The state report cards in Ohio are a disaster. Not because of poor teaching, not because of poor administrators, not because of poor students, but because of poor test composition, poor expectations, poor measurement, poor supports, poor financing, and poor policy making. Superintendent DeMaria, putting the best lipstick he can find on to this pig, and offering nothing but advice, (no resources, no change of policy, no admission of any fault on the state’s part) tells us to be hopeful.
First there’s this. This is what the state thinks of our schools:
– Achievement Component: Over half of all districts and about 60% of all schools received a D or an F.
– Graduation Rate Component: Looks okay for the moment with graduation rates above 90%, but these test results do not impact current graduation rates. When they do, at the end of the 2017/2018 school year, expect graduation rates to drop below 60%
– Progress Component: A third of our districts and schools are in D or F territory.
– Gap Closing Component: How are Ohio’s schools doing at closing the gap between wealthier students and the most vulnerable students? 86% of our school districts got an F.
– K-3 Literacy Component: Over 70% of our districts picked up an F on this measurement.
– Prepared for Success Component: Just under half of our districts were told they deserved a D or F because of the terrible job they are doing.
Seriously? Must be, because Superintendent DeMaria (who is only two months into the job) also says:
“Let’s remember what we’re trying to do: Make sure our students are prepared to succeed in a highly competitive global economy.” DeMaria and the policy makers believe that the best way to do this is to call most of Ohio’s schools, students, teachers, and administrators a bunch of losers. No new resources come with this name calling, no concrete information with which to improve instruction, no supports for students who are struggling. Just non-constructive labeling. Want proof?
DeMaria: “The report card reflects the higher expectations – and it shows. We expected this to happen.” In other words, we knew we would end up calling you all stupid, but we raised the bar anyway. We didn’t have a bit of scientific reasoning behind this increase, but we did it anyway.
More nonsense:
DeMaria: “Improvement does not show up clearly given the changes on the report card.” Truth: Improvement doesn’t show up at all. In the past three years, Ohio’s ranking among the states has dropped from the top 5 to the middle of the pack.
DeMaria: “There’s more to a child’s learning than what is measured on the report card.” Then why aren’t we measuring that instead of putting all of our eggs into the demand for rigor in a few subjects while ignoring many others?
DeMaria: “The report card is one – but not the only – measure of school and district performance.” It would be nice to know what those things are and why they aren’t being reported.
DeMaria: “We know that Ohio’s students, teachers and schools have what it takes to reach our goal.” What is that goal – specifically – because every year the state moves the goal posts.
DeMaria: “We should not let the report cards define us.” Tell that to the local papers who put the scores across their front pages, because that is the only information we give them. Our schools are much more complex than a letter grade can convey, but that’s what you put out there, so that’s what gets reported.
1. To accommodate testing and test preparation for the report cards, recess, art, music, physical education and subjects with great value to educating the whole person are being set aside.
2. Because the report card is based on tests, curriculum must be geared to a test, not to the educational needs of a student. For instance, a child weak in vocabulary may be ignored in favor of teaching the high ordered thinking skills needed for the test.
3. Scores are randomly set higher and higher without causal validity, creating unnecessary pressures on students, teachers, and schools.
4. Teachers are leaving the profession, while potential teachers are not signing up for those pressures. This is causing serious teacher shortages, especially in impoverished schools where teachers are being evaluated as ineffective because their students don’t do well on a test.
5. The education gap between rich and poor is growing as is the racial segregation of schools.
6. Whole communities are destroyed as their schools are rated poorly, thus reducing the value of their property and causing flight to other areas where more affluent schools can be accessed. This is despite the truth that some of our best teachers are in difficult schools with a dedication to help the poor.
7. Even good teachers in struggling schools finally give up and move to more affluent schools where they are paid better, and the tests don’t cause them to be rated as ineffective.
8. Teachers’ relationships with students are negatively impacted by the teacher’s need to get the student to pass a test.
9. Hundreds of millions of dollars are taken from the classroom and redirected to testing companies for a product that is wholly unreliable.
