill proposing a slate of changes to career and technical education in Ohio received its first hearing yesterday in the Senate Education Committee. Let’s see how it goes, shall we? (Gongwer Ohio, 3/19/19)

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At their March meeting, the State Board of Education voted to send its proposal for a new set of high school graduation requirements to the Ohio General Assembly for consideration. The board’s original proposal was unveiled last fall, but the final version sent to legislators is slightly different. For instance, the latest version includes assurances that the board will establish “quality-control mechanisms” for non-standardized assessments. These were added because members of Ohio’s business community—who were invited to share their thoughts on the proposal thanks to a mandate handed down by the legislature—expressed serious concerns about the rigor of the board’s proposal.

Business leaders are right to worry. In fact, it should worry quality and equity advocates of all backgrounds that this proposal has been sent to legislators. Even with bureaucratic additions put in place to address business leaders’ concerns, the state board’s proposal has some serious flaws regarding comparability, reliability, and objectivity. The sheer number of options available to students puts an enormous burden on teachers and schools. And without a far better data collection system, this plan will be extremely difficult to implement well.

Thankfully, the board’s proposal isn’t the only one out there. Ohio Excels, a non-profit coalition of business leaders dedicated to improving education in Ohio, recently released its own graduation proposal. It focuses on four key principles: early identification of students who are at risk of not graduating on time; meaningful and research-based supports, interventions, and resources for students and teachers; consistent and externally-verified measurements; and clear timelines and better data collection.

Under the Ohio Excels proposal, students would select one of four pathways to graduate:

Option 1: Ohio state tests

To complete this pathway, students must do two things: Earn eighteen out of thirty-five points on seven end-of-course (EOC) exams and achieve proficiency on at least one English and one math test. Although the state’s original pathways allowed students to earn eighteen EOC points and graduate, requiring proficiency on at least one English and one math test is new; under the original framework, it was mathematically possible for a student to fall short of proficiency on all four math and English EOCs and still earn enough points to graduate. Requiring proficiency is a high expectation, but it’s also an important one: Too many students are forced to take remedial courses when they get to college, and too many employers are struggling to find qualified candidates to fill open jobs. If the state fails to ensure that students are competent in English and math, these numbers will continue to rise.

Option 2: College and career readiness tests

Students can graduate based on college and career readiness by completing one of the following:

• Earn remediation-free scores in math and English on the ACT or SAT

• Earn three or more College Credit Plus credits at any time during high school in core subjects

• Earn credit for an Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) course and earn an AP exam score of three or higher or an IB exam score of four or higher at any time during high school

• Earn a WorkKeys exam score of four on each of three test sections

These criteria should look familiar, as they include the ACT/SAT pathway in the state’s “original” three graduation pathways, along with the more rigorous options included in the alternatives for the classes of 2018–20, such as AP and dual enrollment. The only major difference is that the score needed for each section of the WorkKeys exam has been raised from three to four.

Option 3: Career experience and technical competency

This pathway is designed with career-technical education (CTE) students in mind. The requirements are a little more complicated than the others. Students must complete one foundational demonstration and one additional demonstration, which can be either a foundational or a supporting one. The options include:

• Foundational Demonstration: Earn a total score of proficient or better on career-technical exams (called WebXam in Ohio) in at least four courses in a single career pathway

• Foundational Demonstration: Earn an industry-recognized credential or credentials that equal twelve points

• Foundational Demonstration: Complete a pre-apprenticeship or earn acceptance into an apprenticeship program in the student’s career field

• Supporting Demonstration: Complete a workplace experience totaling 250 hours with evidence of positive evaluations

• Supporting Demonstration: Earn an OhioMeansJobs Readiness Seal

Some of these options appear in the state board’s updated proposal. But the structure of the requirement recommended by Ohio Excels makes it more rigorous and more likely to produce prepared graduates. For example, the state board’s proposal allows students to graduate by scoring proficient on WebXam tests that measure math and reading knowledge. But the WebXam system was designed specifically for CTE programs. The assessments are aligned to Ohio’s career-field technical content standards and are meant to cover material from CTE courses in specific career fields and pathways. That’s why, unlike the state board, Ohio Excels recognizes the link between WebXams and career pathways. It also raises the bar so that students must be proficient in multiple courses.

