The Education Gadfly Weekly

It’s a new year and a new look for the Fordham website.  (Check it out and let us know what you think!)

2012 also brings a new approach to our blog. In the past Flypaper has served as the main and only blog for the Fordham team, allowing for a variety of voices to share their opinions on various topics in the ed-policy world. But we at Fordham believe that a group blog has its limits so we now have six separate blogs, each with their own authors, focusing on specific topics. Read an explanation of the new blogs here for a better understanding of what topic each new blog will focus on.

Most exciting out of this change for our small (but mighty!) team here in Ohio is that we now have our own blog, Ohio Gadfly Daily. This blog will be co-authored by the entire Fordham-Ohio team (with occasional guest bloggers) and will allow for keen daily insight into Ohio’s education policy scene.  As always our Ohio Education Gadfly will continue to provide thoughtful and original analysis and commentary on all things relevant to K-12 education in the Buckeye State.

• The Limited English Proficiency (LEP) population has grown 80 percent between 1990 and 2010, making up nine percent of the total US population in 2010. The top five languages in the national LEP population in 2010 were Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Tagalog.
• In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Ohio’s heavy reliance on property taxes for school funding as unconstitutional.  Governor Kasich had hoped to release a new formula by January, but appears as if he won’t meet the self-imposed deadline. 
• A rise in post-secondary enrollment increases wealth for both the individual and the state: the individuals’ salary increases dramatically (84 percent), and the state saves money in areas like health care, public assistance, corrections, and education. 
• Madeira High School is partnering with local businesses to give students experience in the work force before even entering college.  This is an attempt to combat a growing “skills gap” in which many young adults are not career ready when they leave school.

The latest installment of the Fordham Institute’s Creating Sound Policy for Digital Learning  series investigates one of the more controversial aspects of digital learning: How much does it cost? In this paper, the Parthenon Group uses interviews with more than fifty vendors and online-schooling experts to estimate today's average per-pupil cost for a variety of schooling models, traditional and online, and presents a nuanced analysis of the important variance in cost between different school designs. These ranges—from $5,100 to $7,700 for full-time virtual schools, and $7,600 to $10,200 for the blended version—highlight both the potential for low-cost online schooling and the need for better data on costs and outcomes in order for policymakers to reach confident conclusions related to the productivity and efficiency of these promising new models.   Download "The Costs of Online Learning" to learn more.

The Mind Trust in Indianapolis released a plan in December that proposes a bold and dramatic transformation of public education for that city akin to what has taken place in New Orleans and New York City. The plan, an amalgamation of some of the nation’s most promising school reform strategies looks to transform Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) which has been chronically underperforming for several years. The plan hopes to diminish a 20 percentage point achievement gap between IPS students and the state in English and a dismal 58 percent graduation rate.

The Mind Trust report observes that great schools across the country share a set of core conditions that enable them to help all students achieve. Among these core conditions are the freedom to build and manage their own teams, refocus resources to meet actual student needs, hold schools accountable for their results(and close those that don’t perform), and create a system of school choice that empowers parents to find schools that they want their children to attend.

In an attempt to halt the status-quo of under achievement among too many Indianapolis schools the Mind Trust proposed:

• Downsizing the Indianapolis Public Schools district office while allocating resources to school level leaders. According to the plan the IPS central office would be reduced by about 450 jobs and its budget would be cut by $53 million, and these resources would flow to building level decision makers.
• Giving high performing schools complete control over their staffing, budgets, and curriculum so building level decision makers can staff and run buildings as they see fit.
• Uniting all public schools (district, magnet, and charter) under a new banner of quality called Opportunity Schools. Thus, creating a unified system of high-quality schools that would send a strong message to the community that educational excellence is the central goal of public education. Through this strategy the debate would shift from what type of school – district versus charter – to performance being the end all and be all. Schools that deliver would be encouraged to grow and expand their efforts while persistent underperformers would ultimately close and be replaced.
• Building on the current efforts underway in Indianapolis, a significant teacher and school leader recruitment effort would work with Teach for America, The New Teacher Project, and the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to bring a new generation of top talent to Indianapolis. Further, the Mind Trust would launch a charter incubator program that would seek to develop a new generation of homegrown school leadership talent and place them in Opportunity Schools.

