I am a college professor and a mother. My Ph.D. is in Lifespan Cognitive Development, and I have taught developmental psychology and educational psychology for 25 years at Syracuse University, Ithaca College and Kenyon College. My children are 5 and 9; they are entering kindergarten and fourth grade in the Mount Vernon City Schools district. Despite state mandates, my children have had excellent educational experiences with their teachers in the local public school. I submit the following as partial testimony to the Ohio Board of Education in regards to some problems I have observed with the Third Grade Reading Guarantee (TGRG) and its implementation.
The TGRG testing has conflated criterion- and norm-referenced testing. The differentiation between the two types of tests is important. Criterion tests assess whether a learner has achieved specific skills or concepts, whereas the goal of norm-referenced tests is to rank learners by using a normal distribution (“bell curve”). The Third Grade Reading Guarantee test should be a criterion test, assessing whether a learning can demonstrate a percentage of a specific body of reading skills, and a passing score should be predetermined and known before the learner ever takes the test. However, the TGRG “cut scores” vary each year and are sometimes determined after the test has been administered. A norm-referenced test, too, is established a priori but by using a national sample to create a normal distribution, and a test-taker’s rank is determined based on where they score compared to that national sample.
The goal of the TGRG is not – or should not – be to rank learners. However, the TGRG seems to be an unconventional conglomeration of criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests. In some years (e.g., 2016), the cut scores were determined after the third graders have taken the test. From 2016-2017, the cut scores went UP (perhaps the scores went up in other years as well) on at least one of the acceptable alternate tests. From a scientific tests-and-measurement perspective, how are these even possible? Why does the amount required to be known (the cut score determining whether one has demonstrated enough reading ability to “pass” the TGRG test) depend on the scores that the third graders themselves score as a body? The passing score or percentage should be known in advance (e.g., “We will require that students demonstrate 70% correct to be considered eligible to advance to fourth grade.”)
Further, why are the cut scores increasing each year? How can any subsequent group of children be expected to score higher than the previous year’s children? They should either meet an a priori cut-off, or they don’t meet the cut-off. The cut scores shouldn’t be changing or increasing from year to year. Is every district in Ohio populated by an expanding Lake Woebegone, where each subsequent cohort is increasingly above average? From a tests-and-measurement perspective, the creation of the cut scores themselves – and how they are used to determine passage or failure – seems to make no logical sense.
The Third Grade Reading Guarantee has created a nasty mess of academic push-down to lower grades. Kindergarteners are required to take a reading readiness assessment in the first weeks of school, just as classroom norms, expectations and relationships are being formed. We want entering five-year-olds to view their teacher and other school personnel as adults who they can trust and to turn to if they have a question or need help. And instead, we manipulate this developing relationship by giving them a test where they don’t know the answers, and the teacher is not allowed to help them. They learn that they cannot look to their trusted adult to provide the knowledge that they’re ostensibly in school to learn. They learn that their relationship with their teacher is not one of unconditional support, but a limited one instead.
The kindergarten reading readiness test is not in any way a valid assessment of reading readiness or reading ability. There is a 6-page passage that is read aloud to the child. Each page has 3-4 sentences on it, some of which may be “new” information to the child. There are then 6 multiple choice test questions, which require the child to keep MULTIPLE pieces of information in their working memory for way longer than is possible for a five-year-old. AND the child has to discriminate whether they learned the information from the text that was just read to them, or whether it is a fact they already might have known. They then have four more passages with six questions each to complete in a similar manner. Some of the multiple choice answers are completely confusing (e.g., asking the child to discriminate between “making pizza” and “cooking pizza”; what IS the difference between those actions?). A quick look and it’s easy to see that some of them are completely invalid.
This is not a reading readiness or comprehension test. It is a LISTENING test. It is a WORKING MEMORY task. It is a SHORT TERM MEMORY test. It is a DISCRIMINATION task. It is a SOURCE MEMORY task (“Did I learn this from the text? Or did I already know it? Or did I already know it AND it was mentioned in the text?”). It is a PRIOR KNOWLEDGE task. It is an “experience with testing” task. And because of curricular changes brought about by TGRG, kindergarteners now do this sort of stuff ALL DAY. But the sole reason our district decided to move to an all-day kindergarten in 2013 was to give students extra learning time in reading and test taking.
Kindergarteners and other young elementary students spend the BULK of their educational time doing stuff that is DEVELOPMENTALLY, EDUCATIONALLY, and MOTIVATIONALLY inappropriate. At that age – and until at least age seven, PLAY is the most important educational activity for developing minds and bodies (for at those ages, the same parts of the brain are recruited for cognitive and physical tasks – the very acts of reading and math are physical at those ages).