Bottom line: These report cards are doing great harm to our kids. The report cards prove nothing. The report cards will not improve teacher effectiveness, they do not show a principal’s value, they do not improve a school’s success, and they are so out of line with the truth that they can’t be taken seriously. These report cards should be dumped and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to produce them returned to the classroom.
Ohio House Bill 481 was an otherwise innocuous bill that would extend the “safe harbor” for funding for those students whose parents opted them out of high-stakes state testing, among a few other things. In May of this year an amendment was added to HB 481.
Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship (EdChoice) Program provides private school vouchers to students from public schools with lower report card ratings. That game-changing amendment will eliminate the safe harbor that would have prohibited new schools from becoming eligible for the EdChoice Program based on their state report card ratings for the 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17 school years, thus assuring that no new schools qualified for the program until the 2019-20 school year.
Although certain members of the Ohio House of Representatives tried to assure their colleagues that the amendment added to HB 481 was necessary to keep EdChoice voucher levels “constant,” this has been proven to be decidedly untrue. A financial analysis of the amendment done by the Legislative Service Commission (LSC) noted that, “Due to more rigorous state tests that began to be administered in the 2014-2015 school year, the bill’s provision may result in an increase in the number of students that qualify for traditional EdChoice scholarships beginning in the 2016-2017 school year.” And that, “In FY 2016, an estimated total of $87.7 million will be deducted from the state funding allocations of 44 school districts to fund EdChoice scholarships.”
Perhaps it was that analysis that prompted Rep. Teresa Fedor, who is a true friend to public education, to question the assertions of some that EdChoice voucher levels will remain constant with this added amendment. She insisted that another legislative analysis be done to determine the number of buildings that would be impacted by the amendment. The LSC found that this amendment to HB 481 would increase the number of schools eligible for EdChoice vouchers by 103.5%!
The number of buildings eligible for EdChoice vouchers will increase from 256 to 521 for the 2016-17 school year if this bill passes as is.
Is your school and/or district on the list? If so, I recommend that you first contact the superintendent of your district, and make sure the person is aware of this problem. Then contact your Senator and House Representative to voice your concerns about the amendment to this bill and tell them to vote NO on it.
I have made a list of all schools impacted, the contact information of each superintendent of that district, and the district number of each Senator and House Representative of that school district to make it easy for everyone.
To contact a Senator, use this email formula: SD(district number)@senate.state.oh.us.
For House Representatives: Rep(district number)@ohiohouse.gov.
Please share this information with others, and encourage them to do the same.
Although there is much speculation about who pushed for this amendment to be added to a bill that was supposed to be a safe harbor, and subsequently turned it into a bill eliminating a component of safe harbor, it seems clear to me that this is yet another way to divert much needed funds from our traditional public schools.
This should have us all very concerned.
Mandy Jablonski, Lorain County Parents Supporting our Children and Teachers
Ohio School district officials should determine how much has been deducted from their districts for ECOT and send an invoice directly to William Lager, the ECOT Man.
Since ECOT can only account for student participation for 20% of the time required, it would be appropriate to invoice ECOT for 80% recovery.
