Delisle Confirmed by U.S. Senate

Former Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Deborah Delisle was confirmed last night by the U.S. Senate to oversee K-12 education as the Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Elementary and Secondary Education.

Outside being a proud moment for Deb and Ohio, it is one for me as well. When HB 1 was introduced in 2009, Deb was appointed about the same time. She had to get caught up to speed quickly and she did. She led the state's effort to win the $400 million Race to the Top grant, which was no small feat considering how short a time she had spent at the Department.

In addition, she chaired the Ohio School Funding Advisory Council and was masterful at keeping that diverse group of folks on track. As a result, Ohio's citizens have the most accurate, thorough and complete examination of education funding this state has ever seen. There is little doubt that the OSFC report will have a lasting impact on Ohio's future funding system.

During the work we did together on HB 1, I found Deb to be smart, tough, and unwilling to allow obstacles to overwhelm her creativity. And she was incredibly funny. The children of Ohio were lucky to have her as their leader. Similarly, this country's children are lucky now to have her advocating for them now.

Good luck, Deb. I know you'll do great!

DeWine Cows to Homeschool Lobby

Another fascinating chapter in the Home School Saga occurred recently. In response to a gross negligence case out of Dayton, the Dayton Daily News did an investigation into what permitted parents and relatives to so severely neglect 14-year-old Makayla Norman, who was 28 pounds at the time of her death, without anyone noticing.

One aspect the paper looked at was Home Schooling. In the examination, the paper found that

Ohio requires parents to notify the local superintendent of their intent to home school. The law also requires:
• That the home teacher have a high school diploma or equivalent or work under the direction of a person with a bachelor’s degree.
• That certain curriculum areas are covered and instruction include at least 900 hours.
• And an annual assessment be filed with the school district. Gallaway said the Ohio Achievement Assessment and Ohio Graduation Test are not required of home education students, but individual districts can allow students to participate in the state assessments.

And as part of this investigation, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said something seemingly innocuous:

DeWine said Makayla’s death should provide a case study for the Ohio legislature.
“There should be hearings about what went wrong with the Medicaid system and the school system,” he said. “The biggest breakdown was with the Medicaid system — there was a total collapse of that.”

...

In an interview with the Dayton Daily News, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said hearings should be held on what went wrong in the Makayla case and what can be done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

“There needs to be some accountability for the school district for losing track of this child,” DeWine said.

“Do we need different laws? Do we need different enforcement?” DeWine asked.

Well, when that story ran March 17, it didn't take long for the incredibly well-organized homeschool lobby to strike. Here's how the interaction with Ohio's top law enforcement official and House Speaker was recounted in the Homeschool Legal Defense Association's most recent newsletter:

In a recent meeting, Ohio’s attorney general assured HSLDA and state homeschool leaders he has no intention of pressing for change to laws governing home education.

HSLDA Staff Attorney Michael Donnelly, Christian Home Educators of Ohio President Wayne Clark and CHEO Legislative Liaison and Board Member Melanie Elsey met with Attorney General Mike DeWine the afternoon of April 17. They discussed the media controversy sparked by the Dayton Daily News story that linked the death of 14-year-old Makayla Norman to “lax homeschooling regulations.”

The paper reported comments by the attorney general that seemed to indicate his desire for some changes to the current homeschool regulatory framework in Ohio. However, DeWine told HSLDA in the meeting that he had no intention of contacting the legislature about the issue.
“This is a Medicare fraud case,” DeWine said. “I told that to the reporter and said that this really wasn’t about home education.”

“They are Great Kids”

DeWine went on to praise home educators as caring and conscientious.
“Homeschooling parents obviously care very deeply about their children. Homeschooling is a tremendous commitment, and I have great respect for parents who undertake the task,” he said. “When I served in the U.S. Senate in Washington, I visited with a number of homeschooled students and graduates. They are great kids—bright, well-read, and well-rounded. I am not lobbying for legislative changes.”

The three homeschool advocates then met with House Speaker William Batchelder, who has had a distinguished career serving the people of the 69th District of Ohio. The current speaker has served as both representative and judge in Ohio over his long career and has had great experiences with home education.

“Homeschooling is a tremendous asset to many families,” Batchelder said. “In Ohio we will protect the freedom that allows parents who want to choose this option. I have many homeschooling families in my district who do a tremendous job, and I know that the overwhelming majority of homeschoolers in Ohio are conscientious and diligent undertaking the task with great care. The legislature has no interest in making changes to the current framework.”

Donnelly responded to the Daily News article with an editorial that can be found here. Since then the paper has written a follow-up story that places the issue in its proper context as having virtually nothing to do with home education. Nevertheless, this article should provide a warning to homeschoolers.
Donnelly says he told DeWine that there is a strong desire among many policy makers to impose greater control on parents who homeschool, and that the news story is just an example of how those who want to impose more control advance this agenda.

“Stick Together”

“The paper used the attorney general’s comments to advance a narrative and policy agenda of those who favor increased state control over citizens,” Donnelly said. “There are many who seek to use even the most tenuous link to homeschooling to advance the narrative that children need to be under state control and oversight and that parents cannot be trusted. It is important that homeschoolers stick together and respond vigorously to these attacks to protect our freedom.”