In our district, keyboarding instruction will begin in kindergarten, starting with the Fall, 2017 incoming kindy class. This is in addition to the sometimes hours of “seat-work” that so many kindergarten classrooms spend much of their time doing. The kindergarten classroom in our building has been required to remove the construction, loose parts, creativity-arts area to make room for a bank of 5 computers with keyboards so incoming kindergarteners – my daughter among them – can participate in keyboarding instruction. Keyboarding instruction for five- and six-year-olds is completely developmentally and educationally inappropriate. Phonics involves matching letter-to-sound and involves visual coordination of the eyes with sound. This is a MOTOR activity as well as a COGNITIVE activity; it involves integration of at least 3-4 systems (ocular-motor, cognitive-attention, and listening and/or producing sound).
Kindergarteners need to be learning to associate a visual letter with an auditory sound (either A with “A”, the letter name, or A with “aaaa,” the phonological sound the letter makes). They should NOT be searching for and learning a geographical location for each letter and involving the arms and fingers; this is not a helpful association to make when learning letters and their associated sounds should be prioritized for beginning reading. It is not only overly complicated and likely motorically very difficult, it is also teaching them associations that could confuse and delay the eye-letter-sound associations that need to be learned to a point of automaticity.
Further, we want to develop the efficiency of their eyeballs left-to-right across text, NOT their eyeballs from screen-to-keyboard-to-screen. The development of their motoric base is not yet ready for keyboard as a mediated vehicle between letters-and-sounds. Learning activities that are appropriate to this age, stage and pre-reading involve large gross motor activity with both sides of the body, integrating left-and-right.
Kindergarteners’ hands are not yet large enough for a keyboard and for many, the fine motor control and eye-hand coordination necessary to master keyboard typing – or even be minimally efficient – has not yet developed. Most children of this age should be working on (pencil-crayon-marker) grip strength, providing appropriate pressure to produce writing (or, more developmentally appropriate, coloring and drawing), and the eye-hand coordination for an activity that is a direct manipulation (eye to hand-crayon-tip) and which immediately produces an outcome, NOT a keyboard stroke-to-screen that is mediated by the keyboard. Developing fine motor coordination, like drawing and coloring to improve eye-hand coordination, so their eyes get used to looking at and producing print and drawing is appropriate.
They also need the language skills of listening to and producing words; listening to stories, learning and performing choral chants and singing are more valuable to a strong linguistic base than is attempting to compose writing on a screen through a keyboard. They are being asked to learn keyboarding at this age for the sole purpose of preparing them to take the TGRG test.
We see children’s random movements as “attention deficit” when it is more likely to be immaturity – or typical age appropriateness – in the physical/motoric system. Their proprioception and vestibular systems are still developing. Rather than keyboarding and seatwork, the curriculum needs perceptual-motor activities and opportunities to challenge and practice postural control: gross motor physical activity, not training the children to sit for longer and longer time periods. This type of training will only result in more children being identified and labeled as needing help.
Every moment that children spend in developmentally inappropriate activities are moments that are (1) lost to DAP and (2) moments that will contribute further to their frustration, dislike of the learning process, a-motivation for school, and alienation from school and the learning process. We know that one of the most developmentally and educationally important activity that children – and other social mammals – can participate in is play. The frontal lobes develop during play. Opioids are released during play, and when animals are deprived of play as children, they develop into adults who exhibit emotional dysregulation, including increased anxiety, depression and social inhibition and aggression.
It is not a stretch to hypothesize that deprived of play, humans will seek positive stimulation elsewhere (e.g., “self-medicate” with other activities or substances). Humans aged 3-6 need up to three hours of play a day in order to not exhibit problems associated with play deprivation. This is in addition to the recommended 2-3 hours/day of physical gross motor activity. By age 6-7, there is enough cortical inhibition to sit still and pay attention for short periods, but the bulk of a kindergarten day should be spent in play.
By third grade, children are 8-9. Eight- and nine-year-olds do not yet uniformly have the working memory necessary to answer a multiple choice test question with three alternates, let alone a test with questions on one digital page referring to text that they read several digital pages back. These are not reading tests; they’re tests of working memory capacity, which at this age is still very small. Let me explain how this is a problem. Children have to answer questions – on different screens – about text that is several screens back. There are questions about editing sentences – sentences that they cannot see unless they click back several screens to see the text again…and then click several screens forward to the question and its answers….hopefully the text they had clicked back to is still in their working memory. If it is not, the child will have to click back and forth several times. Why is the sentence in question not printed ON THE QUESTION PAGE itself?
But even if it were, eight- and nine-year-olds still do not have the working memory capacity for a multiple choice question to be a valid assessment. The child has to hold the stem – a question or sentence fragment – in working memory while reading all the alternates (the possible answers). The longer the question or question fragment and the longer each possible response is, the more the child has to hold in their working memory. The validity of the item goes down; it’s now a test of working memory, but not a valid measure of whatever ELA skill that it is purported to assess, because the item conflates working memory ability with that ELA skill being assessed.
