The need to reform Ohio's State Teachers Retirement System won't go away

Ohio's State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) has serious problems that won't go away without fundamental changes to the system.

High Principal Turnover Found in Low-Performing Schools

Advocates for Children and YouthDecember 2007

Strong Results, High Demand: A Four-Year Study of Boston's Pilot High Schools

Center for Collaborative EducationNovember 2007Ohio is a hotbed of high-school reform initiatives, including:the KnowledgeWorks- and Gates-funded Early College High Schools like DECA in Dayton (see here);

Ohio can't rely on do-it-yourself academic accountability

As lawmakers in Washington hash out the details of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), both accountability and standardized testing are facing mounting criticism and skepticism. This backlash is felt in the Buckeye State, where some would like to move our academic accountability system away from the state's current achievement tests.

In charter-school league scores, it's Michigan 24, Ohio 7

Anti-charter-school wolves are circling in Ohio, howling about low test scores but ignoring the fact that the same low scores are shared by many district schools (see here).

Good charter schools can still lead resurgence in Ohio education

Today's New York Times published an article headlined "Ohio Goes After Charter Schools That Are Failing," noting that more than half of the state's 328 charter schools received either a D or F on the state's report card issued in August (see here).

Ohioans continue to beat feet to charter schools

Ohioans continue to vote for charter schools with their feet.

Tear down this wall?

LBJ high school in Austin, Texas, is no longer one school. This year, it was separated into two: the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA), a former magnet program that enrolls higher-achieving students, is upstairs, and the traditional LBJ is downstairs.

Leaving Ohio's children behind

When it comes to student success, Ohio is kidding itself. Our state's precipitously low academic expectations leave students ill-prepared to compete in the global economy. This is the disturbing conclusion of several major, in-depth assessments of our students' academic performance.

WWAD?

The deadline to submit feedback on Congressmen George Miller's and Buck McKeon's draft NCLB proposal has come and gone. Still, it's never too late to have an impact on the reauthorization debate--if you're Al Shanker, that is.

Artful dodging

Trouble overseas.

The Suburban Schools Relief Act of 2007

The political strategy of George Miller and Buck McKeon, respectively the chairman and top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, has now come into focus: to get an NCLB reauthorization bill through Congress, appease the suburbs and those who represent them. This approach is smart and savvy and sometimes leads to good policies--but may also leave lots of kids behind.

Educational policy by popular initiative poorly serves Ohio

Backers of a proposed constitutional amendment to mandate increased state public-education funding failed to get the 402,000 signatures needed to get their proposal on the November ballot. Yet, the debate about adequacy in educational funding is sure to go on and the group pushing the effort, Campaign for Ohio's Future, may very well try again in 2008.

Analysis of Ohio report-card data shows improvement lagging in big-city schools

Despite a decade of school reform efforts in Ohio, students in the state's largest cities still struggle to meet basic academic standards and are nowhere close to achieving the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to an analysis of the latest Ohio school report-card data.

Not by geeks alone

Tarek's no Martin Luther

As a fairly regular Gadfly reader, I often find myself nodding in agreement at the wisdom and insight that it delivers.

Cash in your gold stars

Districts have long resisted plans to pay teachers based on their performance. So it's little surprise that Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer encountered flak when he proposed to pay students based on theirs.

Ohioans Speak Out: Are Their Elected Officials Listening?

Last week, Fordham and the FDR Group, a respected national survey research organization, released "Ohioans' Views on Education 2007"--a revealing look into the attitudes of Buckeye residents on a host of pressing education issues at the state and federal level.

Going once, going twice...

Elizabeth Logan is 41 years old, makes $69,000 annually, and has been teaching elementary school for 20 of those years. But none of those facts was enough to stop her from (allegedly) stealing a third-grader's winter coat and attempting to sell it on eBay.

BES Waiting to Invest in Ohio

Ohio’s children need more high quality educational options. We at Building Excellent Schools (BES) want the opportunity to work in Ohio, training leaders to found strong charter schools. This would seem a match made in heaven, right?

Bringing Teach For America to Ohio: Opportunity and Challenges

Ask folks interested in the business of education to name the top reform efforts across the country, and it’s a sure bet Teach For America (TFA) will rank among them.

Bad ideas

Charter school lessons from Ohio

Charter schools are no longer in their infancy. They're gangly, pimply, headstrong, unpredictable teen-agers. It's been 15 years since the first school in Minnesota opened its doors. Back then, say veterans of the early charter wars, the struggle was simply to keep the spark glowing, to make sure that lawmakers gave charters a chance to open and prove their worth.

Taking covers

The advent of spring means a lot of things, not least of which is the release of Sports Illustrated's eagerly awaited and top-selling yearly swimsuit issue.

A New STEM Class for Ohio

When it comes to preparing Ohioans for the demands of the modern workplace, “Good enough is no longer good enough,” write the co-chairs of the Science and Math Education Policy Advisory Council (SAMEPAC). Especially when those demands arise in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines.

Ohio Needs a World-Class Education System

On February 13, 2007, Achieve, Inc., presented to the Ohio State Board of Education a study of education policy, entitled Creating a World-Class Education System in Ohio.