Well, this is good news!
Ohio Governor John Kasich’s proposal that teachers should be required to “job shadow” a business to learn about “the real world” has been shot down (thanks to Ohio Algebra Teacher for sharing!).
Democrats’ counterproposal that Kasich be required to spend 40 hours annually job shadowing people who work in public schools. That won’t pass either, but it was a nice response.
After Checker Finn called for an end to teacher tenure, Mercedes Schneider became interested in the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. First she reviewed its financial reports to the IRS.
Now she scrutinizes the performance of the charter schools that TBF sponsors in Ohio. Since TBF lectures the nation about the virtues of school choice, it is useful to know how it’s own schools are doing. It is not a pretty picture.
A reader sent this comment about the Van Wert, Ohio, public schools, and how the state grades them. It shows how wacky Ohio’s school grading is.
“Van Wert is a rural community where half the district’s 2,000 students come from low-income families yet 96% graduate from high school—on time. With top-line results like that, you’d expect the district would be getting top grades in Ohio’s standardized school assessment system, but you’d be only half-right: A’s for graduation rate and progress in math and reading, but F’s for achievement gaps and K-3 literacy.
“So where did DeVos focus her post-visit remarks? On school choice, of course. Faced with the dearth of charter schools and private schools and vouchers in rural Ohio, she seized on the fact that the parents of nearly 20% of the students in Van Wert city schools choose to send their children to public schools in other districts.
“She also promised to lift the burden of government-mandated paperwork that takes time away from teaching. When asked for examples of that burdensome paperwork, however, she couldn’t cite any. Suggesting that she’s been getting alternative-fact lessons in Washington.”
Will Betsy DeVos have a better understanding of public schools after visiting one? Or is she measuring it as a potential charter school?
DeVos, Weingarten lay down arms for first-ever joint school visit
DeVos, Weingarten lay down arms for first-ever joint school visit By Caitlin Emma
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and American Federation of Teachers Presidents Randi Weingarten — longtime combatants in the nation’s school wars — will converge Thursday on a small Ohio school district deep in Trump country where amid forced pleasantries, they’ll seek to score political points.
It’s a schoolyard stare-down of sortsfor the two veterans, who are making a first-ever joint visit to several public schools in Van Wert, a rural community in northwest Ohio that went overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump.
Weingarten extended the invitation to DeVos in February with little expectation the secretary would accept after the teachers unions’ concerted efforts to sink her nomination. DeVos called her bluff, perhaps because she is under pressure to show her commitment to public schools and appearing in a midwestern Republican stronghold plays to her strengths.
The condition was that Weingarten must visit a still unidentified school of “choice” with DeVos. That visit hasn’t been scheduled yet.
“These women are mortal political enemies, bent on destroying the other’s education agenda through deployment of vast financial resources,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center.
“But it’s necessary for Weingarten to find favor with the Education Department,” he said. “And it can only help DeVos if she’s seen as the secretary for all schools and not just charters and private schools.”
In fact, the joint tour allows both women to press points that are critically important to them, said several policy watchers. DeVos can show rural Republicans and Democrats that she supports all schools, not just charter and private schools. Weingarten — who once stood next to a protester costumed as a grizzly bear to mock DeVos remarks about the need for guns in schools — can show she is extending an olive branch to the secretary even as she champions public education.
Thomas Toch, an education policy expert at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and founder of the think tank FutureEd, suggested that few people in the public education sector “are still listening to DeVos and one might argue this is an attempt to address that problem.”
“Until now, she has been reluctant to say anything other than, ‘I’m for good public schools, good charter schools, good private schools.’ She repeats that frame over and over and hasn’t been willing to go beyond that. … She’s going to have to go much farther than she has to date in terms of embracing public education.”
From Weingarten’s perspective, if DeVos makes a strong commitment to public education standing next to the union leader, she might be able to say she helped DeVos soften her stance, Toch said.
Weingarten said in an interview that she hopes the trip will give DeVos a chance to learn what is working in public schools, and not just a photo opportunity. She said she also wants her to understand how Trump’s budget blueprint, which would slash the Education Department’s $68 billion budget by 13.5 percent, would hurt public schools.
“This is an area that voted for Trump, but they love their public schools and they’re really upset about the cuts to education and this polarization about public schooling,” Weingarten said. “They’re wary about [DeVos’] policies and they should be wary about her policies. They’re an attempt to dismantle, defund and destabilize public schools.”