Look at the money that’s been transferred from Ohio public school districts to ECOT during the 2015-16 school year:
Columbus City $11,744,302.64, Cleveland Municipal $6,931,517.75, Dayton City $3,597,673.50, South-Western City $3,066,207.35, Cincinnati City $2,790,063.53, Toledo City $1,992,107.94, Akron City $1,705,463.86, Hamilton City $1,300,617.23, Groveport Madison Local $1,229,666.61, Elyria City $1,170,649.73, Parma City $1,130,063.42, Warren City $1,111,737.36, Lorain City $991,340.65, Middletown City $826,577.52, Canton City $798,659.64, Mansfield City $754,528.94, Lima City $753,442.77, Huber Heights City $747,660.76, Westerville City $740,563.94, Youngstown City $728,117.37, West Clermont Local $720,475.73, Lancaster City $710,220.90, Euclid City $681,004.69, Springfield City $596,603.50, Berea City $577,143.54, Northwest Local $577,116.84, Xenia Community City $558,750.84, Newark City $492,043.88, Delaware City $477,222.72, Willoughby-Eastlake City $476,145.94, Hamilton Local $461,377.03, Hilliard City $459,453.20, Trotwood-Madison City $450,483.75, Ashtabula Area City $447,237.66, Kettering City $446,738.66, Portsmouth City $444,121.93, Maple Heights City $442,776.20, Mount Vernon City $441,619.76, Whitehall City $438,718.92, Cleveland Hts-Univ Hts City $436,945.21, Brunswick City $419,335.86, Mount Healthy City $417,642.09, Circleville City $416,652.34, Fairfield City $414,308.64, Niles City $403,059.42, Sidney City $402,569.53, Reynoldsburg City $392,550.53, Pickerington Local $391,712.19, Barberton City $388,495.73, Licking Heights Local $382,304.52, Chillicothe City $378,317.36, Garfield Heights City $377,480.87, Mad River Local $370,947.59, Lakota Local $361,005.90, Ravenna City $355,150.74, Piqua City $351,838.36, West Carrollton City $345,523.08, Worthington City $340,198.48, Oak Hills Local $338,436.46, Marysville Ex Vill $325,761.84, Madison Local $324,667.78, Teays Valley Local $322,416.78, Washington Local $318,804.62, Riverside Local $317,310.38, Wilmington City $307,221.20, Fairborn City $305,696.00, Washington Court House City $299,676.86, Gahanna-Jefferson City $299,474.28, Alliance City $295,013.75, Mentor Ex Vill $294,843.08, Lakewood City $294,424.75, Painesville City Local $293,200.72, Miamisburg City $287,456.34, Northmont City $285,690.01, Eaton Community Schools City $283,260.79, Marion City $282,823.92, Franklin City $277,134.08, Bedford City $276,913.11, Logan-Hocking Local $271,824.59, Beavercreek City $265,492.09, Hillsboro City $259,577.18, Midview Local $259,335.68, Conneaut Area City $258,660.22, Southwest Licking Local $258,422.04, Batavia Local $257,910.50, Chardon Local $256,095.21, Canal Winchester Local $254,620.34, Cloverleaf Local $251,637.80, Madison Local $251,277.68, Cuyahoga Falls City $251,193.81, Sandusky City $248,095.87, Southwest Local $244,897.55, North Royalton City $241,140.61, Tiffin City $234,802.60, Green Local $230,409.81, South Point Local $227,149.02, Paulding Ex Vill $226,523.18, South Euclid-Lyndhurst City $221,661.46, Strongsville City $220,536.62, Troy City $220,458.40.
Just think what those school districts could do with refunds of 80% of what they’ve handed over to the ECOT Man!
Local school districts, or any taxpaying Ohio citizen, can use the “Know Your Charter” website to fill out the ECOT Invoice Resolution template found below, and then send to Bill Lager, the ECOT Man, 3700 S. High St., Suite 95, Columbus, OH 43207. Fax: 614-492-8894
School districts should make sure to send a copy to the Ohio Department of Education, so ODE will know how much is owed to each district.
RESOLUTION TO Invoice the ECOT Man for Deductions from State Funding
WHEREAS, it is the statutory duty of the _____________________ School District Board of Education to deliver the educational programs and services to the school children of the _____________________ School District, and
WHEREAS, the members of the Board are elected by the school community to ensure an effective, efficient, vibrant and productive system, and
WHEREAS, the elected board of education has a legal responsibility to the community, including taxpayers, parents, and other patrons, as well as the state, and
WHEREAS, the Electronic Classroom Of Tomorrow (ECOT) now extracts over 100 million dollars ANNUALLY from public school districts across the State of Ohio, and
WHEREAS, school district boards of education have no control of students, financing, educational programming, and student outcomes for those who enroll in ECOT, and
WHEREAS, ECOT demonstrates low academic performance compared to traditional public schools, and
WHEREAS, the ________________________ School District has lost a total of $_____________ in state AND local funding to ECOT, and
WHEREAS, ECOT can only account for student participation for 20% of the time required, and
WHEREAS, the ________________________ School District Board of Education has a fiduciary responsibility to the students and taxpayers of the District, be it therefore RESOLVED that the Board of Education directs the Treasurer of the District to invoice ECOT for 80% of the funds extracted from the ________________________ School District for ECOT students, at a grand total of_______________.
