The outgoing school board and the interim supe made some fairly permanent decisions this week regarding the school closure process in Dayton.
In the world of American politics, controversy dominated 2017. In the world of Ohio education policy, things were a bit quieter—but still eventful. As we say goodbye (or good riddance) to 2017, here’s a look at the seven biggest education stories of the year.7) State budget
In case you missed it, Aaron Churchill had an op ed published in the Dispatch yesterday in which he argues for a revamp of Ohio’s school and district report cards. He lays out in brief the recommendations of his recent Back to the Basics report. (Columbus Dispatch, 12/19/17)
Here at Fordham, we try to keep our finger on the pulse of what our Ohio readers are interested in. But every year, we are pleasantly surprised when blog posts take on lives of their own.Herewith, the most-read Ohio Gadfly blog posts of 2017, with some thoughts as to why these pieces caught your attention.1. The student perspective
Fordham’s Aaron Churchill is quoted in this Dispatch piece on the topic of rising high school graduation rates. Our research guru warns that giving out unearned diplomas just for the sake of “fairness” can devalue both the piece of paper and the education it is supposed to represent.
The state board of education finished up their meeting this week by drafting a resolution proposing to create a working group to review and recommend changes to state report cards. The resolution will be debated at the next meeting in January.
As the song says, “There’s a war goin’ on out there somewhere.” It seems to be a war on knowin’ stuff and it’s being waged in the state board of education.
The gap in vocabulary for children growing up in poor households compared to their higher-income peers is well documented in research, especially for the youngest students just entering school. But shouldn’t the start of formal education begin to mitigate that gap?
Can you stand a couple more media hits on Fordham’s Back to the Basics report? Me too! First up was a really good write up I missed upon release of the report last Thursday.
In case you missed it, Fordham released a new report yesterday, offering up a redesign of Ohio’s school report cards to be fairer to schools and clearer for parents. Media response was generally pretty good.
At its November meeting, the State Board of Education reopened the debate over Ohio’s graduation standards.
For more than a decade, Ohio’s annual school report cards have offered the public information on school quality. The current iteration of report cards has notable strengths: School ratings are grounded in hard data, they use an intuitive A-F rating system, and several of the metrics encourage schools to pay attention to the achievement of all students.
I don’t usually clip blog posts, but the Ohio-centric nature of this piece from Citizen Ed was too much to resist. It describes a panel event called “The Faces of Education Reform,” held at the recent Excellence in Education annual conference.
The Associated Press published a story looking at the racial diversity of students who’ve opted into charter schools across the country and were very alarmed by their findings. I’m assuming that many news outlets across Ohio will be localizing the story in the days to come.
The inimitable Marguerite Roza has been taking a look at dual enrollment programs across the country, including College Credit Plus here in Ohio.
Maybe they were too optimistic? Maybe there was a wink and a nudge? Who knows?
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation’s sponsorship annual report highlights our work with eleven schools that served 4,150 students in five Ohio cities during the 2016-17 school year.
We start the week with another update on Columbus City Schools’ upcoming surplus property auction.
Pretty busy meeting for the Columbus school board last night. Suspensions were approved for two more data scrubbing administrators. Both will retain their jobs after the sting of that wrist slapping abates.
Next September, Ohio districts and schools will receive an overall grade on their report cards. While the Buckeye State has generated overall ratings before—using labels such as “effective” or “academic watch”—this will be the first time Ohio assigns an overall A-F grade.
Fordham is namechecked in Jeremy Kelley’s look at the latest charter sponsor ratings. Makes sense since our sponsorship office (and two sponsored schools) is located in the Gem City. (Dayton Daily News, 11/20/17)
New Ohio charter sponsor ratings were released this week. For the first time, there are sponsors rated at the highest level, which is good. The Dispatch is focusing on the bad – 10 sponsors rated “Poor”.
Want a good read? Check out this little nugget on the Fordham-sponsored United Schools Network of charters here in Columbus, including a look at their new School Performance Institute. Just ignore the snarky subhead of the piece. They couldn’t help themselves, I suppose.
Youngstown City School’s CEO Krish Mohip recently announced significant changes to how his district will evaluate its teachers.
We’re back after a little break on Friday, with a lot of central Ohio education news. Stay with me on this first one; it’s twisty. Twenty-some years ago, Columbus City Schools was embroiled in a lawsuit over the use of religious music—specifically Christian hymns and spirituals—used in its graduation ceremonies.
In the last week, central Ohioans got an interesting look at how Columbus City Schools deals with its taxpayer-provided finances and assets, courtesy of two stories from the Columbus Dispatch.
Props to Columbus City Schools for this accounting control measure that likely saved the figurative bacon of dozens of district employees. Surprisingly. (Columbus Dispatch, 11/6/17) Why the surprise?
Youngstown CEO Krish Mohip this weekend unveiled a new teacher evaluation framework coming soon to his district – in which 50% of a teacher’s performance rating will be based on how the district as a whole is doing in terms of value added measures.
Not sure why, but the story about Dayton City Schools’ contract tussle with the Preschool Promise folks—clipped earlier this week—garnered more interest than usual from readers.