Donnelly encouraged Ohio homeschoolers to support CHEO.

“CHEO is a critical friend to HSLDA in the fight to protect our freedoms,” he insisted. “As an organization they do important work to support and encourage home education, and through their legislative liaison work they are responsible for protecting freedom and advancing the cause of home education. Every homeschooling family in Ohio ought to support CHEO; $30 is a small price to pay for the work they do. And with the $20 HSLDA membership discount that comes with CHEO membership, it virtually pays for itself.”
Elsey and Clark both praised the work HSLDA does for homeschooling everywhere.

“CHEO is grateful to HSLDA for its work protecting homeschoolers in Ohio and for it support of CHEO. Ohio homeschoolers receive great value from HSLDA, and we encourage them to support freedom by becoming members. Given the opportunity, there are those who would impose more restriction on homeschoolers. It is critical that we have an association like HSLDA with its resources and professionalism to work alongside us,” said Clark.

HSLDA supports the work of CHEO and like-minded organizations. We will be attending the CHEO convention in Akron in June and hope to see many of you there. Donnelly will be in attendance as a workshop speaker. The convention is a great place to receive encouragement and to obtain resources for all aspect so the homeschooling journey.

HSLDA wishes to express its thanks to Attorney General DeWine and Speaker Batchelder for investing their time to meet with HSLDA and CHEO to discuss how important it is to preserve the fundamental freedoms for parents to homeschool their children. The citizens of the state of Ohio are blessed to have such leadership in place in the highest offices of their state government. 

So, apparently, a hideous death of a child means we should take on the school district and the Medicaid system (though the HSLDA reported that DeWine called it a Medicare case), but whether we should even look at tighter regulations of a system that allowed Makayla to remain hidden is out of the question?

Remember, it's teachers, not parents, who are the top, non-law enforcement, reporters of child abuse, according to national statistics, with three-fifths of all reports coming from professionals who have contact with children and are required by law to report suspected abuse. Only 6.8 percent of all child abuse reports in 2010 came from parents.

It is, therefore, logical to conclude that the less contact a child has with these professionals (like teachers), the less likely it is that the top child abuse reporters will be able to report any suspected abuse of the child.

However, to those of us who have some familiarity with the Home School movement (two of my closest colleagues at the Akron Beacon Journal spent 18 months writing about it in an incredible series of stories that won an award from Harvard University for fairness), the response to the Makayla Norman case is a classic HSLDA maneuver.

The HSLDA is an incredibly powerful group. Homeschoolers make up anywhere from 22,000 to 60,000 students in Ohio, according to various estimates. That could make homeschoolers among the top 10 largest school districts in Ohio, yet we know little about the kids and parents that are participating.

In looking at the response to the Makayla Norman case, I was struck with how the Beacon Journal in 2004 described homeschoolers' responses to these kinds of situations:

Home-school advocates address troubling situations in one or more ways:

• By their definition, home schooling is practiced only by loving, caring families. Bad families, therefore, are not home schoolers. ``If you're going to home-school, you are doing it because you care about your kids,'' one home educator said.

• When criminal activity in a home-schooling family goes undetected, it is the fault of the government or the medical community. Home schooling is not a factor.

• Abuse happens. Laws cannot protect all children in public schools, nor can more laws protect all home-schooled kids.

Without question, many of the crimes in home-schooling families occurred in homes where education was not occurring. Those parents, however, were using existing home-schooling laws as a way to avoid accountability for their children.

While those sentences were written about 8 years ago, they appear to be as true today as they were then. And look what the HSLDA's approach got them in the Makayla Norman case: After merely thinking out loud about whether hearings should be held into the topic, Ohio's top law enforcement official said, "Nothing to see here", and the state's House Speaker agreed to not even look at laws that may have helped shield unimaginable abuse of a special needs child.

Impressive.

I'm not saying these laws need changed. I'm not saying because Makayla Norman was abused, all home schoolers abuse children. I am saying that this horrific case should result in at least a hearing or two to determine how it could be prevented in the future, with no sacred cows. I don't want any child to go through what Makayla Norman suffered at the hands of her relatives.

But it appears Ohio's current leaders seem willing to ignore a potential contributor to that abuse because of a powerful lobby.

Where's Makayla Norman's lobbyist?  

National Backlash Begins Against Tests. Ohio Wants More.

Noted education policy expert Diane Ravitch wrote a fascinating piece today in EdWeek about the national backlash against high-stakes testing.

The piece appeared to stem from an incident about a test question on an 8th Grade English proficiency test in New York recently that was described this way in the New York Post:

In the story, a take-off on Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare, a talking pineapple challenges a hare to a race. The other animals wager on the immobile pineapple winning — and ponder whether it’s tricking them.

When the pineapple fails to move and the rabbit wins, the animals dine on the pineapple.
Students were asked two perplexing questions: why did the animals eat the talking fruit, and which animal was wisest?

Now, perhaps knocking a whole testing regimen based on one question being written apparently by Douglas Adams' crazy cousin is unfair. However, we are basing people's livelihoods and the future of our children on such things in this high-stakes regime.

