The ongoing debate on what standards (if any) students in the class of 2019 should have to meet in order to receive a diploma has resulted in very little attention being paid to recent recommendations by the Ohio State Board of Education to change graduation requirements for the classes of 2022 and beyond. In response to clamors for a “long term fix” to graduation standards, the state board has proposed requirements based on criteria such as vaguely defined culminating student experiences (CSEs) that align with concepts of personalized learning—a term used throughout the board’s strategic plan and emphasized in the “each child” part of the plan’s title. The board’s ideas are also reflected in a recent Ohio Department of Education statement supporting the proposal: “Students, with their parents and teachers, will choose how they demonstrate their career, college, or life readiness...with options like an internship, capstone project, or culminating student experience.”

Within limits, it’s perfectly fine to tailor classroom instruction to the needs and interests of individual students. But the application of personalized learning to graduation standards is misguided, especially when viewed through the lens of educational equity—an important concept that the state board affirms as the “greatest imperative and number one principle” in its strategic plan.

Here’s the rub: The concept of equity insists that all students meet a baseline standard. Under equity principles, every young person should graduate possessing the foundational knowledge and skills that are imperative to lifelong success. Yet under state board’s graduation proposal, students would receive diplomas based on standards of widely varying rigor, failing to ensure that everyone who exits high school has demonstrated such competencies. Some would meet the more challenging exam-based and industry-credentialing criteria, while others would receive diplomas under a hodge-podge of subjective criteria, such as CSEs and grade point averages, which are based on different—and likely less stringent—local standards and norms.

The bewildering contradictions of the board’s approach are likely explained by its insufficient definition of equity. Consider how its strategic plan defines equity:

Each child has access to relevant and challenging academic experiences and educational resources necessary for success across race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, family background, and/or income.

The statement appears non-controversial at face value. Who doesn’t want children to have access to “relevant and challenging academic experiences?” But let’s compare its definition with a couple others. Here’s how the Education Trust—one of the nation’s staunchest advocates for equity and led by President Obama’s second secretary of education John King—describes itself:

Fierce advocates for the high academic achievement of all students—particularly those of color or living in poverty.

The wording is important. Notice how EdTrust views equity as “high academic achievement,” not merely “access” to experiences. EdTrust asserts that its equity goal is for all students to achieve at high levels—a results-oriented approach. This is a more forceful stance than the state board, which believes that results don’t matter, as long as students have had the opportunity to achieve. That’s not the same thing as actually knowing how to read, write, and do math at high levels. Educational opportunities alone won’t get young people good-paying jobs or onto college campuses—achievement does.

Clearly, this isn’t a textbook definition. Let’s see how the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines equity.

Equity in education has two dimensions. The first is fairness, which basically means making sure that personal and social circumstances—for example gender, socio-economic status or ethnic origin—should not be an obstacle to achieving educational potential. The second is inclusion, in other words ensuring a basic minimum standard of education for all—for example that everyone should be able to read, write, and do simple arithmetic.

The state board’s definition of equity, which includes language about “access” to educational opportunities regardless of background, mirrors OECD’s “fairness” dimension. But the board falls short on the “inclusion” part. OECD insists that equity means “ensuring a basic minimum standard of education for all.” Under its conceptualization, there must be a standard and it ought to apply to all. OECD goes further, saying that “everyone”—note again the universal language—"should be able to read, write, and do simple arithmetic.” Like EdTrust, OECD affirms that all students can and should achieve the knowledge and skills needed for adult success.

Fortunately, the State Board of Education does not have final say on graduation requirements. Rather, the Ohio legislature would have to pass statutory revisions to enact its proposal. As lawmakers mull it over, they should be deeply disturbed by the board’s flawed approach to educational equity that, under the banner of “personalization,” writes off some students as incapable of reaching the state’s academic or career-technical standards.

