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.
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.
As a fairly regular Gadfly reader, I often find myself nodding in agreement at the wisdom and insight that it delivers.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Perhaps it makes perfect sense that Batman would turn up in a place called Cave Creek. Still, three schools in this Phoenix suburb were placed on lockdown for 45 minutes last week after a Desert Arroyo Middle School student reported seeing Batman (or a person mimicking the Caped Crusader) run across campus, hop a fence, and vanish into the desert.
An authority on Vietnamese education I don't pretend to be, but a recent trip yielded a couple of surprises.
Ohio’s college pipeline has sprung a leak--and both high schools and colleges are struggling to make good on the promise to educate (and graduate) their students.
School reforms come and go. But educational determinism, it appears, goes on forever. By which I mean the view that schools are essentially powerless to accomplish much by way of learning gains, no matter what is done to or about them.
Detroit Public Schools has lost more than 50,000 students over the past eight years, almost a third of its population, to charter schools, private schools, and the suburbs. Still, it has closed only 35 of 267 schools, about 7 percent. With education funding in Michigan tied to attendance, something had to give.
Interest in classical humanism, the "traditional" liberal arts, has fallen sharply in recent decades, and nowhere more so than in American K-12 education.
Edited by Robin J. Lake and Paul T. HillCenter on Reinventing Public Education's National Charter Research ProjectDecember 2006
Educational philanthropists spend about $300 million each year on education initiatives--yet too little of this investment is aimed at reshaping education policy. The Ohio Grantmakers Forum (OGF), at least, is trying to change that with Education for Ohio's Future.
The cheers (and some jeers) have faded and the votes from November's elections have finally been tallied (in most places). Yet still uncertain are what the election results mean for Ohio's education program. While Gadfly makes no claims of prescience, several results may bear a weighty impact on education in the Buckeye State.
Chelsea Clinton showed up at a polling station on West 20th Street in Manhattan to find that her name wasn't on the voter rolls. Republican Representative Steve Chabot of Ohio could not vote because the addresses on his ID and registration didn't match (Chabot went on to win his race, but it was close).
Last week's News and Analysis (Adrian Fenty: A mayor for everybody?) was on the money. Many charter opponents use D.C.
With elementary and secondary students back at school, attention is turning to the state's youngest pupils. The School Readiness Solutions Group, formed at the behest of the State Board of Education, recently released its recommendations for improving early learning services for Ohio's children aged birth to five.
The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a statewide charter school association now in the planning stages, is conducting a survey of Ohioans active in education to develop its service offerings for the coming years. The Ohio Alliance is an effort supported by three national foundations, Ohio donors, and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Each day in Ohio's classrooms, great things happen that can't be tested. Caring teachers help reserved children build self-confidence, school administrators challenge at-risk students to continue their education, and students learn the value of cooperation and respect for others.
The editorial page writers at the Los Angeles Times see trouble in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plans to take over L.A.'s fractured school system. But rather than blasting his ideas, they take readers on a journalistic tour of Boston, where mayoral control has improved the city's schools (although they're still far from perfect). Consider Richard J.
Residents of the Buckeye State are celebrating more than Ohio State's pre-season ranking as the #1 football team in the land. On Tuesday, the state released its 2005-2006 student achievement data and school rankings--and at first blush the news is good. All of Ohio's major urban districts have moved out of Academic Emergency, the lowest category. Charter schools did well, too.
