Some sensible Ohio legislators recognize that the A-F letter grades for schools (invented by Jeb Bush to accelerate privatization) measures nothing more than the wealth or poverty of the district. They would like to revise the simplistic letter grade to a “data dashboard,” reflecting the manic love of all things data.
But John Kasich stands in the way. While pretending to be a moderate Republican for the National media, he is still a right winger at heart.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Stupid is as Stupid does.
This is how political leaders at the state level handled an attendance scandal in a public school district:
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Columbus – A top-down culture of data manipulation and employee intimidation was uncovered by a special audit of the Columbus City School District released in a press conference held today by Auditor of State Dave Yost.
“This is a story of tears and sadness,” Auditor Yost said.
Auditors and investigators conducted work based on nine objectives (attached) and reviewed information for the period of July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. Overall, the special audit found a troubling lack of documentation and records, inconsistently followed business rules, and unacceptably high data error rates.
Throughout the course of the investigation, Auditor of State staff conducted interviews with more than 40 principals and assistant principals, more than 230 teachers, the available Regional Executive Directors (REDs), more than 20 secretaries and other office personnel, and 25 current and former employees of the Kingswood Data Center. As the audit work progressed, it became clear that a culture existed in Columbus City Schools in which staff at all levels believed data needed to be manipulated or they would face negative consequences to their careers.”
Compare that with how they treated ECOT. No interviews. No investigation. No prosecutions. There’s no legitimate explanation for this wildly disparate treatment. They’re captured. They refuse to regulate the schools the national ed reform “movement” supports and they absolutely hammer public schools.
Their ideological bias harms every public school student in the state.and 90% of Ohio kids attend the public schools this lobby seeks to eradicate. They actively work against your kids, if your kid happens to attend a public school. And you’re paying them for this!
Find better employees.
Yost is part of the problem and so is Kasich, “a right winger at heart,” and as a policy shaper.
and a ‘right winger by bank account.’
Who can ever forget Kasich’s classic — *schools are just like pizza shops^ — excerpted in the John Oliver video?
(starts at 9:20)
JOHN OLIVER: (finishing the segment on Kasich’s idiocy)
“And finally, (just as with schools) the notion that the more pizza shops there are, the better pizza becomes has effectively been undercut by the two words … ‘Papa John’s’. ”
Oooh, snap!
Would someone tell me what good it does to stack schools, programs, people, students, teachers, auto mechanics, or presidents? No, don’t. You would be wasting your breath.
Here is my suggestion for the evaluation of schools:
Compare the list of school needs to the money spent on those needs. If the relationship seems reasonable, the school is pretty good. If not, quit paying for so much administration and oversight and put some money where the students are. You do not need a grade, you just need political accountability for the agents of avarice.
At least in Utah, the number of administrators isn’t the problem. It’s the criminal lack of funding by the state.
“Too many administrators” is the cry used a lot, but with all of the state and federal requirements schools have to jump through, administrators are needed.
But where the rubber meets the road is: how much will legislatures fund for schools? And in my neck of the woods, anyway, the answer is–as little as possible.
By administration and oversight I mean to include the testing structure and its administration, which is a terrible drain on resources, as well as individuals who are responsible mostly to rove about the school, asking teachers what little Jimmy can do to bring his grade up. We also have a lot of people in charge of the computers who never see children at all. The more people we have that do not see children and are responsible for their learning, the more we will have to put up with packed classes to make up for it.
Excellent point! And I TOTALLY agree with you there. The money spent on testing and “grading” and whatever other crap arises from the testing is ridiculous. The amount spent should be $0.00.
The conventional “bizdom” rests on so-called authentic mockers:
test scores, letter grades, data dashboards, on and on.
Wilson/Swacker:
“Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is
** “vain and illusory”**.
Yet the “whole processors” continue to use vain and illusory results,
as if keeping UNreality in the “mix” improves matters.
Is Kasich seriously considering of running for potus? He’s a mental and moral midget. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/21/kasich-2020-trump-479178
If so, HELP, HELP, HELP! And if so, he is looking for big $$$$$ donors…pure and simple.
Beware of Alt-Right Republicans dressed in progressive clothing.