The most controversial part of the reform plan relates to school governance. The Mind Trust calls for neutering the role of the current IPS school board, while turning governance over to a new five member board appointed jointly by the mayor and the City-County Council. This radical governance change would be a key to the plan’s success. Mind Trust CEO David Harris told the Indianapolis Star, “We need elected leadership of the community to embrace this or we don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Indiana State Superintendent Tony Bennett has expressed his full support for the plan and committed $500,000 to cover most of the $700,000 cost of the Mind Trust report. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed interest in the plan as well. But, a key player, the Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has taken a more cautious and measured approach, while the current IPS school board president has attacked the plan as unfair and outrageous, saying “Voters need to have a voice in selecting board members.”

Mind Trust has presented a truly bold and audacious school reform plan for Indianapolis to pursue. Sitting a mere 120 miles down Interstate 70 in Dayton, Ohio, we are cheering for the Mind Trust and its reform-minded allies. Not only will their success or failure resonate in Indiana but also across the Midwest. Here’s rooting for Indy.

This piece orginally appeared on the Ohio Gadfly Daily.

STEM education in Ohio is a growing component of the state’s K-12 system. Metro Early College High School opened as a STEM school in Columbus in 2007, and since then STEM schools have opened their doors in metro regions like Dayton, Cincinnati, Akron, and Cleveland. The schools have drawn millions of dollars in support from state government, local school districts, the private sector and philanthropy (see here for details).

So far, however, the state’s STEM network has not yet opened a school that is aimed at the state’s dynamic agricultural sector and all that supports it. Senator Chris Widener (a Republican from Springfield who chairs the Senate Finance Committee) hopes to tackle this void in the state’s STEM sector. There is a whole lot of merit to this effort.

As I learned (somewhat surprisingly) in talking with Sen. Widener, one in seven jobs in Ohio is connected to the “AgBioscience” sector. This sector comprises food, agriculture, environmental, and bio-based products industries. As a whole the sector employs about a million workers statewide with an annual economic impact of over $100 billion a year. It is one of Ohio’s fastest growing sectors with thousands of jobs going unfilled because there aren't enough skilled Ohioans to do the work. Consider the following statistics provided to me by Sen. Widener:

• Ohio has added on average 59 new bioscience companies a year since 2004, and the state is currently home to 1,300 such companies. These include Bob Evans, JM Smucker Company, Wendy’s International, Kroger, Dannon, Nestle, and WeightWatchers – to name just a few.
• Average salary in the AgBioscience sector is $68,384.
• If the demand for labor can met the sector is set to grow 20 percent this decade in Ohio.
• The planet will add 2 billion more people in the next couple of decades and as countries get richer their citizens eat more meat. 60 percent of the world's feed corn for cattle, chickens, etc. is raised in just five American states and Ohio is one of those.

Sen. Widener is trying to mobilize allies across the state (his targets include industry leader Battelle and Ohio State University) to help launch a handful of STEM AgBioscienceacademies in some of the state's rural counties. The Springfield school district in Clark County is so excited about this project that it has already donated a $10 million building to start the first academy there in 2013.

The primary goal is to attract young people to a growing sector that has not been seen as particularly “sexy” for young people. For most Ohioans and Americans more generally, anything with “ag” in it still means toiling away for long hours on a farm, which is simply no longer the case. But, one of the challenges facing Sen. Widener, and other supporters of such schools, is making the sector more attractive to young people and their parents.

There are also numerous implementation challenges here to tackle; including:

• Crafting an academic program for the academies that includes curricula aligned to the Common Core;
• Finding talent to lead these innovative academies that target fairly unique academic content and student populations;
• Finding and developing teachers who not only excel at math and science but can weave these and other subjects across the AgBioscience sector; and
• Creating a workable governance structure for schools that will need to attract students from multiple counties and school districts.  

STEM AgBioscience academies are new territory for educators, and putting together a viable academic program in AgBioscience for middle and high schoolers is sure to be a heavy lift. But, done well and with the right partners this effort could pay serious dividends for the state’s economy and its young people. With 500,000 Ohioans currently unemployed it makes sense to create academic programs that actually help prepare young people for where the jobs are. In Ohio, the jobs are connected to food and all the businesses that support raising it, getting it packaged, and getting it to people across the globe. Doing this successfully, while also maintaining the health of the state’s environment, will be important in determining Ohio’s future quality of life.

This piece orginally appeared on the Ohio Gadfly Daily.

Just over a year ago, Ohio won $400 million in Race to the Top grant dollars and promised to implement a number of significant reform programs. The U.S. Department of Education just released a progress report for the Buckeye State detailing how it has fared in year one, as well as the work that remains.