Ravitch denoted several incidents of nationwide revolt against high-stakes testing and the problems it brings.

The National Testing Resolution calls on the Obama administration and Congress to "reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators".

The organizations that have joined to oppose high-stakes testing include the Advancement Project; the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Fairtest; the Forum for Education and Democracy; MecklenburgACTS; the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.; the National Education Association; the New York Performance Standards Consortium; Parents Across America; Parents United for Responsible Education (Chicago); Time Out from Testing; and the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries.

In addition, she gave several state examples of revolt:

Nearly 400 school districts in Texas have passed a resolution opposing high-stakes testing, and the number increases every week. Nearly a third of the principals in New York state (some at risk of losing their jobs) have signed a petition against the state's new and untried, high-stakes, test-based evaluation system.

This reminded me of something current Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Stan Heffner told the Cincinnati Enquirer recently about his vision of future testing in Ohio.

Instead of taking just one test every spring, students will take up to four tests each year in each subject, he said. The first test may come after the first nine weeks of school and may be optional.

So it appears Ohio will continue with more testing, despite the reservations of some in other states and nationally.

State Cuts Force State to Make Districts' Payrolls

A little blurb from the Dispatch this morning may have been overlooked by many, but it caught my attention. The state's controlling board approved giving $4.1 million to three school districts yesterday who otherwise wouldn't have been able to make payroll.

The state Controlling Board, a bipartisan spending oversight committee, approved $1.8 million for Bellaire City Schools in Belmont County; $678,000 for Cloverleaf Local in Medina County; and $1.7 million for Ledgemont Local in Geauga County. All three are in fiscal emergency, and without the money would not be able to make payroll.

And while the Dispatch blames failed levies, local economic trouble and state budget cuts for the problems at those districts, perhaps a closer look will tell us where the primary issues lie.

I looked at what the state provided per pupil after all deductions in 2000, then what they provided this year through the latest report available after all deductions. What it shows is that, adjusted for inflation, per pupil state aid has dropped 34% in Ledgmont and 17% in Cloverleaf. In fact, Ledgmont gets less per pupil now than it did in 2000, even without adjusting for inflation.

The only district that has shown an increase is Bellaire, which saw an 11% increase over inflation since 2000. So the state is less to blame there.

Again, you can look here do check it out for yourself. Look at the final payment SF-3 form from 2000 and the April 13 payment form on the 2012 Bridge report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator is here: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

In short, the only district where you couldn't say the state is the reason for the district's financial woes is Bellaire. This mirrors what's happened in Cleveland, where the state's policy decisions have driven that district to the brink. And overall, at the end of the day, Ohio is providing 12% less today in per pupil funding to districts than it did in 2000.


Again, this is 10 years after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the fourth (and final) time that the state had a constitutional duty to provide more of the cost of education and reduce the need for property taxes. Instead, the exact opposite has happened.

As long as the state continues to divest itself from education in Ohio like this, expect more and more districts to need emergency payments from the state to make payroll.

Maybe then it will merit more than a little blurb.

State Officials Apparently Skip 12th Grade History

The Plain Dealer had an interesting story today about re-thinking 12th Grade and either making it more relevant to college and career readiness, or doing away with it all together. And while it tackled many different aspects (as reported by Karen Farkas, whom I respect and competed against for many years), I was really struck by something State Superintendent Stan Heffner said in the first few paragraphs.

"A high school senior year is in many ways a wasteland," he said. "They have passed the Ohio Graduation Test and tests to get into college. Wouldn't it be something to have them meshed together? We're pretty excited about this."

Ohio has for years provided many options for meshing these years together, much to the chagrin of local school districts, which have footed many a college tuition payment for its seniors. My wife went to college her senior year, and that was in 1996. Seniors to Sophomores was one of the few Strickland-era education programs that received wide support among Democrats and Republicans. There are Early College High Schools throughout the state that are re-making not just 12th Grade, but all of High School for first-generation, college-bound children. And they are some of the highest-performing schools in the state.

And yes, in House Bill 1 from 2009, there was the ACT Plus -- a fundamental change in graduation requirement from passing Ohio's OGT to passing the ACT as well as successfully completing end-of-course exams and a senior project. The idea behind the ACT plus was to make 12th Grade relevant by preparing students for critical thinking and project-based learning prior to going into the workforce or college. Research has shown there's more similarity between the skills necessary to succeed in today's workforce and college than there used to be, so this focus would better prepare kids not just for college, but for life.

Like nearly everything else in HB 1's education reform package, though, the current administration ditched this effort too.

Heffner's comments made it seem like there's never been a real effort to change 12th Grade, or give kids options (even though Farkas did mention the college attendance options, but not the ACT Plus). If my wife was able to spend her senior year in college 16 years ago, is this really as cutting-edge an idea as Heffner makes it sound? And is it fair of Heffner and Chancellor Jim Petro to give the impression that he and his administration are coming up with this idea, ignoring the work of administrations dating back at least 20 years?

I was concerned, again, that money, rather than research, is driving a lot of this talk. Solon's Superintendent Joseph Regano said in the story that we should eliminate 12th Grade and cover 4-year-old pre-school. That way we get in one year of universal pre-school at the same cost. An interesting idea, but clearly it's budget, not research driven. Will eliminating 12th Grade make kids more successful? Or does it just make kids cheaper for fearful legislators?

