This post appeared on the Network for Public Education website.
Paul Huang and Olivia Peebles: It’s time to pass a Fair School Funding Plan
This op-ed from Cleveland.com was written by a pair of students from Shaker Heights High School. Paul Huang is a senior; Olivia Peebles in a junior. Both are members of the Shaker Heights High School Student Group on Race Relations. In this op-ed, they lay out a defense of their high school against Ohio’s flawed school rating system.
In Shaker, we are fortunate to have educational opportunities ranging from honors courses and AP/IB classes to vocational training. We are also fortunate to have an administration and staff that strives to close achievement, opportunity and wealth gaps that stem from systemic racism.
Yet the Shaker Heights City School District has three so-called “failing” schools and received an overall “C” average on the Ohio Department of Education’s annual report card.
The school report card is based heavily on standardized achievement data, which is linked to socioeconomic status. Standardized tests do not consider the specific challenges some districts have, such as high poverty.
Schools with larger numbers of Black and brown students or children whose families have low incomes are more likely to be deemed “failing.”
The report card also grades districts on closing a “racial achievement gap,” without considering the opportunity barriers communities of color face due to years of segregation, discrimination and exploitation.
When the state considers a school to be “failing,” it can send the district’s funding to private schools via vouchers. This gap-closing metric actually widens achievement gaps by underfunding the schools that need extra resources to close them.
You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/paul-huang-and-olivia-peebles-its-time-to-pass-a-fair-school-funding-plan/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Test and punish policies unfairly target poor Black and brown students. Scooping up the lowest test performers enhances segregation which leads to social and academic inequity. One of the great missions of public schools is bringing diverse students together to promote mutual respect and understanding. In privatized schools the instruction is often very narrow focusing on reading and math. Students also lose federal protections under the law, and students often receive instruction from minimally prepared facilitators. Students also lose the peer effect of a diverse school. One of the reasons that integration works is that some students model positive social and academic habits that help students learn to be better students and sometimes better people. While fair funding is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough. Privatization is a current example of Jim Crow racism. Schools that divide along racial and socioeconomic lines are losing an opportunity to bring different students together. As MLK has said, “Separate is never equal.”
retired teacher,
Thank you. I enjoy reading your comments. You should be Secretary of Education.
You are correct:
Privatization is a current example of Jim Crow racism. Schools that divide along racial and socioeconomic lines are losing an opportunity to bring different students together. As MLK has said, “Separate is never equal’.”
Thank you.
I share Yvonne’s enjoyment of your comments. I find them informative and always on point.
Wicked Problem: (Rittel and Webber)
“The causes of problems can be explained or described
in many ways. The choice of explanation or description
usually determines the nature of the problem’s resolution.”
Problem description: Faux metrics, based on concocted standardized achievement data.
Resolution: Deep six the concocted metrics.
Question: How does one reject concocted metrics by staying
wed to other concocted metrics such as:
honors and AP/IB metrics?
Problem: Systemic racism
Resolution: Pass a fair school funding plan.
Sounds good, BUT the school funding spent to date
has yet to cultivate enough individuals with true vision,
to see through the mythology surrounding government,
behind the systemic racism…
Shaw High School in East Cleveland fell into the same category. But look at what they do with their students. https://www.east-cleveland.k12.oh.us/schools/career-and-technical-education/. Shaker Heights and Shaw High Schools were featured on United Shades of America with Kamua Bell.
Ohio lawmakers don’t have time to address public school funding- they’re busy meeting each and every demand of the ed reform lobby.
Public schools are neglected in Ohio in favor of expanding, promoting and investing in charters and private schools. That’s the policy choice we made- no investment or effort expended on public schools, all investment and effort redirected to charters and vouchers.
I tell young people to leave Ohio and move to another state. This state no longer supports public education and without a solid public education system the state will continue to decline. Ohio will have a Mississippi-level standard of living and economy within another two decades.
It’s a shame. The state had a history of supporting public education since really after the Civil War and onward. But the last two decades of privatization and monetization have really taken a toll. We’re headed to the bottom tier of US states as far as education and workforce development, and quickly. These young people shouldn’t invest in building a family or a career here. They should look elsewhere.
All of my grown children left Ohio as soon as they could- two to college and one to skilled trades training. My youngest is also leaving- he’s attending a Michigan public university because it was a better value than the Ohio public (and private) schools he considered. I think Michigan is actively recruiting our students, based on the quality of the offers he got.
I don’t know why young people would stay here and I no longer encourage them to- I don’t think it will be a good place to raise children going forward.
There’s a saying “eating your seed corn”- it means eating the corn that should be saved and then planted for the following year’s crop. That’s what we’re doing in this state. I don’t know what happened, or when we stopped being sensible and turned into compulsive gamblers who don’t think a year ahead let alone generations.
actually a good way to understand what is happening across the entire nation with school reform: “eating your seed corn” as in — using public schools only to skim off profit until there is nothing left to skim