Commentary
Wake up, Ohio
Once known as the Mother of Presidents, the once-great state of Ohio is getting poorer, older and dumber--and making all the wrong moves to reverse the situation.
Commentary
Fordham and OEA differ in Gwonger
Here's an excerpt from a June 24 Gongwer report concerning a Center on Education Policy study showing Ohio's testing and accountability program is working. Terry Ryan, Fordham's Ohio vice president for programs and policy, spars with the Ohio Education Association over the issue of whether the state should hold schools and students accountable for academic results.
Commentary
Some final food for thought
-- "[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.
Commentary
Ohio goes squishy
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.
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about Ohio's proficiency standards
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:
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Ohio needs to get serious about the looming teacher shortage
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.
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Ohio's proficiency standards far from "world-class"
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.
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That's bull, Durham
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.
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U.S. schools' next big problem: The cost of teacher obesity
The childhood obesity epidemic has lately been much in the news.
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Ohio's charter-hunting AG goes down
A post from guest blogger and Fordham Vice President for Ohio Programs & Policy Terry Ryan .
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Ohio AG resigns
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.
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As goes the writing, so goes the thinking
An essay that every high-school freshman should be required to read but isn't is "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell.
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The view from the Ohio trenches
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.
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New Denver pension study finds similar problems as Ohio
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).
Commentary
about Ohio's autism scholarship program
The state's autism voucher program provides up to $20,000 a year for special instruction for an autistic child.
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The job of a lifetime
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.
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in response to our interview with Ohio's First Lady
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:
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A new method of funding Ohio public schools
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.
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Ohio's charter-school law under the microscope
Charter opponents often claim that charter schools in Ohio are unaccountable. But this claim is wrong and utterly indefensible.
Commentary
Growth matters: Ohio's move to value-add
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.
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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.
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High Principal Turnover Found in Low-Performing Schools
Advocates for Children and YouthDecember 2007
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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);
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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.
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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).
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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).
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Ohioans continue to beat feet to charter schools
Ohioans continue to vote for charter schools with their feet.
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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.
Commentary
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.
Commentary
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.