Again, I'm all for making changes that peer-reviewed research shows will improve students' chances of succeeding in life. Yet once again, Ohio's leaders seem hell-bent on executing reforms that have more to do with doing things on the cheap.

Have we learned nothing from our experience with pre-school? As I've put it 1,000 times:

Don't expect a Cadillac when you buy a Chevy.

PD Notices Ohio's Education Funding Problem

In a rather remarkable editorial, the Plain Dealer's Brent Larkin finally recognizes that Ohio needs to step on funding education, but it took the state to come in dead last in per pupil pre-school education spending for him to do that.

Larkin even suggests that the federal Race to the Top grant that Ohio got last year is nice, but not the answer to this most pressing need.

Only 14 percent of the eligible children from families below 200 percent of the federal poverty level now attend quality preschool or Head Start programs. A significant increase in third-grade reading skills can't be achieved until more children under age 5 have access to those programs.

It was also good to hear one of the Cleveland Plan's chief architects -- Greater Cleveland Partnership President Joe Roman -- say, "There are five or six critical components to the mayor's plan, but early childhood education is probably the most important."

As I have said here and in the report I developed for Innovation Ohio on the Cleveland Plan, Mayor Frank Jackson's commitment to have every three and four-year-old in Cleveland attend pre-school is the strongest part of the entire plan. However, as I pointed out many times, it is questionable whether that great goal can be achieved without additional state support. It is difficult to see that entire burden being thrust upon residents in a district whose median income is about $22,000.

And Larkin agreed.

But that won't happen unless Cleveland voters pass a school levy and the state resumes paying its fair share...The legislature's ongoing deliberation of a budget correction bill makes this a perfect time for the governor to push for a correction of this funding shortfall.

And while I (not to mention the Ohio Supreme Court four different times) would disagree with Larkin that the state has paid its fair share recently to which it could return as he suggests, I welcome Larkin's call for additional state support of pre-school education and the Cleveland Plan.

Perhaps this will motivate the folks in Columbus to address the fact that they have cut per pupil funding to Cleveland by about 12% in constant dollars since 2000. Cleveland's budget shortfall is of the state's making, which Cleveland CEO Eric Gordon admitted in a recent public forum.

It is time for the state to right this wrong. Let's hope more join Larkin's call.

Cleveland Meeting Observations

Note: In my earlier post, I used the incorrect ADM figures from the 2012 Bridge Report from the Ohio Department of Education. As a result, I have changed the relevant portions of the post. The change does not alter any of the post's conclusions. It just changes the amounts discussed slightly.

Last night, I drove up to the Collinwood Recreation Center to hear Mayor Frank Jackson and Cleveland Municipal School District CEO Eric Gordon discuss their plan to overhaul Cleveland's schools. I thought I'd share a few impressions.

First of all, Jackson's meeting reminded me of the many Town Hall meetings I held during my time in the legislature. Whenever you offer a public forum, sometimes members of the public use the opportunity to air grievances that have little to do with the topic at hand. Last night was no exception. And while some of the Cleveland Plan I've disagreed with, I admire and respect Jackson's willingness to stand there and take it. Politicians never get credit for that. So let me give Mayor Jackson kudos there.

Let me also say that as someone who has gone through what Jackson has, namely developing a major piece of education reform amid the many different factions and pressures you face, I feel a kind of kinship with Jackson, though I certainly would have chosen to do many things differently than he did. But I know exactly what he's going through.

Second, I had the opportunity to speak about my remaining major concerns with the plan -- namely, the lack of state fiscal involvement and the inherent long-term problems letting Charter Schools receive local revenue would entail. I said I was extremely concerned that without additional state resources, I fear the truly laudable goals in the Cleveland Plan, like universal pre-school, will never happen.

I pointed out that, adjusted for inflation, the per pupil amount the state has sent to the district has dropped by more than 12% 10% since 2000. Today, the per pupil amount (after all deductions) ends up being about $4,900.$5,037. If the state simply filled that gap, it would provide $36 million $32 million of the district's $65 million shortfall.

I also pointed out that with fracking coming on line, there's potential for substantial new revenues, like what has happened in Texas, New Mexico and other states. And that the state now removes $117 million from the district and gives it to Charter Schools, very few of which are highly performing. And the state sends out $12 million for vouchers. And, while I didn't mention it at the meeting, the state's got a $265 million budget surplus now too.

I mentioned that between all these resources, the state should be able to greatly ease the burden on Cleveland's taxpayers so folks making a little more than $22,000 a year (the median income in CMSD) don't have to foot this plan's entire bill through a huge new tax levy.

Jackson and Gordon's responses were telling. Gordon admitted that the district's shortfall almost entirely rests on state budget decisions. When I pointed out that Cleveland Charters Schools get $7343 per pupil from the state, for example, while the state gives Cleveland $4,900 $5,037 for the same child, there were audible gasps from the audience.