Option 4: Military readiness

The state board proposal allows students to satisfy English and math graduation requirements by using ASVAB verbal and math skills tests. That’s a good concept since the exams are a determining factor for whether someone can serve in the military. However, the state board’s proposal doesn’t put any parameters at all around ASVAB use. The Ohio Excels proposal, on the other hand, requires that students earn a score that would allow them to enter any service branch. This score is set by a third party—the military—and not the state, offering a critical independent verification of rigor. And importantly, the proposal ensures that students who use this pathway to graduate actually intend to serve in the military; to graduate, students must earn a qualifying score on the ASVAB and enter into a contract to enlist.

***

The graduation pathways proposed by Ohio Excels are far superior to what’s been proposed by the state board. Not only are they objective, comparable, and reliable, they require students to demonstrate academic mastery in ways that can be independently verified. The fact that these pathways have been proposed by leaders in Ohio’s business community should not be ignored. These are the same leaders who are looking to hire Ohio graduates, and they have an interest in making sure that students are well-prepared. The General Assembly would be wise to consider their ideas.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: National education reform is in a tough patch, what with the emboldened teachers unions playing offense, a supportive but unpopular education secretary being used as a bogeyman, and internecine squabbles dominating the debate. Yet outside the deep-blue bubbles on the coasts, good things are still happening for kids. This week’s best example comes from Colorado.

A headline from the Fort Collins Coloradoan sums it up: “Colorado’s state-approved charter schools will get to keep funding after Kipp bill fails.” Yet the victory goes well beyond the $10 million or so at play.

First some background. In 2017, Colorado became one of the first states to require local school districts to share local tax revenue with their charters. The bill also created a fund to backfill missing local revenues for charter schools authorized by the state. This was the culmination of years of electoral and policy work. It was the marquee controversy at the legislature that year, regardless of issue area, and the bill represented a major bipartisan compromise. Not surprisingly, the traditional status quo education groups were apoplectic.

Fast-forward to 2019: This is the first legislative session in recent cycles in which Democrats have a trifecta: both houses of the legislature, plus the governor’s mansion. This shift has empowered reform opponents within the Democratic caucus, and they wasted no time trying to undo Colorado’s progress on charter funding equity. Taking the lead was Rep. Cathy Kipp, a local school board member who was appointed to the legislature via a vacancy committee. Her bill, HB-1190, would have repealed the money for state-authorized charters. This not only was terrible policy but was viewed by observers as a litmus test for the fate of charters in the new political environment.

Thankfully, the bipartisan reform coalition kicked into high gear, with key organizations working their respective audiences. For instance, ReadyCO, a conservative school reform group, provided briefing materials to Republican members of the education committee that helped the bill’s hearing stay on point. The Colorado League of Charter Schools lined up the perfect testimony, and Democrats for Education Reform engaged its side. The result was a resounding 12-1 defeat that had importance well beyond the bill being debated—it sent the clear message that charter schools, and equitable charter funding, are here to stay.

So what can we take from this experience? First, it really is critical for education reform organizations to have credibility on both sides of the aisle—which makes the new analysis from Jay Greene and Rick Hess showing the movement’s “deep blue hue” all the more concerning. Given today’s polarized environment, it’s tough for a single organization to be able to talk to both Republicans and Democrats—so reform-friendly funders in purple states need to be willing to support multiple groups, as they do in Colorado.

Second, as former Florida governor Jeb Bush likes to say, “Success is never final, reform is never finished.” If we want to make progress for kids, it’s not enough to get policies enacted. They must also be implemented, and protected. This, too, has implications for funders, who need to continue to support advocacy efforts over the long term unless they want to see their prior investments undone.

In that spirit, we will demur from declaring “mission accomplished.” Opponents of reform will be back, again and again, to try to impede educational progress. We will be ready, and we will resist.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in a slightly different form in The 74.

