Over the past two years, Fordham has been an outspoken critic of some of the efforts to modify Ohio’s graduation requirements. It’s not that we think the current graduation requirements are perfect. Heck, we’ve even offered a variety of ideas to modify the current framework.
Over the past two years, Fordham has been an outspoken critic of some of the efforts to modify Ohio’s graduation requirements. It’s not that we think the current graduation requirements are perfect. Heck, we’ve even offered a variety of ideas to modify the current framework. It’s that the “solutions” being offered create pathways where students can receive diplomas without any objective demonstration of academic competency. To us, this is a problem and ignores the very real reason that graduation requirements were made more rigorous in the first place. Namely, too few students have been graduating from high school with the skills to either go to college or enter the workforce.
In early May, the Akron Beacon Journal wrote an important story detailing how the modified graduation requirements for the class of 2018 (students who can’t pass state assessments or earn industry credentials can receive a diploma by completing two of nine other pathways) are playing out in Akron. This is the first large school district where we could see the impact of the modified graduation requirements.
The data raised many concerns for me, and I wrote an op-ed that was published on May 17 in the Beacon Journal. Akron Superintendent David James wrote a response to my op-ed that was published on May 26. Some of the points raised by Superintendent James, who from everything I’ve heard is a good district leader, deserve a response. What follows is the superintendent’s op-ed with comments added. This rather unorthodox format is being used in an effort not to take the superintendent’s remarks out of context. We hope you find it useful.
Achieving results with higher graduation standards
By David W. James
Problems can seem simple to solve until we truly understand them. The danger in oversimplifying problem-solving — in a public forum — is that some folks may actually believe those solutions really are as simple as someone is telling them. In most cases, they are not.
Couldn’t agree more that solutions can seem simpler on paper than in reality. The bigger issue that the superintendent doesn’t address is what problem are trying to be solved.
Such is the case with the May 17 commentary by Chad Aldis of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (“When progress really isn’t progress”). Aldis’ argument that standards are being watered down so we can graduate more students is flawed because standards are actually much more stringent and rigorous now.
Suggesting that the alternative graduation options are “more stringent and rigorous” is a big claim (made by many) and completely unsupported by the facts. State law initially provided three ways of graduating. Worried not enough kids would make the cut, the state kept the three original pathways and added another option that involved students completing two of nine alternative measures. If you create different measures because students can’t reach the original ones, it’s hard to say they are more rigorous.
Recently, Mark Black, our director of secondary education, reported to our board that at the beginning of the school year, 54 percent of Akron Public Schools seniors had already met requirements for graduation. It is important to note that figure was not a projection for how many students would graduate in June.
Given the significantly higher bar set by the state, this is a great achievement and worthy of celebration.
In October, after the school year had begun, the state Department of Education added alternative solutions for students to continue to pursue a diploma, even though they had not yet met the previous standards. The standards are rigorous, not watered down.
“Rigorous”… Unfortunately, writing the word again doesn’t it make the claim any truer. The standard had been: Earn a remediation college admission test score, pass a majority of the state’s end of course exam points, or earn an industry credential and demonstrate your learning via a WorkKeys assessment. Do we really think that some of the nine alternative measures—like working at a part time job for 120 hours (an average of three hours per week), having a 93 percent attendance rate, or receiving a senior year 2.5 grade point average—are “rigorous”?
As educators, we know that some students do better if given an alternative to merely using testing as an indicator of intelligence. For those who had not yet met the requirements, they now had opportunities to earn the 18 points needed for graduation by later in the school year.
Two things: First, this isn’t about a measure of intelligence. It’s about ensuring students can read and do math at a level that allows them to go to college if they choose, or have work credentials if they’d prefer to enter the labor force directly. Second, this is a misstatement of how the alternative pathways worked. Students did not earn points based upon those measures. Points became irrelevant, and students could receive a diploma without regard to their “point” totals.
Mark Black employed an aggressive approach and brought in retired educators to volunteer to help students who had gotten off track. They could, with mentoring, follow the alternative pathways and indeed still graduate. As of this day, we have increased the number of seniors now on track to graduate by nearly 40 percentage points thanks to his plan. Here is how we arrive at this projection:
Mr. Black’s efforts were commendable and deserve recognition. Akron Schools didn’t do anything wrong. The alternative graduation pathways was bad state policy that lowered the bar for students.
As for the data, they strengthen my argument. The graduation rate will be higher. The question remains whether the students will be ready for either college or the workforce. That’s where my concern lies. It looks like 54 percent met the state’s original requirements at the beginning of the year. Did that number change? How many students became ready for college or career?
