Archives for category: Ohio
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Kasich Pulls a Fast One

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
15

A reader sent this notice of a major change in teacher evaluation in Ohio, slipped into legislation at the last minute, with little discussion. The governor is determined to follow the Rhee script and bombard teachers with test-based accountability, despite evidence to the contrary. I have a suggestion for Governor Kasich: How about if you take the students’ end of course exams and publish your test scores?

The bottom line:

If you’re not familiar with legislative language, here’s the summary 

HB 555 radically changes the method of calculating evaluations for about 1/3 of Ohio’s teachers. If a teacher’s schedule is comprised only of courses or subjects for which the value-added progress dimension is applicable – then only their value-add score can now be used as part of the 50% of an evaluation based on student growth. Gone is the ability to use multiple measures of student growth – ie Student Learning Objectives or SLO’s.

Teachers and school districts have spent countless months collaborating on the development and implementation of an evaluation system originally detailed in HB153 – only to now find the rules of the game changed at the 11th hour. Furthermore, the change is regressive. We have detailed the growing list of research that demonstrates the very real and serious problems with heavy reliance on value-add, and the need to offset these problems by using multiple measures of student growth.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Ohio, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Brilliant! Opposite Day in Ohio with StudentsFirst

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2012 //
16

This may be the best blog post of the year. Read it. It is priceless!

Welcome to Opposite Day in Ohio!

Veteran educator Maureen Reedy explains what “education reform” meant on Opposite Day.

This is the day when StudentsFirst came to the Ohio Legislature to tout the virtues of charter schools, even though public schools in Ohio far outperform charters. The bottom performing 111 schools in the state of Ohio last year were all charter schools. Opposite Day!

And when StudentsFirst claimed that great teachers could teach 100 or more children online, even though Ohio already has poorly performing online charters. Opposite Day!

And when an employee of StudentsFirst boldly claimed that teaching is not a profession. Opposite Day!

Please read. This story should be on Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow and the Newshour. John Merrow, are you there?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, On-Line Education, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Michelle Rhee Advising Governor Kasich in Ohio about Funding

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2012 //
7

This Ohio blogger reports that Michelle Rhee is now advising the anti-public school administration of Governor John Kasich and the Republican legislature about how to fund education.

Given the predisposition of the leadership in Ohio, the outcome is predictable and it won’t be good for public education.

Ohio has a flourishing landscape of charters and a growing voucher program.

The charter landscape is very profitable for certain big-time charter operators, but charters do not outperform public schools. Many get very low scores.

The online charters are immensely profitable for their owners, but do as poorly for their students as online charters in other states.

Categories Ohio, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst

Ohio Assures Lower Ratings for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2012 //
5

Ohio legislators are pushing through a few tweaks to the state’s useless accountability system.

Republicans are using their super majority to ignore Democratic dissents.

Read through this description and see the game plan of labeling public schools as failing, giving them letter grades with no validity, cutting their budgets, and clearing the way for privatization.

Categories Accountability, Ohio

Ohio Starts New Group to Support Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 28, 2012 //
16

Citizens of Ohio have launched a new organization to support strong public schools.

Is there an organization like this in your community or state?

Please let me know.

I will compile a list and circulate it to everyone.

From Ohio comes this good news:

Ohio’s Teachers, Parents, Superintendents, School Board members and Citizens have launched a new movement ~ Strong Schools / Strong Communities

Strong Schools Strong Communities is a non-partisan movement dedicated to informing and engaging Ohioans at the community level to understand, appreciate and support our system of common public schools.

Visit our website at http://www.strongschoolsohio.com
Friend us on Face Book at : http://www.strongschoolsohio.com

Categories Ohio, Parents, US Education

Checker Finn Opposes the “For-Profit Model in Education”

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2012 //
69

Back when I was a conservative, I was a founding member of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which is now the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

TBF was a continuation of work that Checker Finn and I started in the early 1980s as the Educational Excellence Network.

We advocated for liberal education and for higher standards for all students.

Checker was always more enthusiastic about choice than I was, but we worked together harmoniously in our shared distaste for humbug of any kind. We even traveled together in Eastern Europe at the invitation of the AFT, to talk about education and democracy.

When I left the conservative fold, I left the board of TBF.

While I still disagree with TBF’s love affair with school choice, I admire the honesty and transparency that has distinguished the organization.

In this latest report, TBF hired an experienced journalist to investigate why Edison failed in Dayton, Ohio, as an operator of a large charter school. Checker was one of the founding gurus of Edison.

The story is fascinating.

Most interesting is this quote:

“Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, whose sister organization sponsors the two schools overseen by the Alliance for Community Schools board, is among the most disillusioned about Edison’s effort in Dayton. Finn was at the table with Whittle and Chubb when Edison was conceived, and he was an early proponent of its education model. He said that the company’s “horror show” in his hometown is a special embarrassment.

“They did an abysmal job in Dayton,” Finn said. “I think it was an implementation and an accountability failure.”

An assistant secretary of education under former President Ronald Reagan, Finn said he has become “cynical” about the for-profit model in education. “Shareholder return ends up trumping the best interests of students,” he said. Having watched education management companies for 20 years, “Most of the models I admire today are run by non-profit groups.”

Now that is newsworthy! Checker is one of the most prominent of the conservative champions of choice, and he here admits that he has become cynical about the for-profit model.

Tell that to Governor Snyder in Michigan, where 80% of the charters are for-profit. Or to Governor John Kasich in Ohio, who has collected millions of dollars in campaign funding from for-profit operators.