A spokesman for the Education Department declined POLITICO’s request for an interview with DeVos. But in a written statement shared with The Blade in Toledo, DeVos said that “every parent should be able to send their children to a school that meets their unique needs, and for many parents, that is a public school. I support and celebrate all great schools.”
Kaleigh Lemaster, executive director for School Choice Ohio, a statewide choice advocacy group, said she hoped the focus of the trip would be on children, rather than a particular education option.
“We’re happy to see Secretary DeVos and Randi Weingarten visiting great public schools, charter schools and private schools because we believe that every family should be able to choose the best educational environment for their children,” Lemaster said. “This is a great opportunity for them to talk about Ohio’s schools and hopefully find agreement on what should be at the center of all discussions on education policy — the children.”
Van Wert Superintendent Ken Amstutz said he’s eager to have his school district “pull these two people together,” although he noted the Education Department has largely been in the driver’s seat when it comes to planning the visit.
DeVos and Weingarten are expected to spend the day visiting Van Wert’s high school, elementary school and early childhood center, where they’ll hear from administrators, teachers and students. They’ll hear about programs that provide students with social services and food on the weekends when they otherwise might go hungry. And they’re expected to visit with fifth graders and a high school robotics class.
Amstutz said his district has struggled financially, but he’s eager to show how teachers and students are doing innovative things with limited resources — for instance, offering a high school robotics club, which won a regional contest earlier this year.
“A lot of good things are happening in public education. I think the blinders are on and I’d just like to have her open her eyes and take a look at what’s going on,” he said of DeVos. “Maybe Van Wert will be the starting point of where this conversation takes place between Betsy DeVos and proponents of public education.”
As for the people of Van Wert, Republican Party Chairman Thad Lichtensteiger, a farmer, said he believes his neighbors will give DeVos “a fair shake.”
“Van Wert is a really conservative place,” he said. “We’re going to weigh the issues on their own merits, rather than say Trump is evil and paint anybody associated with him with that broad brush.”
An Ohio legislator has proposed lifting the income cap for private school vouchers, so that 74% of all families in Ohio would be eligible to use a voucher to attend a religious or private school.
The cost estimates of this proposal range from $70 million to $1.2 billion (if every eligible student were to use a voucher). The assumption–or hope–is that not every eligible student would use a voucher because there are not enough seats available in nonpublic schools. Presumably there would be an explosion of new private schools to take advantage of the money.
This is money that would be transferred from public schools to nonpublic schools. The public schools would essentially be defunded to favor religious and private schools.
The irony in this enthusiasm for vouchers in Ohio is that the voucher-friendly conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently released a study showing that students in Ohio who take vouchers to enroll in nonpublic schools actually lost ground academically as compared to their peers in public schools.
Does anyone in the Ohio legislature look at evidence?
Does Ohio want to destroy its future?
Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy–a retired educator who served as deputy commissioner of education for the state of Ohio- asks the question that is the title of this post.
And he answers:
What educational opportunities do charters provide that would not exist if there were no charters?
Sometimes public school advocates say, “I don’t have a problem with charters, but…” A short quiz is an appropriate way to think about what the charter industry has contributed to the improvement of educational opportunities and results.
ο What innovations and best practices have Ohio charters demonstrated that are worthy of replication in the real public school system?
ο What additional and/or high quality educational opportunities are charters providing for regular, disadvantaged, career/technical students and those with disabilities that are not available in the real public school system?
ο What extracurricular activities do charter schools offer that the real public school system does not?
ο Have charters demonstrated stronger academic performance than the real public school system?
ο Have charters demonstrated a lower cost for school administration than the real public school system?
ο In view of more than 200 charter school closings in Ohio, have charters provided more stability for students than the real public school system?
ο Have the threads of fiscal fraud and corruption, funds wasted in charter closings, nepotism, inordinate profits and towering administrative salaries inherent in charterdom established a new normal in school operation?
Ohio taxpayers have been forced to invest in this $9 billion charter experiment. Truthful answers to the above questions reveal that they have, in large part, been bilked; but state officials in charge of the Statehouse continue to throw more money at this failed venture.