As we have stated publicly, we could graduate 93 percent of the 1,444 seniors that are with us now. That is how many are on track to graduate. This has a slight margin for error, though, because these numbers do not include students who may drop out. The final graduation formula has that and other components playing a part in its determination.
This is a 20 percent increase over the current graduation rate that required passage of the old Ohio Graduation Test assessment. Let me get this straight: Nothing was watered down, but the graduation rate increased 20 percent in one year? Didn’t I read somewhere about oversimplifying problems…
We realistically project our graduation rate at least 10 points to 15 points higher than our previous rate of 73 percent. Suffice to say, this alternative solution by the state, which focuses on academic rigor and demonstration of college and career readiness, combined with our aggressive approach is working for our students and their families.
Again, your approach to helping students receive a diploma is worthy of commendation. The same efforts could have been focused on helping them demonstrate academic proficiency or earn an industry credential that would give them real work skills after high school. As for the suggestion that state’s alternative solution “focuses on academic rigor,” you’ll need a lot more evidence to convince anyone.
Let’s pretend it is 1993, because many of us who graduated high school before 1994 would have been the beneficiary of a less rigorous set of graduation standards than students who picked up their diplomas between 1994 and today. That group of beneficiaries would include Chad Aldis, who would have — had he been born just a few years later — found himself with anything but watered down standards.
Though I found it kind of strange to be personally mentioned in a response, it provides a nice opportunity to state categorically that neither I nor any other student who grows up economically disadvantaged are a “beneficiary” of low standards. Students don’t benefit from having low expectations related to core math and reading skills.
Importantly, this is an acknowledgement from the superintendent that prior to 1994, when no objective demonstration of academic competency was required for earning a diploma, the requirements were less rigorous. That’s exactly what happened with the class of 2018.
As it was, for Aldis to have graduated from high school, all he had to do was his homework, get his 18 credits and pass his final exams. So the argument he presents is flawed.
This just doesn’t make any sense. My argument was that, even though Akron’s graduation rate jumped, it’s not clear that its students are more prepared for college or the workforce. The graduation requirements I had to meet have no connection, but I can say that, while I have done well, many of my classmates haven’t. I can’t help but wonder if their lives would have been different if they’d left high school more prepared.
I’m adding a link for those of you who can go online to our website to see what Ohio state standards are. For those of you who graduated prior to 1994, think about how you might have done using today’s benchmarks.
Think about something else, too. Think about how many fewer factory jobs exist now than in the 80s and 90s. Think about how workers are expected to know more than ever. Think about the people you graduated with that just weren’t prepared by the end of high school and have struggled their entire lives.
Let’s be clear about one thing. Today’s students do not have an easier path to graduation. Much to the contrary. I began by telling you that solutions seem simple until we really have an understanding of the problem. We hope readers of this will not do what Aldis did and oversimplify the solution. This is much too important for any of us to employ that “logic.”
Students in the class of 2018 were the first since 1994 not to have to show academic competence in any subject to graduate. Speaking of oversimplifying solutions, I’m not sure that anything could be simpler than giving students diplomas even when they don’t have core academic or career skills. Simple for the adults that is, not for the students.
Since Superintendent James started with saying that solutions are simple until you understand the problem, it seems fitting to conclude with a reminder of the problem. Too few students, in Akron and across the state, are ready for life after high school. The state’s weakened—yes, less rigorous—graduation standards for the class of 2018 do nothing to resolve that problem.
With college tuition at an all-time high, Ohio families are increasingly interested in finding ways to save on costs. Dual credit is a promising solution because if offers students the chance to earn high school and college credits simultaneously. Ohio has a plethora of dual-credit options, but some are better known to families than others. Here is a quick overview of the offerings.
Awarded credit
This is likely the best-known dual-credit pathway. Students can earn college credit through programs like Advanced Placement (AP), a set of subject-specific courses and tests designed to give secondary students a taste of college-level material. State law guarantees that students can receive college credit from state institutions for any of the thirty-eight available AP tests as long as they earn a score of three or higher out of five. Although this credit will show up on students’ college transcripts, course grades aren’t included. Even students who don’t take official AP courses are allowed to take the tests and earn credit if they earn a high enough score, an option that is sometimes necessary when schools won’t or can’t offer the courses.
Transcripted credit
Students enrolled in College Credit Plus (CCP), a rapidly growing option in Ohio, earn transcripted credit because the class grade and course credit they receive appears on their high school and college transcripts. Unlike AP, which offers dual credit to students based on high school courses taught by secondary teachers, CCP awards dual credit via dual enrollment. That is, a student who takes part in CCP is a high school student and a college student simultaneously, and they are taking an actual college class. Because the stakes are so high, state law restricts enrollment to those who have been deemed college-ready. There are also additional rules regarding which courses students can take and consequences for poor performance. Schools are required to give presentations to students and families regarding access to CCP, and some larger schools have staff assigned to monitor and support their CCP students.