It’s true that each and every one of Ohio’s students is a uniquely talented individual. Respecting and cultivating different talents can be accomplished in many ways in K–12 education, including promoting schools of choice, mastery-based learning, and access to specialized coursework. But we must not allow a misguided zeal for personalization to cloud our thinking about equity. All Ohio students, no matter their background, have the innate ability to reach high academic or career-technical standards. Expecting anything less of some students fails the equity test.

More than two-thirds of high schools nationwide offer credit recovery programs, and an average of 6 percent of students participate in them, according to Fordham’s new analysis that uses data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. In some states, the proportion is significantly higher. My own analysis of transcript data from North Carolina, for example, found that one in ten high school students took at least one credit recovery course over the last five years.

What is consistently missing from these data is information about how schools are providing credit recovery. If a student is repeating a course traditionally, there are clear standards for who should be providing that instruction: an educator certified to teach that subject who is employed by the school district. But when the course is online, there is no such national standard for who is providing instruction. Instead, as the Fordham report notes, regulation varies by state. In some, online learning is entirely centralized, such that all courses are created and administered by public entities. Others have no criteria or metrics whatsoever.

States with fewer regulations have been inundated by private corporations that provide credit recovery courses. I have spoken with district and school officials in North Carolina, for example, who report that these companies use aggressive sales and marketing strategies to convince schools to purchase access to their credit recovery courses. With many companies vying for a limited number of contracts, they’re encouraged to cut prices to sign on more schools. The district officials I spoke with acknowledge that the online courses they purchase from private companies are “boring” and rely on multiple-choice assessments, but also that more engaging platforms with higher quality instructional tools cost more.

School districts want to provide their students with effective online programs, yet deciding between the bargain-basement pricing of some providers and the deluxe suite of tools offered by others isn’t as simple as it might seem. Evidence on what constitutes an effective online course for secondary students is nascent, and empirical research on best practices is practically nonexistent. This lack of information makes it unclear whether the more expensive options are worth the cost.

This lack of clarity is partially caused by the design of the current system of administering online courses. By contracting through private providers, school districts typically have inconsistent access to student data and evidence regarding online course management because the companies consider this information proprietary. Compiling intellectual property is more valuable than gathering evidence that schools can use to improve credit recovery courses.

States must therefore pass regulations that compel these companies to disclose this information. One of the essential elements of any strategy to oversee or improve these programs is greatly enhancing the oversight of the providers. All data they collect on students should be shared with schools, and all modules and course material used with students should be archived. This transparency would enable school districts and states to craft their own set of best practices through outcome-monitoring systems designed to independently analyze the companies’ data.

Moreover, as the Fordham report suggests, vetting and external exams are two other ways that states can prevent abuse of credit recovery. In my research in North Carolina, for instance, I find that when students do take end-of-course exams, credit recovery enrollment is associated with lower test scores. But states must be careful to implement these quality controls correctly. Vetting systems should include clear agreements where sharing data is part of continuous approval processes for providers. And external exams should be coupled with requirements that private or public providers show evidence that they’re helping students learn the material necessary to pass the courses they failed. In the absence of such proof, providers should face sanctions and/or lose the ability to offer courses until they improve their quality.

Clear accountability, outcome monitoring, and vetting are necessary components of any ethical online credit recovery program. Unless changes like those are made, the private credit recovery providers with whom schools contract will continue their race to the bottom.

Samantha Viano is an Assistant Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education, College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University.

As an educational community, we are constantly analyzing our strengths and weaknesses to determine how well we are meeting the needs of all students. Often, we measure our performance in terms of ‘growth’ and ‘gaps’. Gifted education equity advocates, school personnel, and policymakers are always on the alert for new information addressing gaps in performance and opportunities for students who are typically underserved in gifted programs. We are often discouraged when new studies or reports indicate that we are not progressing and making positive change occur for students as rapidly as we should.