And thank you, TBF, for showing other advocacy groups what it means to be transparent and self-critical and honest.

Categories Charter Schools, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization

The Real Crisis in The Cleveland Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2012 //
18

Louis Filippelli, a teacher in the Cleveland public schools, writes that all of the most popular nostrums about school reform are wrong.

The governor, the mayor, the teachers’ union, the business community, and elected representatives are on the wrong track, he says.

More money, he writes, won’t solve the fundamental problem in the school, which is the lack of parent and student responsibility.

Filippelli maintains that the leaders are averting their eyes from the real crisis:

“The assumption that large numbers of student failures must be the fault of an incompetent, lazy, burned-out, greedy teacher is a ludicrous proposition. The paradox here is that in the real world of modern inner-city education, the teacher with the higher failure rate may indeed be the superior teacher. Challenging students with high academic standards and rigorous testing will inevitably mean low or failing grades on a grand scale for pupils either unwilling or unable to do the work.

“Standardized test scores tell little or nothing about teacher quality especially when dealing with an unprepared, unmotivated, and severely insubordinate student body.

“Teachers who complain about discipline issues are admonished by the administration as weak in classroom management skills and thus bombarded with never ending “professional development” sessions that tout group work and new “strategies.” In reality no one really knows what to do with the staggering amount of children whose sole purpose seems to be to derail the entire educational process.”

Categories Accountability, Ohio, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Maureen Reedy Loses in Ohio

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2012 //
2

I am sorry to say that veteran educator Maureen Reedy narrowly lost in her bid for a seat in the Ohio Legislature to another contender, who was funded by (among others) Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

Count on StudentsFirst to place its bets against an experienced educator.

With so many crucial education issues before the legislature, it would have been wonderful to have someone with Maureen’s experience to advise them.

Kudos to Maureen for having the courage to run.

More teachers should do it.

If the legislatures are going to decide how to reform schools and how to evaluate teachers and principals, there must be experienced educators there to bring reality to the table.

 

Categories Ohio

Ohio Legislature Finds New Way to Meddle in Education

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2012 //
16

Just when you think that state legislatures have run out of bad ideas, some state takes teacher abuse to the next level.

The Ohio Legislature wants to make sure that every third grade student is a proficient reader. They think they know how to do that: They passed a new law.

It’s called the “Third Grade Reading Guarantee.”

That should do the trick. Just like No Child Left Behind left no child behind.

More testing. And better yet, the law requires every teacher of students in the early grades to take additional courses that might cost as much as $17,000 over seven courses.

Expect every student in Ohio to be a proficient reader as soon as all those tests are given and the teachers have taken all those courses.

That is, if you believe in the Tooth Fairy, who lives on the same planet as the Testing Fairy.

Categories Ohio, Teachers and Teaching

Michelle Rhee Shows Her True Colors

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2012 //
38

Michelle Rhee is endorsing and funding rightwing candidates across the nation, showering cash on those who are opposed to teachers’ rights and unions and support privatization of public education.

In Ohio, she is using her StudentsFirst millions–collected from anonymous billionaires, millionaires and corporations–to support opponents of public education.

An Ohio blogger writes:

Now, here in Ohio, Michelle Rhee’s true colors simply cannot be ignored.  Rhee has chosen to fund multiple candidates in Ohio who are running for the Ohio House this year, citing their individual votes to support the Kasich budget that cut public education funding by $1.8 billion as a reason for StudentsFirst’s support.  Let me restate that: StudentsFirst supports these candidates because they supported Kasich’s budget that cut $1.8 billion from school funding.
PlunderBund (http://s.tt/1rpCF)

Of all her endorsements in Ohio, the most disgusting is that Rhee is supporting a candidate with no education experience running against Maureen Reedy, an experienced and admired teacher. The two are candidates for an open seat in the 29th district.

Maureen Reedy was a teacher for 29 years. Rhee claims to “love” effective teachers. Maureen Reedy was Ohio’s Teacher of the Year in 2002. But Michelle Rhee is supporting her Republican opponent.

Maureen Reedy has pledged to expose the frauds that allow profiteers to waste millions of taxpayers’ dollars in Ohio. She has pledged to support public education in the state legislature. And that is why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy.

This election tells us who Michelle Rhee is. She supports far-right Republicans, not Democrats. She supports those who voted to defund public education. She supports those who advocate for privatization of public education and who benefit from ineffective, for-profit schools. She does not support effective teachers. She opposes effective teachers.

Forget what she calls herself.

Judge her by her actions.

She is a rightwing Republican who hates public education and those who support it.

Want to know why Rhee opposes Maureen Reedy? Here is an excerpt from an article Reedy wrote for the Columbus Dispatch:

Charter schools are a poor investment of Ohio’s education dollars and have a worse track record than public schools in our state; there are twice as many failing charter schools as successful ones, and one in two charter schools is either in academic emergency or academic watch, compared with only one in 11 traditional public-school buildings. Five of seven of Ohio’s largest electronic-charter-school districts’ graduation rates are lower than the state’s worst public-school system’s graduation rate, and six of seven of the electronic charter schools districts are rated less than effective.

And finally, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow has failed in every identified state category for eight years, a worse track record than the Cleveland City School system, which is under threat of being shut down by the state. The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is run by unlicensed administrators. Lager, in addition to his $3 million salary, earned an additional $12 million funneled through his software company, which sells products to his charter-school corporation. Just how much does the average teacher in the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow earn you may ask? Approximately $34,000 per year.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Vouchers
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