Adopted______________
Call attention to how money is being taken away every year from traditional public school systems to support ECOT, an unaccountable e-school that traditionally has much lower academic achievement rates than public schools.
Join the revolution, and send a resolution- to the ECOT Man!
We are many. There is power in our numbers. Together we will save PUBLIC EDUCATION. ~Diane Ravitch
1. The system is designed to only graduate those who are prepared for college.
You will often hear the term “College and Career Ready” when it comes to the goals set for high school graduation. But there is only one set of standards and one set of end of course exams, and they demand that a student show proficiency in college preparedness. Likewise, the GED (General Equivalency Diploma) has been changed to require the skills of college preparedness. As a result, passing rates have dropped precipitously to below 15%.
The Dayton Business Journal, using numbers from the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services, based on ads posted online from March 14 to April 13, 2016, reported that of the 18,700 Dayton area ads “High school or GED education is required for 42 percent of the jobs.” In fact, if you want a job, a good job, in the Dayton area, learn to drive a truck. It’s the most available position, and no college is needed. Yet, because a high school diploma or GED may be required, you’d better be college ready, because if you aren’t, you won’t have the credentials to drive a truck.
2. The tests favor the rich.
Look at the results. If you’re from a poor neighborhood, scores will be low, too low to get most students a diploma. If you come from an area with better economic conditions, your scores will likely be high. This impacts, not only the student, but the teacher’s evaluation, the school’s ranking, and the district’s overall report card. The message becomes clear for those in poverty and for those who want to teach kids in poverty, no matter how hard they try, students are bad, teachers stink, and schools are lousy because the kids aren’t college ready.
3. Graduation is becoming unattainable for most of the poor.
The goal set by the “No Child Left Behind” was 100% graduation by 2014. That’s 100% of children who should be college ready. The goal wasn’t achieved, so the decision was made to raise the bar and require more rigor. The belief is that if we just ask poor kids to do more, and if we incentivize them, their teachers, and their schools, by withholding diplomas and giving them bad ratings, they will rise to meet the challenge.
They won’t.
Every child needs to pursue excellence, but excellence for one child is different than excellence for another. A child born into poverty faces huge obstacles to normal brain development. Malnutrition, lack of sleep, stress, violence, lack of stimulation, poor access to health care – mental and physical – are all things faced by children in poverty. These kids will start school with learning deficits that will not likely be made up during their academic years. They will always struggle with school, because they are constantly struggling with life. Forcing these kids into a college ready mold will break most of them. It is human nature that, at some point, they become convinced that they are stupid, and they can’t make the grade. They give up hope, they quit trying, or they drop out.
4. Schools in impoverished areas are underfunded.
School funding relies heavily on local property taxes. In poor communities, where properties have little value, schools can’t raise enough money to pay for the individual attention needed by kids going through all of the challenges I listed above, let alone normal classroom instruction.
Studies show that academics improve with music, art, gym and other auxiliary classes that round out a person. Poor schools are cutting these subjects along with access to nurses, libraries, sports and extracurriculars that rich schools can take for granted.
5. Changing schools and changing who runs schools in poor districts doesn’t help.
If you have the money and you don’t like your public school, your parents can opt for private tutors and elite private schools. If you’re poor, you can opt for a charter school or a voucher to a parochial school, but these schools seldom do better than the public school, and if it’s an on-line school, chances are you will do much worse than staying with the neighborhood public system.
States around the country have started taking control of public schools and local governments in economically disadvantaged cities that don’t seem to be working. This change in governance rarely works while completely disregarding the wishes of local voters. Two words: Flint and Detroit. I can add Philadelphia, Chicago and more.
Don’t get me wrong. I want every child to pursue excellence and succeed. I’m pleased that a large segment of the population can go to college. But, those who can never be ready, those who, because of their intellectual, emotional, and physical impairments won’t pass the college ready tests, should be given the assistance they need and a way out of high school. Imposing college ready standards on these kids denies them an opportunity to get a diploma and live a decent life.