A recent study reported that across the nation, black and Hispanic students continue to be under-served in gifted programs at an alarming rate. Actually, the report notes that only three of the nation’s state data indicate equitable services for black and Hispanic students. For many of us, these statistics are not all surprising. In the report, several practices are noted that appear to have some impact on addressing the ‘gifted gap’ in schools. Based on my experience and involvement with schools and communities across the nation over the past twenty-five years or so, there are at least three strategies that I would like to recommend as doable for schools to use in their efforts to address this ‘gifted gap’.

Universal screening

Universal screening is the process used to provide an assessment for students of one or more grade levels at the same time. Universal screening does not depend on referrals. We know from research that teacher referrals are not the most effective way to locate gifted students from diverse groups. Actually, teacher referrals can become a barrier to access. Students of color with the same ability and performance indicators are far less likely than their white peers to be referred by classroom teachers. Universal screening eliminates this barrier. In a district that I worked in for a few years, we used the results of the CogAt test to locate students in schools who were previously not referred and had not been identified. When our list of top percentile students was circulated, many teachers were surprised. The universal screening allowed our team to place these students in the pool of candidates for further assessment. As a result, we were able to increase the numbers of students identified as gifted in Title I schools where previously there were none. Universal screening works!

Proactive engagement of families and communities of color

Proactive engagement involves sharing of gifted education service information across the school district. It is highly recommended that families be alerted to the ‘benefits’ of gifted education through literature and open forum meetings that can be hosted in schools, churches, public libraries, and community centers. I have presented in such events in locations in cities and towns in California, Mississippi, Texas, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Louisiana, and other locations. On numerous occasions, parents would approach me afterwards and say that ‘this is the first time I heard about gifted programs’ or ‘I never thought about my child in this way, I knew he was different, but…’ Families and communities who have been marginalized in public education are too often the last to know about the benefits of ‘advanced learner services’. When we begin to open the doors of gifted education and engage more families and communities in a proactive way, we can close and eliminate some of the gaps that persist in our schools, particularly the ‘gifted gap’. Distributing literature in public places where families and communities can access it makes it more likely for parents to believe their children may be eligible and that the program is ‘for them’ as much as for any other family.

Culturally responsive teaching in all classrooms

Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) recognizes the importance of including students’ culture in every aspect of teaching. Every child has a culture that includes family norms, traditions, and historical legacy that shapes their individuality. Many scholars have developed varied frameworks for shaping curriculum that can help educators ensure that their school environments are welcoming places for all students. Some of the markers of CRT are: using culture as a mediator for instruction; communicating high expectations for all students; presenting student-centered instruction. Using culturally authentic materials is also critical to CRT. When students ‘see themselves’ they feel welcomed and validated as learners. Such validation can help increase students’ willingness to demonstrate their interests as they identify with the materials in books and other resources where individuals who ‘look like’ them are represented. Utilizing cultural inclinations and norms in the creation of activities may encourage students in ways that they may not have been in classrooms that are non-representational. Using multiple modalities or cross disciplinary instruction may also help engage students differently and bring out their interests in a more dynamic manner. Culturally responsive materials and teaching strategies have the potential to create a spark of interest in students and allow them to openly express their strengths in all domains.

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Using these strategies will help schools everywhere embrace their culturally diverse identity and provide equitable access for all children to advanced learning experiences, thereby addressing the ‘gifted gaps’ that currently exist.

Editor's note: This post first appeared in the May 2018 edition of Teaching for High Potential.

The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the author and not necessarily the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Editor’s Note: Chad Aldis was invited to give testimony before the Ohio General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Committee on E-School Funding. These are his written remarks.

Thank you, Co-Chair Lehner, Co-Chair Cupp, and joint committee members for giving me the opportunity to provide testimony on Ohio’s options for how it funds online charter schools.

My name is Chad Aldis, and I am the Vice President for Ohio Policy and Advocacy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The Fordham Institute is an education-focused nonprofit that conducts research, analysis, and policy advocacy with offices in Columbus, Dayton, and Washington, D.C. Our Dayton office is also an approved Ohio charter school sponsor.