Articulated credit
This is a lesser-known dual-credit option with some exciting possibilities and nagging weak spots. Articulation agreements are arrangements between secondary schools and colleges or universities that link high school–level courses to similar college courses. These agreements can be narrow—focused on a partnership between a single secondary school and a university—or extend statewide. To obtain credit, the process is relatively simple: Students request college credit for secondary classes they passed using a verification form. The Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE), which administers articulated credit programs, has an online search tool that can help students determine which of their high school credits transfer. Like awarded credit, articulated credit shows up on a student’s college transcript and does not include a course grade.
The most intriguing aspect of articulated credit is the possibilities it creates for career and technical education (CTE) students. The majority of dual-credit options focus almost exclusively on traditional academic courses. For many students, this traditional route fits their postsecondary and career plans just fine. But for the thousands of high schoolers who are enrolled in CTE programs, traditional dual-credit options aren’t always as useful.
That’s where Career-Technical Credit Transfer, a type of articulated credit, comes in. State law requires ODHE and the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) to create a policy that allows students to transfer technical courses to state institutions of higher education. The departments have opted to fulfill this mandate in two ways: through bilateral articulation agreements and Career Technical Assurance Guides (CTAGs).
Bilateral articulation agreements are arrangements between a secondary CTE program and a higher education institution. In essence, they are written assurances that courses completed in a secondary CTE program will count for credit at a particular college or university that offers a program in the same field. (Colleges outside the agreement can also award credit, but they aren’t required to do so.) This option is typically utilized by career tech centers, and can include local businesses as partners as part of the agreement.
CTAGs, on the other hand, are statewide articulation agreements. This means that, by law, all public colleges and universities are required to award postsecondary credit for particular CTE courses. Not every CTE course is included in a CTAG, but there are a wide variety of options (like virtual design and imaging and electrical engineering technology) that transfer to a wide range of institutions. The state requires students to meet standards—such as a specific class grade and/or a certain score on an EOC exam—to receive credit via a CTAG, which students must seek within three years for it to apply.
As exciting as all of this is, Ohio’s articulated credit options seem to require a higher degree of student motivation and ownership than the other dual-credit pathways. They also require more forward planning to line up high school courses with future higher education plans. The amount of high school–level support available to students isn’t particularly clear, and data around the numbers of students taking advantage of articulated credit, the costs of programs, and student success rates are difficult to find.
***
The best part of Ohio’s myriad dual-credit options is that nothing prevents students from trying all of them. An enterprising student could enroll in CCP while also taking AP and CTE courses and net themselves a serious amount of college credit before ever walking across the high school stage. Of course, it’s far more likely that students will only try one pathway. But that’s good news too: Each offers a host of possibilities, and ODHE offers a video module designed to inform students of all of them.
There are certainly ways to improve Ohio’s dual credit offerings, particularly when it comes to making students and parents aware of their options and supporting their efforts institutionally. But overall, Ohio’s robust sector—and it’s commitment to ensuring that CTE students aren’t excluded because of the technical nature of their courses—deserves applause.
A-to-F school rating systems have come under fire in Ohio and remain a hotly debated topic elsewhere. Proponents usually argue that they provide clear information that parents and communities can easily digest, while also motivating schools to improve. Critics often claim that such blunt ratings could damage schools’ reputations or demoralize educators should they receive poor grades. But what does the research have to say?
A recent study by Rebecca Dizon-Ross examines the impacts of A–F school accountability in New York City (NYC) on teacher turnover and quality, as estimated by value added measures. Under the leadership of former mayor Michael Bloomberg and school chancellor Joel Klein, NYC began in fall 2007 to assign A–F school grades and link low ratings to consequences. Prior research has already shown that these accountability reforms led to higher student achievement, with gains concentrated among children attending low-rated schools. Dizon-Ross studies teacher workforce patterns in 2008–09 and 2009–10 and uses a regression discontinuity design that focuses on schools near letter grade cutoffs to gauge the effects of receiving lower accountability ratings.
