The Education Gadfly Weekly

The Fordham Institute, a high-performing organization with a long track record of innovation and excellence within the domains of media relations and social media, is looking to take our communications to the next level with two new members: a media relations and events manager in D.C. and an external communications and research associate in Columbus, Ohio.

External communications and research associate; Columbus, Ohio office

The Columbus, Ohio office of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is searching for a fellow Gadfly: an independent-minded advocate for education reform. The External Communications and Research Associate must have at least two years of experience in strategic communications, possess strong writing and editing skills, and have creative strategies for promoting research and policy ideas to state lawmakers, educators, researchers, and media. For more specifics, please see the full description.

Media relations and events manager; D.C. office

The successful candidate must be a dynamic, mission-driven, and experienced media professional who is savvy and knowledgeable in traditional media, social media, and education reform. Reporting to the Executive Vice President, the Media Relations and Events Manager will work collaboratively with other members of Fordham’s communications team and its senior leadership to develop and implement communication strategies and events programming. If you are an innovative thinker with ideas on how to broaden Fordham’s impact and promote our school reform principles, research, analysis, and ideas, we want to hear from you. If we are describing you, take a look at the details.

Because Fordham works on national- and state-policy issues, and on the ground in Ohio, both of these positions will afford the opportunity to make a significant impact on the national education-reform debate—and the chance to see concrete results.

Are you on board with Fordham’s commitments to the Common Core, advancing choice, efficiency, and academic standards? Have your friends asked you to stop talking about reform realism? Do you enjoy the odd dance-off? If so, Fordham might be the place for you.

• School districts: Get on your mark! The Ohio Department of Education has started accepting applications for $13 million in competitive grants. The Early Literacy and Reading Readiness grants are meant to support intervention initiatives that can ensure that more kids meet the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

• The Ohio School Facilities Commission has revised its urban school district project scope. Decreasing enrollment figures in inner-city districts have brought down the estimated project costs. The Commission Chairman cites competition from charters and private schools as a significant factor in enrollment changes.

• Acting Superintendent Michael Sawyers requested clarification on a Third Grade Reading Guarantee requirement that says reading-deficient students must be assigned to a professional with a “reading endorsement.” Few teachers have such a certification and there is not enough time between now and August 2013 to receive training, Sawyers said.

• Among issues covered at last week’s Statewide Education Conference was the black student achievement gap. Author Robert Jackson suggests developing “new peer identities” for black males, and maintaining a positive social image of students in school environments.

Fordham and Community Research Partners’ student mobility report made headlines across the Buckeye State this week. The news reports underscore the significance of this report, as well as the ongoing need to educate the public about the scale and magnitude of student mobility. Below is a recap of the press coverage of the report thus far.

The Columbus Dispatch featured student mobility as front-page news in its Thursday and Sunday editions. The Thursday edition focused on the relationship between serially-mobile students—kids who move two or more times within a couple years—and poor academic achievement, a key finding of the report’s data analysis. Meanwhile, the Sunday edition examined schools that perform well despite having high mobility rates. In particular, the Dispatch reported that some schools keep on chugging even as their schools are churning. A couple educators remarked that student mobility, while a challenge, is also a reality that schools are trying to manage:

• "We’ve come to grips that this [high student mobility] is the way [of life] for us, for better or worse. We have to find ways to make it work for students” - Groveport Madison High School principal Aric Thomas
• “This [high student mobility] ought to be a call of action, a mobilization for a collection of resources for kids in the state” – Reynoldsburg School District superintendent Steve Dackin

The Cleveland Plain Dealer featured the student mobility project in its Friday edition, focusing on the scale of student mobility in Northeast Ohio school districts. Particularly interesting were comments obtained from Tracy Radich, a fifth grade teacher in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District:

• “If it's one move, it's not ideal, but they should be OK," she said. "It's the students that move several times -- and the conditions that cause those moves sometimes -- that affect their ability to achieve at their highest level."

The Akron Beacon Journal’s chief editorial writer wrote about “Nomad Mary,” a prototypical serial mover whose academic progress is marred by changes in schools. This student bounces around from school to school, often at the whims of powers outside her control. The Beacon Journal ends on a somber note, writing that Fordham’s research “found ‘nomads’ in all types of districts, the prevalence ‘considerably greater than most of us appreciate or fully understand’ and verging on the epidemic in inner-city schools.”

Finally, Gongwer, the state’s leading political and legislative media outlet, obtained comments from state educational leaders, who weighed in on Fordham’s report.