As many of you know, Fordham has been a staunch supporter of school choice for decades. We believe that every family deserves the right to choose their child’s school; however, we also believe that state and local leaders have a duty to ensure that these options are high-quality. Although the Ohio General Assembly has done a considerable amount of work in the last few years to improve charter school laws, the unique nature of online schools has created a specific set of challenges that are yet to be addressed. Most notably, as highlighted by the long-running controversy surrounding The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), is the best manner to fund online education.

Lessons Learned

ECOT, along with every other online charter school, was historically funded based upon student enrollment. If a student was enrolled in the school during the monthly count date, funding flowed to the school. This changed during the 2015-16 school year after FTE audits examined student engagement in the courses. Calculating the amount of verifiable time spent engaged in learning resulted in ECOT—and a number of other online schools—having to repay a significant amount of state funding. In ECOT’s well-documented and highly-publicized situation, the school was required to repay approximately $60 million of the $108 million received during the 15-16 school year. This situation, the litigation that followed, and the ultimate closure of ECOT has provided some important lessons.

First, funding based upon student enrollment alone is fraught with potential problems. While many people focus on the real risk it poses to taxpayers on the hook for funding an education that may not actually be occurring, the negative impact is even greater for students—many disadvantaged—who enroll in a school that passes them on but requires little effort in return. Funding via enrollment alone can be abused by bad actors more interested in revenue than education and may even play a role in the low academic achievement results posted by some online charter schools.

Second, funding based upon the number of minutes a student is engaged online is at best making the most of a bad situation. It gives weight to the number of minutes a student is logged in and rewards the best record keepers without regard—once again—for student learning. I’ve also heard, even from online schools that are able to successfully navigate this bureaucratic process, that the work it takes to document participation ends up falling on teachers and likely detracts from the education being received. This is a situation where we’ve created a compliance focused environment that may not achieve our long-term goal of boosting student learning.

Both Ohio’s long-time and more recent methods of funding online charter schools are troublesome. They’re, quite frankly, unlikely to deliver the results that students and taxpayers deserve. That’s one of the reasons that I’m encouraged by the work of this joint committee and am looking forward to your recommendations as to whether competency-based funding might be a better option. That being said, I think you have your work cut out for you. From my perspective, there aren’t any ready-made solutions.

The Experience of Other States

I’m not sure that any state has really figured this out. Academic achievement in the online sector has been a challenge everywhere. Some students thrive and others struggle mightily. A number of states have experimented with basing funding on competency and/or course completion. A couple of years ago, two Fordham analysts dug into how competency-based funding works in other states. Here’s an extended excerpt of their findings by state:

Utah

The interesting features of Utah’s approach are its differentiation of course-level funding based on the subject matter, and a payment schedule based on three milestones during a student’s course enrollment. Applying to online courses for students in grades 6–12, Utah allocates funds based on the number and types of courses that students choose. The amount of funding tied to each course depends on its “cost category.” Utah disburses funds in the following manner for a one-credit course: Confirmation of enrollment accounts for 25 percent of the course allocation; continuation or “active participation” as determined by the provider (either the student’s school district or charter school) releases another 25 percent; and 50 percent of the funding is awarded upon course completion, which hinges on students’ passage of the course as determined by their instructor.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire focuses on competency in its funding of online education. Funding is determined by the number of competencies, or discrete topics, that a course’s students master, as verified by an online instructor. Each one-credit high school course students complete through the state’s online school, known as the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS), includes various competencies that students must master before they pass the entire course. This benchmarking of progress allows for partial funding at the course level. If students master all the competencies in a course, the school receives the full appropriation. If not, it receives partial payment based on the fraction of competencies the student achieved. Each half-credit, semester-long course was worth a maximum of $454 in 2014–15.

To illustrate this approach, the table below displays a hypothetical example. George reaches the end of the year meeting only 25 percent competency in the course, so VLACS receives just $113.50. Sam, however, met all the required competencies, releasing the entire per-course allotment.