Yet Jackson admitted he didn't ask for any additional state revenue (which drew some gasps from the audience too), despite the state putting CMSD in this position, because the current make up of state government would make that possibility extremely unlikely. He also answered the criticism of some that he is simply turning over the schools to private hands by explaining that the easiest way to do that is for the district to fail -- a fair point.

Throughout this process, though, accountability has been cited as a key to the Cleveland Plan's success. Accountability of schools (both district and charter), teachers, administrators, the Mayor, the School Board, the parents, the children. I only ask that the state, whose responsibility it is to educate children in Ohio after all, be held to the same account. As a mentor of mine used to say, "If they're getting away with it, it's your fault." That applies to all of us.

And then I got to thinking: What if 50 buses of Cleveland kids showed up at the statehouse one day during the House or Senate Education Committee's hearing on the Cleveland Plan? And what if all the children packed those respective committee hearings? And what if they all asked something like this: "My local community is committed to my education. Why aren't you?"

And what if they did this at every committee hearing between now and when the bill passes?

Would state leaders avoid their constitutional obligations then?

I'd love to see them try.

How Higher Top Teacher Salaries May Decrease Teacher Costs

One of the trends I've been noticing around the country, which has been repeated in the discussion over the Cleveland Plan, is the idea that we should pay the top teachers more money than we currently do. And that sounds great. I'm all for rewarding excellence and compensating it well.


However, without additional resources, raising the top tier of teachers to $100,000 or more would necessitate adjustments on the bottom end to compensate for that. But just how much would that be, and would that mean the same would be spent on teacher salaries? I decided to take a look, using the much-talked about model from Harrison, Colorado, which recently adopted a compensation system that was approved by its teachers and required the hiring of several new assistant principals to implement.


Note: The infrastructure necessary to implement a really thorough and effective evaluation system will be a topic of a future post.


In it, teachers are compensated within bands of pay based on evaluations. There are five categories:

Novice, Progressing, Proficient, Exemplary, and Master. Novice teachers make $35,000 a year. Progressing teachers receive $38,00-$44,000. Proficient teachers make between $48,000 and $60,000. Exemplary teachers receive $70,000 to $80,000 and the Master teachers make $90,000. These aren't perfect bands of compensation; there are fixed amounts depending on how you rank in each category, but for the sake of argument, let's assume they represent true bands and the evaluations will allow folks to determine precisely where the teacher should be paid along that band's compensation continuum.

Ohio's new teacher evaluation system envisions a four-tier system of Accomplished, Effective, Developing and Ineffective. So, I decided to take a run at translating the Harrison system into Ohio's, using the same pay scale (adjusted for cost of living, which is a bit more than 3% higher in the Harrison system than Cleveland).

Since the names and categories are different between the two states' systems, I took some license to say that ineffective teachers in Ohio would represent the Novice and bottom categories of Harrison's Progressing designation. Ohio's developing teachers would be the top Progressing and bottom two proficiency categories in Harrison. Ohio's Effective teachers would encompass the top two categories of proficient teachers and the bottom category of exemplary teachers in Harrison. And Ohio's Accomplished teachers would equal Harrison's top Exemplary category and its Master category.

I then assumed that 15% of teachers would rate Accomplished or Ineffective, with 45% being effective (so 60% are effective or better) and 25% being developing (meaning 40% aren't effective). In that case (assuming even distribution of salaries within the bands), Cleveland would spend about 6% less overall on its teachers (using the 2011 Cupp Report FTE figure). If there's a perfectly even distribution between the categories (25% of teachers rank in each), there would be a 7% reduction in the overall amount Cleveland pays teachers. If the 45% of teachers are developing rather than effective (meaning 60% of Cleveland teachers aren't effective), then it would be an 11% reduction in salaries. And if half the teachers in the ineffective category are let go, for the evaluation system contemplates that teachers who are ineffective after a year of peer review would be let go, then it would be a 15% reduction in salaries.

Again, all this assumes the same revenue stream and the same number of FTE teachers in Cleveland as there are on the 2011 Cupp Report. And this is all just crunching publicly available data; it's not looking at what the overall costs actually are and what they'll actually be. I just wanted to see if, hypothetically, rewarding the top teachers could actually cut overall teacher costs. And it appears you could do that.

What does this mean? It means, if you raise salaries for the top rated teachers -- and keep those top ratings a fairly exclusive club -- without an accompanying increase in revenue, you may drive down your overall teacher cost. It's counter intuitive, but that's what it appears to mean. In Cleveland, it would be an overall reduction of between 6% and 15%, depending on the distribution of the ratings. The only way they would be more expensive is if roughly 70% of teachers rate effective or higher, with about an equal 35-35 split between the top two categories. Keeping the top rating at 15% would mean 65% of teachers would need to be in the effective category to keep the overall costs about the same.

Note: While teacher evaluations have historically been very generous (with some districts putting upwards of 99% of their teachers in the top category under the old "fails to meet" "meets" or "exceeds" expectations system), the whole point of the new, four-tiered system is constructing a more realistic distribution of teacher performance. So it's unlikely that 99% of teachers in a district will rate Accomplished, for example. It will likely be a much more limited number.