• “It is reports like this one that verify what department employees hear anecdotally. The data contained in the report enable the Department of Education and educational institutions and organizations to create strategies and policies to help mobile students be more successful in schools.” - Ohio Department of Education acting superintendent of public instruction Michael Sawyers
• “Most urban school districts have problems with high student mobility. Cincinnati Public Schools is no exception, although we work with both our educators and our community partners to minimize the academic disruption for our students. . . . We believe that effectively addressing student mobility and its underlying causes will take a community commitment and approach.” –Cincinnati Public Schools superintendent Mary Ronan

To read the report, click on the image below.

One in three Columbus students change schools each year. So, it’s little surprise that a group of nearly 100 of Columbus’ education and community leaders gathered last week to hear about and discuss the groundbreaking research findings from Fordham and Community Research Partners’ (CRP) just-released Ohio Student Mobility Project.

In attendance were senior staff members from Columbus City Schools, the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, The Ohio State University, Columbus’ largest charitable foundations, members of the press corps, and education policy and youth program organizations. The Columbus Foundation hosted the event.

Roberta Garber of CRP opened the event with an overview of the research findings for the Columbus metropolitan area. The findings were striking: There’s a lot of student movement—perhaps more than generally appreciated—occurring within school districts, between districts, and between charter schools and traditional districts.

After the presentation of the data, Mark Real of KidsOhio.org moderated a panel discussion that talked about the implications of the research findings. The panel included Matt Cohen of the Department of Education, Nancy Van Meter of the American Federation of Teachers, Steve Dackin of Reynoldsburg School District, and Terry Ryan of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Photo courtesy of The Columbus Foundation. From left to right: Moderator Mark Real of KidsOhio.org; Panelists Matt Cohen of the Ohio Department of Education, Nancy Van Meter of the American Federation of Teachers, Steve Dackin of Reynoldsburg School District, and Terry Ryan of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

The panelists made several key points:

• The need for additional research on mobility that can disentangle the causes and consequences of student moves.
• The need to work collaboratively across traditional boundaries—whether geographic or institutional—to mitigate negative effect of mobility on students.
• The need to consider the impact of mobility on educational systems, from teacher evaluations to accountability to school funding.
• The need to ask what makes some schools “sticky”—that is, keep more of their kids—and why some schools have more churn in their student population.

Based on the discussion between the panelists and the ensuing Q&A with all attendees, at least one consensus emerged: The student mobility research opens just about as many questions as it answers. And those in attendance seemed willing to roll up their sleeves, dig more into the issue, search for answers, and ultimately come up with solutions on how to manage student mobility more effectively--at a state policy, local district, classroom, and even family level.

The Fordham Institute, a high-performing organization with a long track record of innovation and excellence within the domains of media relations and social media, is looking to take our communications to the next level with two new members: a media relations and events manager in D.C. and an external communications and research associate in Columbus, Ohio.

External communications and research associate; Columbus, Ohio office

The Columbus, Ohio office of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is searching for a fellow Gadfly: an independent-minded advocate for education reform. The External Communications and Research Associate must have at least two years of experience in strategic communications, possess strong writing and editing skills, and have creative strategies for promoting research and policy ideas to state lawmakers, educators, researchers, and media. For more specifics, please see the full description.

Media relations and events manager; D.C. office

The successful candidate must be a dynamic, mission-driven, and experienced media professional who is savvy and knowledgeable in traditional media, social media, and education reform. Reporting to the Executive Vice President, the Media Relations and Events Manager will work collaboratively with other members of Fordham’s communications team and its senior leadership to develop and implement communication strategies and events programming. If you are an innovative thinker with ideas on how to broaden Fordham’s impact and promote our school reform principles, research, analysis, and ideas, we want to hear from you. If we are describing you, take a look at the details.

Because Fordham works on national- and state-policy issues, and on the ground in Ohio, both of these positions will afford the opportunity to make a significant impact on the national education-reform debate—and the chance to see concrete results.

Are you on board with Fordham’s commitments to the Common Core, advancing choice, efficiency, and academic standards? Have your friends asked you to stop talking about reform realism? Do you enjoy the odd dance-off? If so, Fordham might be the place for you.

• School districts: Get on your mark! The Ohio Department of Education has started accepting applications for $13 million in competitive grants. The Early Literacy and Reading Readiness grants are meant to support intervention initiatives that can ensure that more kids meet the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

• The Ohio School Facilities Commission has revised its urban school district project scope. Decreasing enrollment figures in inner-city districts have brought down the estimated project costs. The Commission Chairman cites competition from charters and private schools as a significant factor in enrollment changes.

• Acting Superintendent Michael Sawyers requested clarification on a Third Grade Reading Guarantee requirement that says reading-deficient students must be assigned to a professional with a “reading endorsement.” Few teachers have such a certification and there is not enough time between now and August 2013 to receive training, Sawyers said.

• Among issues covered at last week’s Statewide Education Conference was the black student achievement gap. Author Robert Jackson suggests developing “new peer identities” for black males, and maintaining a positive social image of students in school environments.