It is this deliberate denial of opportunity that makes this class warfare.
ECOT has sucked $880,109,892.26 out of school districts since 2002. Possibly the “take” will be near $1 billion by next year.
Who should be embarrassed and held accountable?
The ECOT operator should be embarrassed and held accountable for his money-making scheme that uses students for that purpose. But who else should be highlighted as a contributor to this ECOT fiscal parasite on Ohio school districts?
The most obvious offender is the bevy of legislators and governors who created and continues to support laws that sanction this license to steal.
The next offender is the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) (State Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Board of Education and ODE staff). ODE should have been aggressively monitoring online schools and making recommendations to the governors and legislatures to correct the abuses inherent in the ECOT business plan.
The sponsor of ECOT failed miserably in their fiduciary responsibility. Sponsors typically take 3% of the charter school funds siphoned from school districts for their charters. In this case, the sponsor has likely been paid in the range of $27 million to monitor the ECOT deal.
The public common school community and the allied organizations share some of the blame for the waste and corruption in the online charter industry for failure to influence state officials to stop the scandal.
Monumental questions loom.
Will this NY Times exposé of ECOT affect the outcome of the current legislation (SB 298) pending in the Senate Finance Committee to tighten regulations on the online charter operations?
Will ECOT’s huge campaign contributions bury the bill and any future attempts to bring this enterprise under control?
Please speak up by emailing the members of the Ohio Senate Finance Committee, and tell them to make sure that ECOT’s lobbyists don’t block SB 298, the bill sponsored by Senator Joe Schiavoni, to eliminate state reimbursements of more than $6,000 per pupil to the online schools for phantom students who don’t really attend school. http://ohiosenate.gov/committee/finance
Ohio taxpayers need to be protected from legislative enactments that favor charter schools.
The schemes that are concocted in the charter industry to rip off taxpayers seem endless. Open fraud and corruption is regularly exposed via the media. But some schemes are less obvious.
A case in point goes like this. A non-profit company (250 Shoup Mill LLC) leases property to Horizon Science Academy in Dayton (a charter school associated with Fethullah Gulen, the exiled Turkish Islamic cleric residing in his worldwide Gulen movement headquarters in Saylorsburg PA). 250 Shoup Mill LLC is a subsidiary of the Gulen-associated New Plan Learning which leases property to other Gulen charters.
What a tangled web!
250 Shoup Mill LLC owes property taxes on the property leased to the Dayton charter according to the Ohio Tax Commissioner. The company appealed the Commissioner’s decision all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court which heard the case on April 19. But in the future, it won’t matter what the Court decides. The legislature inserted a provision in the state budget bill in 2011 that exempts property owners like 250 Shoup Mill LLC from paying property tax.
Regardless of the Court’s decision, in the long term, the Gulenists will accrue more tax money for their movement via the amendment to the budget bill in 2011. The Gulenists have learned how to use the U.S. political and judicial systems to their advantage. Taxpayers need protection.
School district buildings that house students are owned by the public and thus are free from property taxation. Public funds used to support the housing of charter students end up in the hands of private individuals who should be subject to property tax.
How many Ohioans really understand what goes on with the Buckeye State’s charter industry? Public meetings are needed to expose the truth.
The Hudson League of Women Voters hosted a panel discussion regarding charters on April 25 in Hudson. An enlightened panel informed area citizens about the need for more regulations on the charters industry. Notably, Representative Kristina Roegner, a Republican from Hudson, urged citizens to make their voices heard to pressure legislators to pass additional legislation to hold charters accountable.
The charter lobby is hard at work to further deregulate the industry. Concurrently, there is some bipartisan support for more regulations as a means of curbing the corruption and low performance in the charter industry.
Hence, it is imperative that citizens are well informed about how their tax dollars are being used by the charter industry and about the need for further transparency and accountability.