The analysis finds that NYC’s policy reforms reduced teacher turnover and likely increased teacher quality among the city’s lowest rated schools. Schools barely falling into the F (versus D) and D (versus C) categories had turnover rates that were 3 percentage points lower than schools on the other side of the cutoffs. Dizon-Ross calls this reduction a “large effect,” considering that turnover rates are typically 10 to 20 percent in NYC schools. Meanwhile, the teacher quality findings are deemed only “suggestive evidence” due to the small number of teachers with value added scores. Nevertheless, the analysis uncovers quality improvements among teachers who joined lower-rated schools. Since there were no effects on the quality of teachers who left those schools, the result is a net positive impact on quality. The positive findings apply to schools at the bottom of the rating distribution—where the accountability “bite” is strongest—with null results generally found among schools at the top (A or B).
Why would teachers want to work at lower-rated schools? To answer this question, Dizon-Ross examines teacher survey responses that cover a range of issues, including school leadership, professional development, and parental engagement. Based on an analysis of these data, she concludes that strong, supportive principals drove reductions in turnover and higher teacher quality. She writes, “this [analysis] suggests that low grades encouraged principals to work harder at their jobs and that teachers appreciated these changes.”
Despite the outcries around A–F ratings that carry consequences for poor performance, research from NYC and Florida show that such systems benefit students. Now this study indicates that accountability pressures can improve working conditions by incentivizing principals to put more effort into employee retention and recruitment. Given these empirical findings, it’s worth asking: What’s not to like about school accountability?
SOURCE: Rebecca Dizon-Ross, How Does School Accountability Affect Teachers? Evidence from New York City, National Bureau of Economic Research (2018).
Did you know that there’s a great new resource to help you keep up with charter school news in the Buckeye State and across the country? It’s called Ohio Charter News Weekly and you can have it delivered to your email Inbox every Friday. To subscribe to this quick mix of news, opinion, and events collated with the busy charter school stakeholder in mind, click here, and you won’t miss another edition.
You’ll be glad you did.
Over the past month, local newspapers across Ohio have blasted headlines such as “Local schools lost millions to ECOT” and “Study: Now-defunct ECOT siphoned $2.6 million from Athens-area schools.” Taking a statewide view, the Columbus Dispatch ran a piece titled “Liberal group says ECOT diverted $591M from public schools in 6 years.” These news articles are all based on an analysis by Innovation Ohio—an anti-charter school group—that calculates the amount of state money that transferred from local districts to the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) from 2012–13 to 2017–18, the year in which the behemoth online charter school closed.
First off, ECOT’s shameless political self-dealings were outrageous and have harmed the reputation of responsible charter public schools in Ohio. Its academic results were astonishingly bad, with abysmal value-added scores—estimates of its impact on student growth over time—being the clearest signs of educational dysfunction. (No, its low graduation rates are not compelling evidence as some claim; the school likely enrolled significant numbers of credit-deficient students, artificially “deflating” their graduation rate.)
All in all, count me sympathetic to those who are outraged and indignant at the school. But ECOT’s wrongs don’t make it right to distort how school funding works, and should work, in Ohio. Let’s review the ways in which Innovation Ohio, and the media that amplified its analysis, erred.
First off, ECOT didn’t nefariously “siphon” or “divert” funds from school districts. The online school was paid based on its student enrollment and in accordance with state laws and regulations (its legal and financial woes are based on alleged inabilities to report enrollment properly). Though ECOT may or may not have provided sufficient documentation—a question that remains in court—the districts that supposedly lost millions to the school surely did not enroll or educate ECOT students. As such, they have no rightful claim on the funds that were transferred to that school. So we arrive at a half-truth: Yes, districts saw their state funding reduced, but that’s because they lost students to ECOT—not because it somehow siphoned money from districts. Unfortunately, the fact that districts’ funding reductions are directly tied to losses in enrollment is conveniently omitted—as if dollars and cents are all that matter and students are not to be mentioned. A fairer headline would have read: “Thousands of students opted for ECOT, with millions in state aid following them.”
Bear in mind three other critical points, often overlooked, about districts’ funding “losses.” First, although they forfeit state funding when students transfer, they don’t lose a dime in local tax revenue, since the latter amount depends not on enrollment but on property values and tax rates approved by district voters. Second, districts can lose state aid for any number of reasons, including when families decide to move. Yet we rarely, if ever, see headlines like: “Suburban districts have siphoned millions from Youngstown schools” or “Ohio districts lose funds as residents move to California.” Third, although uncomfortable, districts should work to reduce their costs in proportion to their revenue declines, as any other organization is expected to do.