This brings up all kinds of questions. Such as, what happens if a district is facing a deficit either due to an economic downturn or continued state divestment from education? This system would allow a district to cut their overall compensation figures pretty flexibly without losing teachers. They would simply need to put more teachers in the bottom two categories. While I'm all for keeping teachers in the classroom during tough budget times, without checks, this system could incentivize artificially bad evaluations to do it. And that can lead to problems.

What if 70% of the teachers should rate effective or higher under the new evaluation system? Would the temptation to limit cost be too great for administrators to evaluate the teachers as they should and put 70% in the lower categories instead?

And if you artificially de-flate their ratings, would teachers then be in the position of facing potential disciplinary action because they dropped a category, even though the drop was budget, not performance driven? And doesn't it undermine the credibility of the evaluation tool if the administration games it to save money?

Again, I'm all for good, objective evaluations of teachers and administrators. I think teachers and administrators are as well. My concern is that any system that's developed in Ohio or Cleveland should be of the highest integrity and not able to be gamed for budgetary purposes. Evaluation must produce true results in order to be most effective at improving teaching.

If significant numbers of teachers under the new system end up being highly rated, they should be rewarded, not graded on a curve based on a district or state's budgetary constraints.

UPDATE: Dispatch: Vouchers Popular. Popular = 3/4 of Slots Remaining Open?

Note: I overlooked a sentence in the Dispatch story that mentioned the 60,000 vouchers, as pointed out to me by the reporter. So now it's just the headline writer who thinks that having about 3/4 of vouchers remain unfilled means it has proven popular. My apologies to Jennifer Smith Richards for the oversight, though I made it very clear in my original post that it was not she who wrote the headline.

Remember when state leaders trumpeted how great it was that the number of EdChoice voucher slots were increased from 14,000 to 30,000 this school year and 60,000 next school year? Why, then, are only 17,438 vouchers being used next school year -- an increase of maybe 500 from last year, according to the Columbus Dispatch story?

Even more interesting: this school year represents the first school year since the EdChoice voucher program started where less money is being transferred to private schools from public schools through the vouchers than the previous year. It equates to about a 5.4% cut in the EdChoice voucher program.

So if more than four times as many parents could have chosen to use vouchers next year as two years ago, why is it then that only about one-third did? And is the Dispatch headline -- "School-voucher Programs Prove Popular" -- really true?

Not once in the Dispatch story was it ever even mentioned that 60,000 vouchers could have been taken next year. Perhaps if it had,  So the question is: Why didn't the headline writer write something different. Something like this perhaps?

"Parents More Satisfied with Public Schools than Politicians"

Or something like that.

Teachers Make Deal. Still Lose Jobs.

The Plain Dealer reported this morning that the Cleveland Municipal School District will be laying off one-eighth of its teachers. That's right. Despite the teachers agreeing to subject themselves to a new wave of reforms, they will still be laid off in huge numbers.

These layoffs indicate that my greatest fear about the Cleveland Plan, for all its great hope and promise on early childhood initiatives especially, is coming true. The plan is so driven by financial desperation that it's difficult to see how the commitments being made to universal pre-school and early childhood academies will ever happen. For the cuts Cleveland announced yesterday will actually eliminate early childhood education opportunities for kids. According to the Plain Dealer story:

The district will also shorten its school day through eighth grade by 50 minutes next school year and cut the number of music, art, library and gym classes for those students as part of the shuffling of staff to handle the layoffs. 

I thought the goal was to increase the length of the school day and year, especially in the early years? I thought there was going to be a renewed commitment to early childhood education -- one of the most powerful ways to overcome the profound socio-economic challenges facing the Cleveland community?

Instead, CMSD is acting like every other school board that faces devastating cuts -- slash early childhood ed, music, art, gym and library -- hardly the paragon of innovation and re-prioritized focus we have been promised during the many Cleveland Plan webinars and community meetings. If the priority shift the plan's proponents are talking about involves eliminating opportunities for kids and arts programs, where, exactly, is CMSD pivoting toward?

Everyone considers these things educational frills, unless it's their kid with the talent. However, music and art are proving to be essential partners in education, regardless of kids' skill. I remember reading (on Audio CD during my many long drives down I-71) Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" about Georgia Tech. Here's how the section I remember is described in one online study guide:

When Clough became president of (Georgia Tech) the graduation rate was only 65% and the atmosphere was dull. By altering the admission process to favor students who played a musical instrument or who had played on a sports team, Clough transformed the mood of the college. Students are more creative and have a higher rate of graduation. Moreover, Clough saw that the curriculum at Georgia Tech was altered. Previously, students learned a narrow range of skills; now they are taught to think horizontally and can approach a broad set of tasks creatively.

Schools should be figuring out how to more closely integrate arts education into the curriculum to spur creativity and innovation, not whacking it first. Maybe it's because I understand this on a personal level since the most important teacher in my life (who wasn't related to me) was an arts teacher, William Appling, who was a protege of Robert Shaw and a product of the Cleveland schools, by the way. I cringe whenever I hear people talk like the arts are disposable and impossible during budget crunches.

What happened yesterday in CMSD simply is another example of the chief overall concern I have with the Cleveland Plan: no commitment made by the state to provide any funds to CMSD to ensure this plan can succeed. More disturbing still is the fact that CMSD is trumpeting to anyone who will listen that they are proud to not be asking for anything from the state.