The man who sat next to me on the plane ride home to Cleveland was from Raleigh, North Carolina, where the 2016 Network for Public Education Conference was held. Here are some highlights from this public education conference: http://www.schoolhouselive.org/
The man is retired and does a little consulting but does not want to be drawn back into the corporate world. He wanted to know all about the NPE Conference that had just concluded. He listened as I rattled on, not being nearly as coherent and cogent as I wish I could have been.
We talked of charters. It turns out that he is on the board of a small charter school in Raleigh that serves a small population of black kids from “terrible circumstances.” He said he was not aware of the large charters, the Gulen schools and their ilk. He was incredulous about the online schools. He assured me that he had never heard anyone blame the teachers in North Carolina and people in general were grateful for their service. His school is just filling a need.
He asked, “Were there any teachers from North Carolina at the conference?”
He was friendly and charming and told some great stories. He asked if there was any research about these education issues I shared. I handed him my Public Education Partners card and assured him that the website would link him to a world of information. He said he wanted to know more, and I think he will look into it.
So here I am, not a sunset away from this great conference, and I encounter the problem that we have been talking about all weekend. People just don’t get it. He did not see the big picture. He didn’t even know there was a bigger picture. He feels good about his work in this small charter school called Hope or something sweet like that. I do not doubt his sincerity, and I hope I have planted a seed of cognitive dissonance and that he will check us out or google charters or somehow get a little closer to the reality.
Our biggest challenges are not the evil politicians and maybe not even corporate greed. Those folks are beyond conversation, because they have no conscience. It is good people who don’t get it. It’s people who don’t know the challenges we are facing and how they affect the world. People have places to go to contemplate the mountains when the world is too much with them.
My seat mate thanked me for the work I do, and he complimented me on my passion.
“Who pays the way for all of these teachers to attend?” he asked. When I told him most were on their own, and they were not all teachers, he paused for a while. That may have been the thing that impressed him most.
I am not sure he took me seriously, but I think he did. I am not sure I changed his mind, but I altered the angle of his window on the world.
It will take me weeks to sort and process all I learned this weekend. The networking was the best thing in a wonderful two days. My flight home was the perfect validation I needed.
I will share the message, preach the gospel, and whisper the truth, one seat mate at a time.
The proposal to eliminate the right to elect the members of Ohio’s State School Board, and shift to an all-appointed board, was discussed at the Statehouse at the February, 2016, Public Education and Information Committee of the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission (OCMC.)
Please consider testifying about the urgent need for an all-elected state school board.
Why must Ohio have an all-elected board?
In 1953, voters passed a constitutional amendment that established a state board of education and superintendent of public instruction to be appointed by that board, which indicated an intention to separate the Department of Education from the governor’s office. For thirty-five years the state BOE had just three different state superintendents, and there was a cooperative relationship between ODE and local school districts- until politics got in the way.
In 1991, politics reared its ugly head when the governor took over the role of selecting the state superintendent and began the process of trying to change the elected board to an appointed board. Politicians said that the state board had too many members, and legislation was passed to reduce the membership of the board to eleven elected members, one for each group of three senate districts.
That didn’t satisfy politicians, who were angered when our elected school board members endorsed the DeRolph lawsuit alleging that the legislature and governor were not adequately funding public education. As a result of that litigation, politicians created a hybrid board in 1995, where eight members would be appointed by the governor, and eleven members would be elected by Ohio voters.
The addition of politics resulted in several negative changes for public education in Ohio. Our state experienced a rapid turnover in state superintendents compared to the past, when only three superintendents served for 35 years. A strained association with local school districts gradually developed, and their once mutually cooperative relationship became a thing of the past. Worst of all, the state school board and the superintendent were pressured into promoting the education agenda of the legislative majority, rather than advocating for Ohio’s school children.
POLITICS has created a bad situation for the Buckeye state’s public schools and their families.
The president of the state school board, a politically appointed member, was right when he said, “The board has become more about politics in recent years, and the partisanship and splintered structure make it difficult for the superintendent, who is hired by the board but essentially reports to several bosses.”
Good point! Let’s take the politics back out of the equation by removing the concept of a hybrid board that has politically appointed members.