Editor’s Note: Back in September 2018, awaiting the election of our next governor, we at the Fordham Institute began developing a set of policy proposals that we believe can lead to increased achievement and greater opportunities for Ohio students. This is one of those policy proposals.

With Mike DeWine sworn in as Ohio’s 70th governor, and with his administration now well underway, we are proud to roll out the full set of our education policy proposals. You can download the full document, titled Fulfilling the Readiness Promise: Twenty-five education policy ideas for Ohio, at this link, or you can access the individual policy proposals from the links provided here.

Proposal: Phase out caps and guarantees and instead transition all districts to funding based on the formula set in statute.

Background: The state funding formula is intended to impartially and efficiently allocate state aid to districts with the greatest needs—whether that is expanding student populations, a greater number of students with special needs, or less capacity to raise funds through local taxes. Yet two policies—caps and guarantees—continue to undermine and distort the funding formula. Caps place an arbitrary limit on how much districts’ state funding can increase from year to year, even as the formula prescribes such increases. Current policy generally limits state funding increases to 3 percent versus the prior year (with exceptions that can lift the cap to 6 percent). Guarantees are the reverse: they shield districts from losing state funding, even when the formula dictates lesser amounts. Under current policy for FY 2018 and 2019, Ohio guarantees districts at least the same amount of state aid as received in FY 2017—with certain exceptions in which they can experience modest reductions. As table 2 shows, caps and guarantees create a fractured system in which some districts receive less than what the formula prescribes (that is, they suffer from the cap); others receive the exact formula stipulation; and still others receive more than prescribed (that is, they get a windfall from the guarantee). Over the past three years, caps have withheld roughly $500 million per year in state funds, while guarantees provide funds outside of the formula in amounts of about $100 to $200 million per year.

Table 2: Ohio’s funding caps and guarantees, FY 2016–18

​

Source: ODE, Traditional School Districts Funding (FY 2016, Final #4 Payment File; FY 2017, Final #3 Payment File; FY 2018, April #1 Payment File).

Proposal rationale: Caps and guarantees undermine the state’s own funding formula, create an incoherent funding system that treats districts differently, add complexity, and render state funding amounts less predictable for districts, as these policies are a recurrent part of the budget debate. Because caps and guarantees distort districts’ funding amounts, lawmakers have only a hazy picture of how the funding formula actually allocates state aid, impeding adjustments that may improve its functionality. Most troubling, however, is that the continuing use of these policies fails to adhere to principles of student-centered funding: capped districts are denied additional aid, even as they serve more pupils (or more harder-to-serve children), while guaranteed districts are provided dollars to educate students no longer in their schools—”phantom students.”

Cost: To phase out caps, Ohio should allocate sufficient funds, $100 to $150 million per year, to remove them over the next four to six years. Eliminating guarantees would save the state money, but doing so in one swoop would generate opposition from affected districts. Gradually moving districts off the guarantee in a predictable way would allow the state to offset some of the costs of lifting the cap, while also providing districts on the guarantee time to adjust.

Resources: For discussion on cap and guarantee policies, see A Formula That Works: Five Ways to Strengthen School Funding in Ohio, a 2017 report written by Bellwether Education Partners’ Jennifer Schiess and colleagues and published by the Fordham Institute. For more on the problems of guarantee funding, see Jon Fullerton and Marguerite Roza’s article “Funding Phantom Students,” published in Education Next (2013). For a local view on these policies, see Thomas Gallick’s article “The Big Short: Districts Lament Funding Cap,” published in This Week Community News (2018). And for a description of current cap-and-guarantee policies, see Ohio Legislative Service Commission’s “Greenbook: Analysis of Enacted Budget” (2017).