Perhaps most troubling of all, Innovation Ohio’s distorted view of school funding reinforces a fundamentally misguided notion that funding policies should be tailored to the needs and wants of school districts, rather than those of parents and children. Speaking to the Athens News, the comments of congressional candidate Rick Neal are a perfect example: “That money [the funds transferred to ECOT] could have gone toward textbooks and supplies, school infrastructure, and teacher salaries—instead it went to line the pockets of ECOT scam artists." Setting aside the “scam artists” swipe—that’s an accountability matter—it’s flawed to think that districts’ purchasing desires or staffing wishes ought to drive funding policy. That line of thought places institutional interests at the forefront, with parents, students, and the broader taxpaying public pushed to the background.
In contrast, the smartest thinking on school funding puts families and students at the front of the line, under the notion that public dollars should be used to meet their needs and support their educational choices. When this lens is applied, we see that it’s appropriate to transfer funds from districts when students attend a school of their choice—and of course hold those schools accountable. Although we at Fordham would much prefer a “direct funding” method for charters (instead of state dollars passing through districts), it’s not wrong in principle to deduct money when students choose schools such as ECOT instead of a district school.
In the end, ECOT’s harshest critics are both right about the incompetence of the school and wrong on school funding policy. So here’s my concluding take on the whole debacle: Did state taxpayers get a return on their hard-earned dollars to educate ECOT students? In all likelihood, no. The costs of funding students who enrolled in ECOT probably outweighed the cumulative benefits of pupils attending that school. The school has already paid the penalty of closure—and further consequences may ensue. But let’s be frank: Ohio taxpayers continue to get a raw deal when they lavish tens of millions of dollars in public funding on inept schools. Ohio has any number of low-performing public schools, including dozens run by big-city districts, where students receive too little benefit for the price of public education.
If we as a state want to “get serious” about cracking down on lousy public schools, district or charter—or heck even trying to root out ineffective administrators and teachers, including those with tenure—in efforts to raise achievement and protect taxpayer money, count me in. What about groups like Innovation Ohio and others on the ECOT-bashing bandwagon: Are you game?
Since 2012, Tennessee has taken a unique approach to intervening in struggling schools. With the goal of turning around the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools in the state (known as priority schools), officials introduced two separate models: the Achievement School District (ASD) and Innovation Zones (iZones). The ASD is a state-run district that directly manages some priority schools and turns others over to select charter management organizations. iZones, on the other hand, are subsets of priority schools that remain under district control but are granted greater autonomy and financial support to implement interventions. There are four districts that contain iZones: Shelby County Schools (Memphis), Metro-Nashville Public Schools, Hamilton County Schools (Chattanooga), and Knox County Schools (Knoxville). The remaining priority schools weren’t included in either of these initiatives, effectively creating a comparison group.
Research teams from Vanderbilt University and the University of Kentucky have kept a close eye on both initiatives. In 2015, they published an evaluation of the ASD and iZone schools after three years of implementation. They found that, while ASD schools did not improve any more or less than other priority schools, iZone schools produced moderate to large positive effects on student test scores. A separate study also found that both initiatives had high rates of teacher turnover, but that the numbers were higher in ASD than iZone schools.
Now a recently published study examines the impacts of both initiatives after five years of implementation. To complete their evaluation, the researchers examined student- and teacher-level demographic data, test scores on state assessments, and school enrollment data from 2006—07 through 2016—17. They then compared changes in test scores after reforms were initiated with changes in test scores in priority schools that weren’t part of the ASD or iZones.
The five-year findings are similar to the results of the three-year evaluation. After five years, iZone schools showed moderate to large positive and statistically significant effects on reading, math, and science test scores. These results that suggest iZone schools were able to sustain their early success. ASD schools, on the other hand, showed insignificant results across all three subjects—that is, they did not gain more or less than non-ASD or iZone priority schools. Since the ASD includes recent cohorts of schools that were only exposed to one to three years of reform, the researchers also reviewed the data using only the first two cohorts of schools, those overseen by the ASD for four or five years. However, they found that effects were still not statistically significant in any subject.
The researchers also took their analysis a step further by comparing the iZone’s positive results to other turnaround results across the country. They found that, in reading, iZone gains of 0.14 standard deviations were similar to those that occurred under the School Redesign Grants model in Massachusetts and the state takeover of Lawrence Public Schools. In math, iZone effects ranging between 0.16 and 0.20 standard deviations were similar to gains achieved in Philadelphia’s restructured schools.
Overall the results for ASD schools were disappointing, but the findings of this brief and the gains made by iZone schools are a valuable addition to existing school turnaround research.
SOURCE: Lam Pham, Gary T. Henry, Ron Zimmer, Adam Kho, “School Turnaround After Five Years: An Extended Evaluation of Tennessee’s Achievement School District and Local Innovation Zones,” Tennessee Education Research Alliance (June 2018).
