1) Early intervention and educational services, especially among the most vulnerable of our children, and
2) Getting kids reading at grade level by 3rd grade.
Ohio, as has been reported several times, is now dead last in the country on early childhood education funding. And now it's trying to force districts to catch kids up by 3rd grade or be forced to retain them until they are proficient -- all while slashing state money to education precipitously.
There is little question that telling districts to do this is a classic unfunded mandate. In fact, given the state's recent divestment from education, I would call this a De-funded Mandate.
At least with the Evidence Based Model, there was a promise the state made to tie any requirements to the funding; none of the elements would have been required until the funding was available. That way districts, schools, teachers and children at least had a chance to meet the goals.
However, all I remember hearing during that debate was how it was an unfunded mandate, even though there was a promise of funding made. On this 3rd Grade Reading Guarantee, there's not even a pretense that the state will be providing any additional property tax relief to help districts meet this goal. And no one is bringing up the unfunded mandate issue, at least not in today's Dispatch story.
The only opposition was that massive numbers of kids will have to be held back under the House's version of the bill that passed yesterday. Not a peep was made about what a massive, untenable unfunded mandate this bill will be. Can you imagine holding back entire classrooms for potentially years? Where exactly will all these kids go? Will districts have to build new buildings just for 3rd Grade hold backs? Has anyone even thought about this? Or do they just want to seem tough on standards?
At least the Ohio Senate relaxed the standard a bit, requiring that kids be held back only if they're in the lowest tier on reading. The Senate recognized the logistical and policy nightmare this all or nothing approach could produce.
As I have said before, there is ample evidence that holding kids back will actually increase the chances of the children dropping out of school at some point -- completely undoing any good that the 3rd Grade Reading Guarantee hopes to do, which should greatly alarm education policymakers, given this policy's potential to explode the grade retention rates of our kids. A small sampling (with links to the peer-reviewed articles from whence they came)
"Repeating a grade from kindergarten to sixth grade was associated with a substantial increase in the odds of dropping out even after controlling for differences in background and postretention grades and attendance." http://aer.sagepub.com/content/31/4/729.short
"We find that retention among younger students does not affect the likelihood of high school completion, but that retaining low-achieving eighth grade students in elementary school substantially increases the probability that these students will drop out of high school." http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25760170?uid=3739840&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47699012250687
"This article examines the extent to which test-based grade retention policies comply with standards for fair and appropriate test use based on norms established by the professional testing community. The results of the investigation indicate that test-based retention policies potentially violate several of the professional standards." http://edr.sagepub.com/content/39/2/110.short
"... grade failure leads to substantial dropout and lower educational attainment even four to five years after grade failure occurred." http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00165
"In the third grade, retention did not improve achievement gains. But the report finds significant negative effects of retention at the sixth grade. After two years, the achievement gains of retained students are about 6 percent lower than those of comparable promoted students. Additionally, close to 20 percent of retained third and sixth graders were placed in special education within two years of the retention decision at a rate three times that of other low-achieving students." (this quote came from the news release about the research located here: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040407.retention.shtml.)
As was pointed out in 2001 in an article published in the peer-reviewed School Psychology Review, which examined 100 years of grade retention research,
Again, that was written 11 years ago, yet could as well have been produced today given its prescience."... rather than encouraging further research regarding the relative efficacy of grade retention and social promotion, it seems prudent to move beyond the question “to retain or not to retain?” as we enter the new millennium. In isolation, neither social promotion nor grade retention will solve our nation’s educational ills nor facilitate the academic success of children. Instead attention must be directed toward alternative remedial strategies. Researchers, educators, administrators, and legislators should commit to implement and investigate specific remedial intervention strategies designed to facilitate socioemotional adjustment and educational achievement of our nation’s youth." Jimerson, S. Meta-analysis of Grade Retention Research: Implications for Practice in the 21st Century, School Psychology Review, 2001, Volume 30, No. 3, pp. 420-437
I think ensuring kids are reading at grade level by 3rd Grade at the latest is a laudable and necessary goal. But once again, Ohio has hamfisted this thing into an untenable unfunded mandate, with zero expectation that any property tax relief will be forthcoming to assist districts (who have seen their state money cut 15% relative to inflation since the above article was written).
And, of course, this policy will put the largest burdens on districts that face the greatest challenges. As I've mentioned before, it is dangerous to base policies like this that are so black and white and heavy handed purely upon test scores. For when about 3 out of 4 districts' scores can be predicted given their demographic make up, is the test really measuring excellence? Or is it measuring a district's demographics?
Here's what I proposed in my school funding reform plan: kids who scored in the lowest tier of the Kindergarten readiness assessment would receive weighted funding through Eighth Grade, with the additional revenue going specifically to reading improvement. If the child was then on grade by Fourth Grade, the district would receive a bonus payment as a reward; however, the child would keep receiving the reading help they needed through Eighth Grade. For it does no good to catch kids up, then let them slip back again, which No Child Left Behind has taught us is a danger.
Here's what I proposed in my school funding reform plan: kids who scored in the lowest tier of the Kindergarten readiness assessment would receive weighted funding through Eighth Grade, with the additional revenue going specifically to reading improvement. If the child was then on grade by Fourth Grade, the district would receive a bonus payment as a reward; however, the child would keep receiving the reading help they needed through Eighth Grade. For it does no good to catch kids up, then let them slip back again, which No Child Left Behind has taught us is a danger.
Not a perfect solution, but it at least tried to fund that goal of catching kids up. And it did so by encouraging rather than punishing districts. Something I remember about attracting bees with honey, or a Fable I read my children about the Sun and the Wind.
Anyway, all this tough talk about standards should be met with equally tough talk about putting your money where your mouth is. If you want kids to catch up, you should be willing to pay for it, or at least restore some of the nearly $3 billion in education funding cuts made in the last budget. One of the toughest and most eloquent thinkers on standards-based reform is former Massachusetts Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll, who works with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
However, when he instituted those reforms in the 1990s, the state of Massachusetts increased funding to education by about $2 billion, which he acknowledged during a joint appearance we had together during the House Bill 1 debate. That was actually more than what the EBM would have provided over 10 years, given inflation.
Standards only work if you actually provide the necessary resources to achieve them. Look at Major League Baseball. When is the last time the New York Yankees were not considered a World Series contender?
Standards alone, without financial commitment, is simply political rhetoric. And our kids will suffer the consequences for all that bluster and empty promise.
Since we all want our kids to reach the World Series, let's be the Yankees, not the Royals.