If you want to contact Bill for information or to support his activities, he can be reached at:
Ohio E & A, 100 S. 3rd Street, Columbus, OH 43215
ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net
I was a founding board member of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation (now, Institute). It is a pro-choice organization. I opposed the decision to sponsor charter schools in Ohio, because I thought it was outside the work of a think tank. My ideal think tank would exercise independence in reviewing government policy and gain respect for avoiding doctrinaire conclusions. On that issues, I was out voted, but was not surprised when most or all of the charters we sponsored were failing schools.
I left TBF in 2009 when I realized that I no longer shared its commitment to choice, testing, and accountability.
I appreciate the fact that TBF Is more willing to acknowledge its failings than other rightwing advocacy groups.
Last July, TBF released the results of a study of the Ohio voucher program, commissioned by TBF and conducted by Northwestern professor David Figlio. Here is the full study.
The study was not an endorsement of vouchers.
The students who won the vouchers were not the most disadvantaged:
“Student selection: The students participating in EdChoice are overwhelmingly low-income and minority children. But relative to pupils who are eligible for vouchers but choose not to use them, the participants in EdChoice are somewhat higher-achieving and less economically disadvantaged.”
Voucher schools can choose their students and did not accept the neediest
“Competitive effects: EdChoice modestly improved the achievement of the public-school students who were eligible for a voucher but did not use it. The competition associated with the introduction of EdChoice appears to have spurred these public-school improvements.” This strikes me as a gargantuan leap of logic. The students who did not use the vouchers improved their test scores. But nothing in this study ascertains that they improved because of competition with vouchers. It is just as reasonable to conclude that they had better teachers than those in the voucher schools.
“Participant effects: The students who used vouchers to attend private schools fared worse on state exams compared to their closely matched peers remaining in public schools. Only voucher students assigned to relatively high-performing EdChoice eligible public schools could be credibly studied.”
The spokesman for TBF called attention to the modest gains of students who didn’t use the voucher.
So here is the logic of Ohio’s voucher program:
If you use the voucher, your academic performance will go down.
If you don’t use the voucher, you academic performance will modestly improve.
This is a bizarre argument for vouchers. Take the medicine and you will get sicker. Don’t take the medicine and you will feel better.
Why is Ohio wasting millions on a program that doesn’t work? Unless you are not in it?
A while back, Ohio Governor John Kasich proposed that teachers should be required for recertification to spend time in a business so they could understand the real world.
Sarah Guinn of The Athens “Messenger” reported that:
“Some legislators responded by proposing the Get REALS Act (Governor’s Externship for Training of Realistic Expectations of Academic Leadership in Schools) which would require Kasich to spend 40 hours of on-site observations inside a public school. The Messenger decided to do the externship for a day at Athens High School.”
Guinn took on the challenge that Kasich has so far ducked. She learned a lot. The teachers wish that Kasich would try it. He would stop loading up the schools with mandates and unnecessary tests. He might learn a lot too.
She writes:
“Natalie Bobo’s classroom is replete with a tennis shoe-filled box for anyone who may need them, a griddle she uses a few times during the year to make breakfast for students and a myriad of basic school supplies and materials — a number of which are paid for from her own pocket.
“So what else might Kasich see if he were to venture to Athens High School?
“For this psuedo-Kasich who hasn’t spent a full day at high school in almost a decade, the experience was eye-opening in a number of ways.
“Bobo, an intervention specialist, changes gears many times throughout the day. She spends three periods in her own classroom providing instruction to students who need a slower-paced class than what’s typical for their grade level, and three outside of her classroom co-teaching. Two other periods are dedicated to academic coaching and planning.
“For the periods outside her classroom, Bobo teams up with Molly Roach to co-teach two freshman English classes; one for students at a typical level, and another at college-prep. She also co-teaches social studies with Paul Kaiser.
“This is a typical day for Bobo from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but her true hours reach far beyond what’s contractually agreed upon, as is the case with many teachers.
“Teaching is physically and mentally exhausting,” Roach said. “I am on my feet all day, lecturing, monitoring group work, jumping from student to student to give individual help. I have to attend meetings. I have to plan and write tests. I have to grade the work of 132 students. I have one 43-minute planning period during which I am supposed to accomplish all my grading and planning, make copies, enter my grades, check and answer my emails, make parent phone calls, and Heaven forbid use the restroom or call home to check on my own children.”
“She eats and works at her desk during her 30-minute lunch break, she said, and takes home folders of ungraded papers each night.”
“When you are a teacher, you get no rest. There is always someone needing something from you,” she said. “You’re never finished with your work. It feels like a treadmill on high speed sometimes.”