Table 1. Example of VLAC’s Funding Formula for a half-credit (or semester-length) course 

Unlike Utah and New Hampshire, which allocate partial payments, the Florida Virtual School (FLVS) only receives funds upon course completion, as determined by course grades which includes the results of a statewide end-of-course assessment, if applicable. Course funding for FLVS is determined in the following way: The state’s weighted per-pupil amount is divided by six—the number of credits equal to a full load. If only one credit is completed online, the virtual school receives a one-sixth share of the per-pupil allocation (contingent upon course completion). FLVS submits five enrollment estimates throughout the year and receives regular payments based on these estimates, assuming full course completion. The final enrollment calculation occurs at year’s end, and adjustments are determined based on confirmation of course completion.

Minnesota

Minnesota’s online-learning program also provides funding based on course completion. But unlike Utah, Florida, and New Hampshire—which created single, statewide online education providers—Minnesota certifies multiple, independent entities to serve either as fulltime online schools or as providers of supplemental courses (to students primarily enrolled in a traditional district or charter school). Currently, thirty-three online schools have been approved by the state. Each of them sets its own definitions for course completion, and the Minnesota Department of Education is responsible for verifying the completion of courses. Minnesota’s use of many providers is more akin to Ohio’s online learning environment, with its many e-schools, and could serve as a model.

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Some thoughts based upon Ohio’s experience and the work in other states:

1. Generally, competency-based funding is based upon a student passing a course. This creates a rather explicit incentive, and perhaps even pressure, for teachers to pass students. This might be the best policy option, but the unintended consequences should be considered. As a thought experiment, I’d be curious how many ECOT students received passing grades in their courses that didn’t end up generating funding based upon the student participation requirements.

2. While Florida has experimented with requiring the passage of an objective assessment to generate funding, that’s the exception rather than the rule. Furthermore, this approach would generally be limited to subjects and grades where a relevant test exists to assess how much a student learned. The alternative would be to develop a competency-based assessment for every grade and subject—something that seems rather impractical in today’s antagonistic environment toward testing.

3. Florida has developed additional guard rails around its online courses that are worth noting. See the link below for the documentation found in the “Course Completion” section of the Florida Virtual School (FLVS) Full Time K-12 Student and Parent Handbook. They’ve broken each class into modules and require: each course to have a semester exam, assignments built-into each course that are completed verbally between the teacher and student, and the completion of all required course elements in order to generate course credit and funding. Worth noting, the FLVS is state-operated which has probably made it easier to create a regimented approach to online courses.

A Critical, Related Idea

Exploring how best to fund online charter schools is the charge of this committee, but a tangentially related idea deserves consideration. We support a proposal mentioned by the auditor and included in House legislation introduced last spring that requires the adoption of rules to determine when an online charter school may dis-enroll a student for not actively participating in learning opportunities. This idea is already being utilized in Indiana.

The proposal is premised on the acknowledgement that in a traditional classroom, teachers are able to directly observe students and select instructional strategies that ensure student engagement. Teachers in online schools, on the other hand, are far more limited in how they can interact with students. Under current law, online schools are only able to monitor and enforce a student’s attendance; they have little power to hold students accountable for active participation. This means that hundreds or even thousands of online students could be cruising through school and not learning anything as long as they log in every day. Even if the school knows there’s a problem and the student isn’t learning much or isn’t engaged, its hands are largely tied because the student is meeting minimum attendance requirements. In such cases, students are being academically harmed and taxpayer dollars are being wasted. By allowing ODE to establish rules that would permit (but not require) online schools to dis-enroll students who are actively refusing to participate, the legislature can greatly reduce the risk of online students falling behind. An additional step that should be included—either in law or rule—would be to require schools to document their attempts to contact families about student engagement issues and to notify the student’s school district of residence when a student is being dis-enrolled.