Instead, they'd prefer to layoff one-eighth of the staff and eliminate an hour of instruction in the most important developmental stages of children's lives while overseeing a profoundly challenged socio-economic district. Really? That's better than asking the state to partner in the development of this plan? Even though the Ohio Constitution says it's a state not a local responsibility to educate Ohio's kids?

The district is looking to close $40 million of its $65 million hole next year through these layoffs and cut backs. There remains a shortfall for the 13-14 year, however. And the district will still be seeking a big levy this fall, which may or may not pass. And this is supposed to inspire confidence that all 3 and 4 year olds in Cleveland will be enrolled in pre-school anytime soon, which is one of the Cleveland Plan's goals?

To close just that $65 million hole with a levy would require folks in Cleveland (where the median income is just over $22,000) to pay between $300-$400 per $100,000 home. Or it would require the state to come up with about one-quarter of one percent of its annual budget to close that hole. Which do you think sounds more fair, especially given the Ohio Constitution's mandate for the state to provide a system of education in this state?

It wasn't that long ago that the state promised about $160 million for Cleveland over 10 years. Why won't folks in Cleveland hold the state to anything like that promise, even letting the state get away with promising nothing over the next two years, let alone 10? Especially if they're being held up by state leaders as a template for statewide education reform?

If the state's leaders believe what's happening in Cleveland is so important, the least they should do is put some money where their mouth is. Instead, Cleveland's leaders are allowing them to put no money where their mouth is, despite the fact that there's a $265 million surplus at the state.

And now kids won't have exposure to the arts, will receive an hour less of instruction in their most important developmental years and will be taught by a staff that's been demoralized by layoff after layoff. And this is the reform that's supposed to usher in an unprecedented level of student achievement over the next five years, as has been promised by the proponents?

In the words of Seth Meyers, "Really?"

Deal in Cleveland. Heavy Lift Remains.

As I have said during the entire discussion about the so-called Cleveland Plan for education, a deal was eminently achievable. The Cleveland Teachers Union and Mayor Frank Jackson both agreed to many areas of compromise to join in supporting the reform plan, and they should be commended for working together. Here's how Hannah News Service reported the deal:

- "Low-performing schools: The agreement allows the district to quickly intervene in low-performing schools in consultation and collaboration with our unions and clarifies that teachers and employees cannot and will not be fired just because they work in low-performing schools.

- "Differentiated salary schedule: The agreement ensures the development of a salary schedule that factors in performance, specialized training, and other relevant experience and ensures that teachers will not receive pay cuts simply because a new pay schedule is created.

- "Teacher assignments: The agreement allows the district to fill teaching positions in all schools using hiring teams that include principals, teachers, and parents as opposed to simply assigning teachers based on seniority.

- "Teacher evaluations: The agreement protects CMSD’s and CTU’s hard work on a modernized teacher development and evaluation system while expanding timelines and focusing on quality.

- "Tenure and dismissal: The agreement provides the district wider discretion about granting tenure and streamlines the dismissal process for poor performing teachers by focusing on performance evaluation as the primary factor, while protecting the due process rights for CMSD employees.

- "Reduction in force or layoff: The agreement aligns layoff decisions to teacher evaluations and teacher quality; and uses tenure and seniority as tiebreakers when needed.

- "School year calendar: The agreement allows the school district to set the school year and school day calendar for all district schools.

- "Transformation Alliance: The agreement clarifies that the Transformation Alliance must conduct public meetings, provide access to public records and adopt appropriate conflict-of-interest policies."

However, there are still two major issues that remain with the legislation:

1) Letting Charter Schools receive local revenue, on top of their higher per pupil amount they receive from the state

2) There remains no property tax relief, nor any financial partnership from the state

As I've said before, letting Charters (even the successful, collaborative ones to whom the Cleveland Plan would limit these payments) receive local revenue on top of the amount they get from the state -- which equals about double what local districts get per pupil in no small part because the don't receive local revenue -- is extremely problematic and opens the door to a statewide policy allowing Charters to remove a sizable chunk of the $8.5 billion raised for schools every year from local property taxpayers.

To give you some idea of the amounts we're talking about, according to the latest ODE payment report (another one comes out tomorrow, April 13), Charters remove 12.3% of the state's education money to educate about 6% of the state's children. If Charters removed a similar percentage from local revenue, that would be more than $1 billion they would receive on top of the $767.3 million they already get from the state. That would be a huge boon for Charters and a huge problem for local school districts that already rely far too much on local property taxes to survive.

In addition, successful Cleveland schools won't receive similar additional bonus dollars from the state for their successes.

This can be solved by simply having the state adopt a "Good Charter School Fund," which would put additional state money into the successful, collaborative Charter Schools without opening up a Pandora's Box in a state with a colorful history of Charter School funding.

And why the state, which has cut funding to Cleveland by more than 30% relative to inflation since 2000, isn't being asked to contribute a single additional dime to help alleviate the financial mess they helped in large measure to create, is beyond me. Again, the only additional revenue stream the Cleveland Plan envisions is an additional property tax levy, which would have to be in the 10-12 mill range to make up just the first year's projected budget shortfall. That's about $300-400 additional for the owner of a $100,000 home in a community whose median income is barely more than $22,000.

