NOTE: Tom Lasley, executive director of Learn to Earn Dayton and former dean of the School of Education and Health Sciences at the University of Dayton, addressed the Ohio Board of Education in Columbus today. These are his written remarks in full.
Thank you for this opportunity to share thoughts regarding expectations for Ohio’s K-12 students. I believe Ohio must continue to have high quality, demanding achievement assessments and set rigorous passing scores for those assessments.
To get and to keep good jobs, our children need world-class educations. Lowering the bar when our competitors in this country and around the globe are increasing expectations would tremendously disadvantage our young people. We have to be honest with ourselves and with students about what’s required to compete--and to succeed--in a knowledge economy.
Ohio and other states now have a lot of data upon which to base policy and practice decisions. This was not true twenty years ago. But it is true today--as a result of both federal and state efforts.
We know that high-school graduation rates are going up. This is true nationally, but it is also true for the state and my community. In Montgomery County in 2010, the graduation rate was 72.7 percent. By 2014, it had risen to 80.1 percent--an increase of more than seven percent%. During that same time, Ohio’s graduation rate increased from 78 percent to 82.2 pecent.
Were those gains easy to make? Of course not. But progress is happening, and we can ensure even more young people have a successful high-school experience.
Lawmakers and the Ohio Department of Education rightly are insisting that our schools focus not just on graduating students, but on preparing them for college and/or a career. We’ve adopted that standard because having a high school diploma alone isn’t enough any longer.
Not every young person is going to go on to earn a four-year degree. But we need to send the message to young people that high school is not the end of the education line--not if they want to have a secure income and a stable lifestyle.
At minimum, they need the opportunity to secure a post-secondary credential of some sort. They need a statement certifying that they’re ready and competent to perform on the job. That focus on college- and career-readiness is the only way we can offer our children the potential of a living wage job and a middle-class life.
We will serve young people best if we have both aggressive metrics and effective and responsive interventions and supports for those who struggle. Our students can master difficult subjects; but some need more help and more time on task, sometimes significantly more time.
In a few minutes Chad Wyen, the superintendent of Mad River Local Schools, will share with you how his district is helping students to succeed on rigorous assessments and meet demanding standards. Mad River, by the way, is one of the five highest-poverty school districts in Montgomery County. Tim Hopkins, superintendent of Brookville, will do the same. And Rusty Clifford, superintendent of West Carrollton Schools, sent me an email on Friday that read: “Let’s not lower the bar -- let’s be creative (innovative), problem-solve and think critically about helping all students meet high expectations.”
Rather than compromise on Ohio’s college and career expectations, we encourage you to consider the following:
- Redirect some funding from efforts such as the Straight A funds to Summer Academic Intensives that would be available in Ohio school districts (such as the Urban 21) that have the largest numbers of students who are at-risk of not earning the required End of Course Exam graduation points. These summer academic enrichments should provide intensive tutoring to catch students up and secure the necessary number of graduation points.
- Develop online tutorials for End of Course Exam prep or remediation purposes and make them available to all students in all districts across the state.
- Identify “best practice” districts that serve a high percentage of high-need students but that have implemented strategies that are reducing failure rates and have large numbers of students who are succeeding. Once those are identified, then fund and/or provide grants for scaling up those practices across the state.
- Aggressively address the chronic absenteeism problem within Ohio schools. Poor student performance on tests such as the EOCE can be directly tied to student absenteeism. The Cleveland Public Schools focused quite intentionally this year on student absences, with some promising results. Last year, 26.7 percent of the Dayton Public Schools’ students were chronically absent, and there is a direct connection between that statistic and their academic performance. We need to ensure full implementation of efforts (e.g., absence intervention plans) to identify and deal with students who are chronically absent.
We offer these suggestions in light of these facts:
- When states implement exit exam requirements, graduation rates do tend to go down, especially in the transition phase. While states have found that exit exams and more aggressive performance metrics “may play a small role in causing students to drop out of school” (Center on Education Policy), the most recent studies find that exit testing is typically not the reason students drop out or fail.
- Most students who drop out of school do so because they are bored, or they are not attending, or they they’re discouraged to attend school by peers. When students don’t understand how school is relevant to their lives, and when they lack family support, they drop out or disengage. The solution to that problem is not to reduce expectations and hand them a diploma that didn’t require them to master content. The answer is to more fully engage them and help them see how school leads to meaningful careers and to create educational options that students find relevant.
The State of Ohio has established very aggressive education attainment goals. In May of 2016, the Ohio Department of Higher Education said that by 2025, 65 percent of working-age Ohioans should secure some type of post-secondary credential or college degree. According to the Lumina Foundation, we’re at 43 percent--a long way from the target. Two states are projected to hit the Lumina target. Ohio is not even going to be close!
According to the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, 56 percent of today’s in-demand jobs require a post-secondary certificate or a degree. Meanwhile, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce predicts that by 2020, 64 percent of jobs will require advanced credentials.
The trend is unmistakable, and there’s no reversing it. Today’s and tomorrow’s jobs will require more education, not less.
If Ohio has any hope of achieving the 65 percent goal--currently only Massachusetts and North Dakota are on pace to hit the mark – we have to keep high expectations for young people.
High expectations are not just a numbers game. The underlying objective is to close the achievement gap – to make sure that the law and our policies don’t institutionalize a society of educational have’s and have-not’s. In our middle- and high-income communities, parents and school boards are not going to settle for their children being held to low standards--even if you allow them to do so. They know what employers are requiring in exchange for a decent paycheck.
If we compromise, it’s our low-income students, our struggling students, who will lose, once again! We never will eliminate the very real achievement gap by teaching less and settling for less.
In Montgomery County, our sixteen school districts have agreed to establish aggressive college- and career-readiness goals. From Oakwood (the most affluent community) to Dayton (the poorest), the districts believe they can achieve those goals if they:
- Ensure every child is fully ready for kindergarten
- Insist on reading proficiency for every third-grader
- Ensure math and reading proficiency for our eighth- and ninth-graders
- Require students to be at school and on time every day
- Provide a thoughtful and engaging curriculum that fosters student problem-solving and critical thinking
By doing these five things and by building a community culture of college- and career readiness, we’ll position our young people for success.
Many of today’s students will still be in the workforce in 2050 and beyond. The jobs they’ll be performing haven’t even been invented yet, but critical thinking skills will be essential. A system of high expectations is the only way we can make sure our sons and daughters will be prepared.
A final note:
There is a lot of research that shows that expectations matter, but one of the more interesting studies was reported on in the June 7 Wall Street Journal. Seven decades ago, researchers in England, Scotland and Wales began tracking every single child born during one week in 1946. They have followed this cohort for 70 years. What did they find: Inequality among families was clear and evident even 70 years ago. But one very compelling finding emerged: “… parents with high aspirations for their children ‘offer the first and strongest buffer against disadvantage.’ ”
Parents can and do play a critical role in children’s success. But there also are schools across Ohio that are beating the odds even when parents fail to provide their children the support they need. These schools do not lower their expectations. Rather, they hold up consistent and high demands. They emulate what young people can expect as adults in the real world.
We are asking that the State Board help the young people who will be working in 2030, 2040, 2050 and beyond to be prepared for those challenges. If we compromise now, we will cheat our children of their future earning potential and compromise the economic future of our great state.
