-- "[Statewide tests] may be crude, and they should never be the sole means of measuring students' academic abilities and progress. But the accountability they have brought to schools and the statistical guideposts they've established are undeniable benefits. Take, for instance, the reading and math achievement gap between minority and white students.
In response to a June 4 Gadfly article about Ohio's proficiency standards, State Board of Education member Colleen Grady comments about board members' consideration of student proficiency testing:
One might think that leaders of the Buckeye State who have at least one eye focused on education would be struggling to prepare tens of thousands more kids with the skills and knowledge that global competitiveness demands in the 21st century: math, science, engineering, history, languages, and writing as well as prowess in "creative" applications of such skills and knowledge.
Ohio is bracing for an exodus of baby boomers from classrooms as experts sound alarms about whether there will be enough teachers to staff our public schools.
A recent evaluation of proficiency standards asks how well states are doing at setting "world-class" academic expectations (see here). The answer: not great, unless you live in South Carolina, Massachusetts, Missouri, and maybe Hawaii.
The childhood obesity epidemic has lately been much in the news.
Durham, North Carolina, allows its public-school students a variety of educational choices: pupils in the district have been free to apply for any open spot at any public school. But now, it seems, that wise policy may be changed.
Terry posted earlier today on the pressure mounting on attorney general Marc Dann to quit office in light of recent scandals. He's just resigned.
A post from guest blogger and Fordham Vice President for Ohio Programs & Policy Terry Ryan .
An essay that every high-school freshman should be required to read but isn't is "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell.
Here in D.C., the politics of education reform seem tame compared to what our Fordham team in Ohio faces, a point made clear in this Columbus Education Association interview with Governor Ted Strickland.
The state's autism voucher program provides up to $20,000 a year for special instruction for an autistic child.
Gadfly readers will recall last June's much-debated Thomas B. Fordham Institute study, Golden Peaks and Perilous Cliffs: Rethinking Ohio's Teacher Pension System, which called for overhauling the State Teachers Retirement System (see here).
While the Empire State was agog over Spitzergate, New York's union-friendly state assembly quietly passed a bill that will preemptively quash any attempts by school districts to factor student test-scores into tenure considerations.
Ohio can boast of praiseworthy gains over the past decade in making school funding more equitable across districts. The next step must be to make funding fairer within districts, according to a new report-Fund the Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy, and Portability to Ohio School Finance-from the Thomas B.
First Lady Frances Strickland's February 27 interview in The Gadfly sparked this response from Dayton educator Mike McCormick, superintendent of the Richard Allen Schools:
Charter opponents often claim that charter schools in Ohio are unaccountable. But this claim is wrong and utterly indefensible.
Last month, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released the value-added achievement test data for the state's public schools. This data, from the 2006-07 school year, shows student academic growth (in math and reading, grades four through eight) over time.