Without adopting a provision like this, there’s a real possibility that Ohio could devise a competency-based funding system that results in students who aren’t doing school work not being funded and the online school not being able to do anything about it. The result: the state saves a little money and likely a significant number of students escape truancy but receive little or nothing in the way of education. Quite simply, that’s an untenable situation.

Conclusion

Tens of thousands of Ohio families utilize online schooling each year making the stakes high. Yet whatever course this committee recommends is likely going to be the first of its kind in the nation. There’s no one that has really figured it out and no research evaluating whether competency-based funding actually drives better student outcomes. Given the challenge of crafting an online charter school funding system, switching abruptly to a completely new funding system would be needlessly risky and logistically challenging. There’s fairly ample evidence that we’ve gotten funding and incentives wrong in the past, so it’s reasonable for this committee to take the time it needs to get it right moving forward. We’d also recommend the use of a pilot program in one or more schools—if you thought it was necessary—to make sure a new system has the desired impact.

With that, I’m happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Credit recovery, or the practice of enabling high school students to retrieve credits from courses that they either failed or failed to complete, is at the crossroads of two big trends in education: the desire to move toward “competency based” education and a push to dramatically boost graduation rates.

Balancing these competing demands is a challenge, but balance we must because, under ESSA, states are required to factor graduation rates into their high school accountability plans. That provides an unintended incentive for schools to play games with graduation requirements, which underscores the need to keep credit recovery from turning into a total end run around actual learning.

Authored by Fordham’s Associate Director of Research Adam Tyner and Research Associate Nicholas Munyan-Penney, Gotta Give 'Em Credit: State and District Variation in Credit Recovery Participation Rates examines whether and where potential misuse of credit recovery may be occurring. Specifically, it answers three questions:

1. How many high schools have active credit recovery programs, and are some types of schools more likely than others to have them?
2. How many students are enrolled in credit recovery?
3. To what extent do schools enroll large shares of their students in credit recovery, and is that more common in certain types of schools?

Using newly released credit recovery data from the Office for Civil Rights and demographic data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the analysis generates results at the national, state, and local levels. Namely:

1. Most high schools have credit recovery programs, although they are far less common in charter schools.
2. While the presence of credit recovery programs is generally not related to school poverty levels, schools with many minority students are slightly more likely to have active programs.
3. Credit recovery programs are less common in smaller schools. The likelihood of having an active program climbs steadily as enrollment rises to 1,250 students.
4. In high schools with active credit recovery programs, an average of 8 percent of students participate. However, nearly one in ten schools enrolls 20 percent or more of its students.
5. Higher enrollment in credit recovery is more common in large and urban schools, as well as in charter schools and schools with higher proportions of poor and minority students.

We derive the following takeaways from these findings:

• Adopt the old adage of trust but verify. Until we have better data than are presently available, we shouldn’t assume that credit recovery programs are of high quality.
• Target the outliers. Districts and schools (both traditional and charter) with higher rates of students participating in credit recovery warrant scrutiny. The potential to abuse this kind of program is high—and highest when there’s no external check on students’ mastery of the material.
• Adopt the recommendations put forth by the report’s authors. This includes collecting additional data about credit recovery programs at the federal and state levels, such as whether courses are taken in person or online and the name of the curriculum or software program used; adopting formal state guidelines for credit recovery programs, especially as it pertains to eligibility and vetting of courses; and using external assessments to hold students and schools accountable.
• And finally, in the absence of an external check on quality, adopt the ounce-of-prevention rule. Stipulate, as some states already do, that students must have previously failed the original course to be eligible for credit recovery, or require students to achieve a minimum score in the original course so that they aren’t starting from scratch with new material.

Having more than one way to demonstrate mastery of content in high school is laudable, but educators and policymakers need to ensure that credit recovery programs meet expectations for quality and include sufficient safeguards to protect students from misuse. Otherwise, the incentives to propel unprepared adolescents towards graduation will outweigh those that advance the challenging but noble work of sufficiently educating them.