It is clear from the statements made by Gov. John Kasich and other statehouse education policy leaders that they intend to take Cleveland's model statewide to a significant degree. If Cleveland doesn't ask for any state property tax relief, it is all but guaranteed that no other district will receive another dime in property tax relief as well.

As former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick put it in the final decision that found Ohio's system of school funding unconstitutional in 2002:

"... until a complete systematic overhaul of the system is accomplished, it will continue to be far from thorough and efficient and will continue to shortchange our students. The overreliance on local property taxes is the fatal flaw that until rectified will stand in the way of constitutional compliance."

I simply ask this: Does the Cleveland Plan, which relies only on more property taxes seem to fulfill the spirit of this constitutional provision?

I hope for the kids in Cleveland that the true promise of this plan to invest in early childhood education, college and career readiness and more community involvement will be realized. However, it is difficult to see how a district that has had to slash those same programs to make up for state budget cuts will be able to realize those ideals without the state helping at least a little bit. After all, we are supposed to be seeing big new revenue streams from fracking and other sources, aren't we?

If these bills that are moving through the House and Senate remain as they are without these two major problems being addressed, I fear the Cleveland Plan's greatest potential success will be greatly diminished if it remains even perceptible. And I fear what this plan's legacy will be for the remaining districts throughout the state if the state's able to say, "Cleveland figured out how to do this without any property tax relief. So can you."

Remember, the Evidence Based Model promised an additional $400 per $100,000 in property tax relief over 10 years to assist districts with those reforms -- about $900 in Cleveland alone. It would have cost the state the equivalent of a bit more than 1% of the state budget each year for 10 years.

So this can be done. We'll see if it is.

Cleveland Plan to Drop Today. But Why?

Ohio Legislators are out of town for another two weeks for the Easter holiday. That means no committee hearings, no sessions (perhaps some skeleton sessions, but that's another story) and no real legislative work is done.

That's why I'm curious why legislators are so eager to drop their version of Mayor Frank Jackson's so-called Cleveland Plan for education, especially when it's clear progress is being made.

State Sen. Nina Turner told the Plan Dealer yesterday that she and three other legislators will drop the Cleveland Plan today. But why the hurry, given that legislators aren't even in town for two weeks and Jackson and the Cleveland Teachers Union have been making steady progress on their two biggest issues: the power CEO (superintendent) Eric Gordon would have to fire entire buildings of teachers at will, and having the state dictate to Cleveland that they must have a do-over on 30 years of negotiation, is another story.

This is especially curious because the fastest way to move a bill is to have an agreement before it's introduced. And given that legislators aren't in town for two weeks anyway, why not spend those two weeks letting the sides work out their differences?

According to the Plain Dealer account of the negotiations,

"The mayor and union met for three hours at City Hall Tuesday and left with each side saying they made substantial progress on one of the final sticking points – how to fix failing schools – but had little discussion on the other – Jackson's desire to throw out all previous contracts and negotiate a new one with a so-called "fresh start" provision."

The teachers have already made an historic concession when they agreed to essentially tie all their compensation and job protection to a new teacher evaluation system, undoing years of reliance on seniority and tenure for those things.

Yet now Jackson wants them to agree that Gordon can fire them, regardless of their evaluation scores, if they happen to be in a failing building. Why would any successful teacher even think about going to an at-risk building, if it would mean they could lose their job -- a job Jackson's own evaluation system indicates if they're really good at doing? We should be trying to get as many great teachers in struggling buildings, not scaring them away from the challenge.

And forcing both sides to do a "do-over" on contract negotiations? There were 30 years of hard work, sacrifice and good will built up developing the provisions that are in the Cleveland contract. Yes, some of those provisions are probably worth re-examining. But tossing out the whole thing seems like the actual definition of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

Finally, I was most encouraged by the last couple paragraphs in the Plain Dealer story. That's where state Rep. Mike Foley explained what the competing bill he is drafting would include.

"Within hours after the negotiations ended, state Rep. Mike Foley, a Cleveland Democrat, said he is already drafting amendments to the bill and having CTU lawyers review it. Foley wants to remove "fresh start" and will also ask Gov. John Kasich for more money for the district."

Rep. Foley is doing what Jackson should have done from the beginning -- ask for additional state property tax relief to pay for this plan. As it stands, all additional revenue to pay for the plan will be generated by what appears to be a massive levy in the fall. Just to make up for the first year's deficit would cost the owner of a $100,000 home between $300-$400 a year, which would be asked of folks in a district whose median income is a little more than $22,000. And that doesn't include what's necesary to bridge an additional, large second-year deficit.

Without additional state property tax relief, it is extremely difficult to envision how the Cleveland Plan's really strong, admirable commitments to things like early childhood academies in every neighborhood and universal pre-school for 3 and 4 year olds will ever happen.

It will be interesting to see if state legislators and leaders, who are so keen to fast-track the Cleveland Plan, would feel similarly inclined to fast-track the legislation if they had to make even a small fraction of the financial sacrifice local property taxpayers will be asked to make this fall.