Ohio needs an ALL-ELECTED state board of education that consists of elected members from logically configured districts. This board would be charged with:
*acting without regard to partisan politics
*selecting a superintendent independent of the governor and other elected officials
*insisting that ODE staff have appropriate educational qualifications and experience
*demanding total transparency and accountability of the superintendent and ODE staff
Say NO to POLITICS, and return to the independent representative school board created by voters over 60 years ago, when Ohio’s State Board of Education was an all-elected, non-partisan, cooperative educational panel that advocated for traditional public school districts.
We are many. There is power in our numbers. Together we will save PUBLIC EDUCATION. ~Diane Ravitch
This is a test with answers correctly marked. What are the intended or unintended consequences of high stakes testing as required by the federal laws, NCLB and ESSA, and the testing laws in most states?
Punish teachers ● yes ο no
Close public schools in distressed communities ● yes ο no
Narrow the school curriculum ● yes ο no
Put harmful stress on students ● yes ο no
Determine if the mandated tests are valid ● yes ο no
Reduce time for instruction ● yes ο no
Fire teachers and principals ● yes ο no
Provide teaching positions for Teach for America participants ● yes ο no
Turn school districts over to private operators ● yes ο no
Cause great teachers to take early retirement ● yes ο no
Increase the turnover rate of superintendents ● yes ο no
Provide merit pay for teachers ● yes ο no
Justify state takeover of districts ● yes ο no
Justify and expand vouchers and charters ● yes ο no
Justify the vast expenditures on PARCC and AIR ● yes ο no
Prompt the parent trigger takeover plan ● yes ο no
Enrich the education behemoth Pearson and other corporations ● yes ο no
Expand ALEC’s manipulation of education policy ● yes ο no
Undermine public confidence in the public common school ● yes ο no
Treat students as a proxy measure of institutional effectiveness ● yes ο no
Distract attention from adequate and equitable funding for all students ● yes ο no
Improve public education and provide more educational opportunities ο yes ● no
The historical role of the public common school has been to develop contributing citizens for the republic. That changed in 1983 with the release of the Nation at Risk report, which concluded that the nation’s common school system was a failure.
About six years later, the Sandia Report, a write-up of a study by the Sandia National Laboratories (U.S. Department of Energy), debunked the Nation at Risk report. But the administration buried it, because the “education” president was making political hay by bashing public schools and promoting “choice.”
Then Bush 43, with bipartisan support in Congress, cobbled together NCLB which put in federal statutes provisions that have had the effect of denigrating the common school. The Obama administration, with Arne Duncan as the point man, exacerbated the destructive forces of NCLB, the testing demands being chief among those forces.
The framers of the 1851 Ohio Constitution, when mandating the state to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools could have used the term “public” instead of “common.” Although the framers of the 1912 amendment (Article VI, §3) referenced the state school system as the “public school system of the state supported by public funds”, the meaning of the term “common” remained in tack. The term “common” as a descriptor of the school system has a discriminating significance in the ambiance of education.
In this context, the term “common” intimates community, commonality and shared purpose in the preservation and advancement of the republic. It connotes the responsibility of civic duty by both citizens and the state. “Common” suggests equality of opportunity and benefit with the result of advancing the public good.
The great educator, Horace Mann and many others of the mid-19th century envisioned a system that caters to all the children of all the people in contrast to augmenting special interests, religious convictions or other factions. The goal was to create a culture of the people, by the people and for the people. The culture created by the common school system of the North helped preserve the Union in the 1850s and 1860s.
It is so ironic and disgusting that Ohio law refers to charter schools as community schools. Ohio charterville is antithetical to the constitutional mandate for the common school system. The charter venue terminates the social compact between communities and the common school system. It segregates and diminishes the commonwealth. It caters to special interests and factions. It is a blemish on democracy. It is not of the people, not by the people and not for the people.
How can a public school advocate say, “I have no problem with charter schools?” An understanding of the history of the common school would lead to a different conclusion.
The common school is as American as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. The charter kingdom is a foreign entity. The common school community should look to its roots. America is great because of the common schools system. What will happen to America if the common system is diminished or if it is eliminated?
William Phillis
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