First, it might be helpful to revisit the major commitments Ohio made. They were to:

• Increase the high school graduation rate by 0.5 percent per year with the eventual goal of an 88 percent graduation rate. Right now only 84.3 percent of students graduate from Ohio’s high schools.
• Reduce the graduation rate gap between white and minority students by 50 percent. The current gap is 16 percentage points.
• Reduce the performance gap between Ohio students and some of the nation’s highest performers like Massachusetts.
• Double college enrollment for Ohioans under the age of 19. Ohio ranks 35^th in terms of adults with a two-year degree of higher.
• Adopt and implement high-quality academic standards aligned assessments.
• Ensure great principals and teachers in every school (however that’s measured).

Ohio has more than 600 school district, 3,500 district schools and over 300 charter schools so it had its work cut out for it when it applied for RttT dollars and then won. The list of goals stated above is no easy task.  So how is Ohio doing a year into the process?

Year 1 Successes

• Ohio adopted the Common Core State Standards in English and mathematics, ensuring a system of new high quality standards. Ohio also developed numerous web-based resources to help educators and administrators learn and understand the importance of the standards. 
• Ohio developed a teacher evaluation system of which 50 percent must be based on student growth, many details still need to be worked out on this though. Around 130 school districts volunteered to be part of the pilot year that started in the 2011 school year. By the 2013 school year all districts and charter schools must participate.
• Ohio is still on track for developing a statewide longitudinal data system that includes pre-kindergarten through higher education data by 2013.
• An increase in pathways for aspiring teachers and principals. Year one of RttT saw several legislative victories including the potential for Teach For America to set up shop in Ohio. 
• Established the Ohio Appalachian Initiative- a collaboration among 22 rural districts to help share data, train teachers, and engage members of the community.

Ohio has scored some significant implementation victories in the first year and compared with laggards like Hawaii and New York one could argue the first year has been a real success for the Buckeye State. U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan summed the situation up nicely when he told the Columbus Dispatch “Ohio is in really good shape,”

However, everyone agrees a great deal of work remains if Ohio is going to move from meaningful activity to increasing student achievement. Year 2 and beyond looks to be the years when action has to start translating into success and most importantly gains in things like test scores.

The following issues remain on the table:

• Continuing to reach out to educators to help them understand and successfully implement the Common Core Standards. 
• Putting in place workable teacher evaluation systems. While the state provided a framework for the evaluations districts can choose to create their own or adapt the framework provided, potentially resulting in a variety of different evaluation systems with some being stronger than others.
• Getting Teach For America corps members into schools around Ohio is proving to be a challenge. Raising external funding in tight fiscal times in not easy, especially when there are many competing interests for scarce dollars. School districts are also having a hard time selling the idea of TFA to unions and their teachers when many are, or have in recent years, been laying off teachers.   

Ohio should be applauded for their accomplishments thus far, but now the tough job of beginning to implement the new policies begins. Hopefully, the progress report for year 2 will tell a similar story of success.

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This piece originally appeared on the Ohio Gadfly Daily.

It’s a new year and a new look for the Fordham website.  (Check it out and let us know what you think!)

2012 also brings a new approach to our blog. In the past Flypaper has served as the main and only blog for the Fordham team, allowing for a variety of voices to share their opinions on various topics in the ed-policy world. But we at Fordham believe that a group blog has its limits so we now have six separate blogs, each with their own authors, focusing on specific topics. Read an explanation of the new blogs here for a better understanding of what topic each new blog will focus on.

Most exciting out of this change for our small (but mighty!) team here in Ohio is that we now have our own blog, Ohio Gadfly Daily. This blog will be co-authored by the entire Fordham-Ohio team (with occasional guest bloggers) and will allow for keen daily insight into Ohio’s education policy scene.  As always our Ohio Education Gadfly will continue to provide thoughtful and original analysis and commentary on all things relevant to K-12 education in the Buckeye State.

• The Limited English Proficiency (LEP) population has grown 80 percent between 1990 and 2010, making up nine percent of the total US population in 2010. The top five languages in the national LEP population in 2010 were Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Tagalog.
• In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Ohio’s heavy reliance on property taxes for school funding as unconstitutional.  Governor Kasich had hoped to release a new formula by January, but appears as if he won’t meet the self-imposed deadline. 
• A rise in post-secondary enrollment increases wealth for both the individual and the state: the individuals’ salary increases dramatically (84 percent), and the state saves money in areas like health care, public assistance, corrections, and education. 
• Madeira High School is partnering with local businesses to give students experience in the work force before even entering college.  This is an attempt to combat a growing “skills gap” in which many young adults are not career ready when they leave school.