Take this idea and run with it. Invite elected officials to be a teaching assistant for a day. Target state legislators. They have no idea what happens in schools.
Julie Rine, a teacher in Ohio, wrote a public letter to Governor John Kasich, rebuking him for his insulting proposal to require teachers to spend a day in a business to learn about how to prepare students.
“Your proposal in the budget to require teachers to complete an “on-site work experience” with a local business as a condition of renewing our teaching licenses is baffling. Even the state legislators in your own party didn’t seem to see the value in it, and have indicated that they most likely will not support it. What exactly did you hope to accomplish by our spending time observing or even participating in a field outside of education? Despite a lot of press coverage, we were given few details about the thinking behind this mind-boggling mandate, but the director of your Office of Workforce Transformation indicated that this added licensing requirement was intended to “help teachers get a better idea for what jobs are available to students and what skills employers need”[1].
“Governor, even if your proposal does not become a requirement, you don’t need to worry. Teachers know the skills that employers value, whether the job requires a college degree or not: a willingness to work hard, to ask for clarification if a job expectation is unclear, to show up on time, to demonstrate respect when speaking to others, to take initiative and go beyond basic expectations, to work just as hard whether under direct supervision or alone, to accept criticism, to work well with others, to communicate effectively in person, on the phone, or through email. Armed with these skills, a person can be trained in any job from making a pizza to governing a state. Teachers don’t need to shadow a business person to understand what skills make a good employee. We know what those skills are.
“And you know what? We already teach those skills…”
She points out that teachers would be more effective if they didn’t waste so much time prepping for and giving tests.
She has a counter proposal:
“Governor, your proposal indicates that you think teachers are in the dark about life after high school. Frankly, we think you are in the dark about life in the classroom. Perhaps this could be remedied if you and our state legislators spent time with a teacher. Imagine if one day each year, across the state of Ohio, across all content areas and grade levels, in small schools and big schools, wealthy districts and high-poverty districts, every single state legislator and our governor shadowed a public school teacher for an entire school day. We could practice one of the life skills we both want our students to have: learning to see a situation from another’s point of view. Ohio’s teachers would know that when our legislative leaders discuss educational policies, each one of you would have had at least a one-day experience in our public schools with the students and teachers your policies will impact. Your proposal argues that it’s important for teachers to know what jobs await our students and what skills they will need in those jobs; I would argue that it is at least equally important for our politicians to know what our jobs are really like and how your policies affect our ability to educate our students in meaningful ways.
“My spending time working in a local pizza parlor would not likely improve my ability to teach, but your spending time in a classroom could improve your ability to enact policies that would have a positive impact on teaching and learning. Will you visit our classrooms? Will you talk to us? Will you listen? We will if you will. Our classroom doors are always open.”
Thank you, Julie, for expressing so well what every teacher was thinking.
Do you think Governor Kasich and Ohio’s legislators will accept your invitation? Given their penchant for telling you how and what to teach, it would be reasonable for them to spend time in the classroom.
During the Republican primaries last year, many friends of mine considered John Kasich the adult in the GIP field. When I explained his demonstrated hostility to public education, they thought I must be exaggerating.
But now the proof is there for all who are willing to learn about it.
Kasich wants all teachers to spend some time visiting businesses so they know how to prepare their students.
http://www.ohio.com/news/local/kasich-wants-teachers-to-learn-another-job-or-lose-theirs-1.747817
“Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants public school teachers to see what it’s like to work outside the classroom so they can better match their students to the needs of local employers.
“Tucked a third of the way through Kasich’s 3,512-page 2018-19 state budget is a new education mandate. If the Ohio House and Senate accepts the proposal, educators looking to get or renew a teaching license this fall would have to work at or, more likely, tour a local business.
“The plan, which prioritizes industry over pedagogy, is part of the governor’s broader plan to drive career education and marry schooling to the needs of the economy.
“It could be as simple as teachers touring local business and having those conversations … to just get a better sense of what those in-demand jobs are,” said Ryan Burgess, director of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, which put together the group that developed the “on-site work experience” externships and about 20 other proposals in Kasich’s budget.
“Asked how kindergarten teachers might benefit from touring a local business, Burgess said it’s never too young to explore a career.”
So five-year-olds will “explore a career.”
Here is a better idea: How about if business leaders commit to teach for one full day in the public schools? Think of what they might learn by doing so.
Diane Ravitch's blog 