1. As you may have heard, Governor DeWine released his first biennial budget on Friday. Our own Chad Aldis is among the voices commenting on K-12 provisions contained therein. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/15/19) 
2. With what I consider some backward logic, editors in Canton opined against Ohio’s academic distress paradigm. (Canton Repository, 3/17/19)

3. Finally today, another Catholic school in Ohio is slated to close at the end of this school year due to declining enrollment and other financial concerns. This one had only been in operation for 145 years. Why yes, they did accept students on Ohio voucher programs. Why do you ask? (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/16/19)

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Each year, teacher candidates across the nation take licensing exams designed to check their mastery of pedagogy and of content knowledge. Though each state selects its own licensing tests, the Praxis Elementary Education: Multiple Subjects assessment, created by the Education Testing Service (ETS), is the most widely used elementary content exam. It’s required in eighteen states and optional in five others.

In a new report, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) examines never-before published data from ETS to identify initial and final passing rates for this exam. Teaching candidates are required to separately pass each of the four content area subtests: reading/language arts, math, science, and social studies. Only 46 percent of candidates passed all four subjects on their first attempt, which the report authors flag as being very low. In comparison, initial passing rate for licensure exams in other professions with a reputation for difficult entry exams is much higher: 69 percent for lawyers, 85 percent for nurses, and 90 percent for doctors of internal medicine. The final pass rate for the Praxis exam is higher—72 percent—but that doesn’t take into account the time and cost of retakes.

A demographic breakdown of final pass rates also reveals significant gaps between candidates of color and their white peers. While 75 percent of white candidates go on to pass all four subjects, only 57 percent of Hispanic candidates and 38 percent of Black candidates do the same. There are similar gaps in passage rates for each of the subtests. Based on these results, and assuming similarly disparate pass rates for the other tests used by all states, NCTQ estimates that approximately 8,600 candidates of color each year likely do not qualify to teach based on low test performance. Given research that shows students benefit from having teachers of the same race, it should worry policymakers and advocates that so many candidates of color are failing licensure exams.

But why are so many candidates—more than half overall—struggling so mightily to pass their licensing tests on their first try? There are a variety of issues at play, but a lack of alignment between how candidates are prepared and what they need to know to pass licensing tests could be a significant factor. NCTQ claims that elementary teachers need to master at least eleven core topics in four content areas to be prepared to meet teaching requirements. But based on data collected from undergraduate elementary teacher preparation programs at 817 institutions that account for 71 percent of such programs in the nation, they find that each on average covers just three of those eleven topics.

Another part of the problem is that too few undergraduate teacher preparation programs identify candidates’ knowledge gaps early enough. Most require candidates to be formally admitted, typically before a candidate’s junior year of college. Screening candidates prior to admittance would allow universities to address gaps in candidate knowledge by requiring additional coursework. Unfortunately, only 4 percent of the 817 programs screen candidate knowledge in at least one area.

Most institutions also do very little to ensure that the general education courses taken by candidates are relevant to both the licensing test and the daily demands of being an elementary teacher. While the parameters of some programs are too narrow (i.e., a history course that only focuses on one decade in American history), others are too broad (such as a course that covers multiple scientific disciplines in one semester), and still others focus on pedagogy rather than content.

To make matters worse, data reporting practices are also suspect. NCTQ notes that many teacher preparation programs only publicly report passing rates for completers—candidates who have finished their coursework and passed the appropriate licensing exams. This gives the public a skewed view of how many test-takers pass on their first attempt, and explains why the rates reported by programs are so much higher than the data provided in this report.

The authors are careful to note that they can’t prove the correlation between coursework and pass rates. They also point out that strengthening college course requirements isn’t a silver bullet, and that the fault for candidates’ gaps in content knowledge lies with the “inequitable or uneven” K–12 education sector and not teacher preparation programs. Nevertheless, they are “confident that requiring meaningful exposure to relevant content” during teacher training will be a key element of diversifying and strengthening the teacher workforce moving forward.

The report closes by offering a series of recommendations to both teacher preparation programs and state policymakers. These include using admissions processes to identify candidates’ weaknesses in content knowledge, aligning content course requirements with what elementary teachers need to know, and holding preparation programs accountable for low pass rates rather than abandoning licensing tests all together.

SOURCE: Hannah Putman, Kate Walsh, “A Fair Chance: Simple steps to strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce,” National Council on Teacher Quality (February 2019).