I watched a third grader take a computerized ELA assessment in preparation for the TGRG test (not the TGRT itself, but a mid-year benchmark test that was a part of the ELA test-prep curriculum purchased by our district). There were multiple passages with many multiple choice items for each passage similar to what I’ve described above – multiple screens and flipping back and forth. Then the child got to number 53 – FIFTY-THREE – and it was an ESSAY. The very last question – out of 53 – was an ESSAY, the third essay of the test! Note that the very definition of a benchmark assessment is that it is short. Do these test makers know NOTHING about making up tests? Testing fatigue sets in after 15 items; this is true for college students and adults, not just elementary students. Testing fatigue will occur at fewer items than 15 if the items are complex (like clicking back and forth to edit sentences or reference text to answer questions, as described above).
When testing fatigue sets in, accuracy and speed decline, so that items after item 15 are more likely to be wrong that items 1-15. Tests longer than 15 items begin to lose their reliability – for any age. Furthermore, eight- and nine-year-olds do not have the sustained attentional capacity for a test of this length, even if they didn’t have to face testing fatigue. Sitting and maintaining posture is still a challenge at this age. If we ask 8-9-year-olds to read or count backward while standing still, they will have increased postural sway. Cognitive performance is sacrificed for balance. Even in third grade, reading is a PHYSICAL challenge and still relies on areas of the brain (cerebellum) that we think of as “motor” areas of the brain.
The essay this test taker faced at item #53 was, “Most people have faced an interesting problem that they had to solve. Think about an interesting problem that someone might solve. Now write a story about a character who solves that problem.” Consider this, if you can, from an 8-year-old’s perspective: They have to THINK up an “interesting” “problem” (What is “interesting”? What makes a problem “interesting”? Is that the key word here? What kind of “problem” – a math problem? A problem like saving the earth? Is “problem” the key word?)…figure out how to solve it…write a STORY about a CHARACTER that solves the problem. Are you kidding me? What child has the stamina to not only THINK of an INTERESTING problem, think up the SOLUTION to the problem (because even though you and I, as adults, know how to read between the lines and could write a story about SOLVING a problem without actually solving the problem, we know that most 3rd graders will interpret this as “write a story about a problem that has been solved, where solving it is the action of the story”.
I have no idea what the child wrote, as I was not privy to that. The child asked whether the story had to start “once upon a time” (when he read “story” that’s what he thought). I said no. He asked whether he could write about something that people already knew about. I said, “Like what? Give me an example. What are you thinking?” He said, “The three little pigs” (The Three LIttle Pigs was playing in the room next door). I said, “No. You have to think up something that everyone doesn’t already know about.” And then I left him alone. His only questions after that were how to spell things, which under a standardized testing administration, we would not be allowed to assist.
I will close with an anecdote. I teach a class of ~30 students in Educational Psychology every year at Kenyon College, a highly selective liberal arts college. A few years ago, when I first introduced the idea of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, and that children who did not “pass” the one standardized assessment would not advance to fourth grade, my junior- and senior-level students were astonished. They were incredulous that advancing a grade level for eight-year-olds would be dependent on passing ONE test.
At that point, a student raised his hand and said, “But I didn’t learn to read until fourth grade.” Then three other students raised their hands and expressed the same sentiment – that they hadn’t learned to read until fourth grade. Three of the four did not have any known learning disabilities. Fully ten percent of the class did not learn to read until fourth grade; they were all typically developing and ultimately academically successful. There is a normal distribution around the average age at which children learn to read; some children will be on one or the other end of this distribution.
These four students were, by any definition of the concept, academically successful. They were juniors and seniors at a college that is known for its English writing program; some of them were about to graduate in a few weeks. The student who raised his hand first was a National Merit Scholar in high school (I just checked his LinkedIn page), and he is a published author and currently teaches English Language Arts at a middle school in New York.
The Board of Public Education Partners is strongly opposed to tying high school graduation to state-mandated standardized tests. Because the Ohio General Assembly created these new graduation requirements in 2014, one third of Ohio’s Class of 2018 is now at risk of not receiving a high school diploma, and the percentage of non-graduates could reach 60-70 percent in urban areas.
Those projected percentages are unacceptable.
High school exit exams tie standardized test scores to high school diplomas, but unfortunately, they can push students out of school into the streets, the unemployment lines, and the prisons. There are no federal regulations that require tying graduation to standardized tests – Ohio is one of only 13 states that mandate high school exit exams. In the last few years, 10 states have repealed high school exit exams. California, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arizona even decided to issue high school diplomas retroactively to thousands of students who had previously been awarded “certificates of participation” because of their scores on state tests.
According to the National Center forFair & Open Testing (FairTest), exit exams deny diplomas to tens of thousands of U.S. students each year, regardless of whether they have stayed in school, completed other high school graduation requirements, and demonstrated competency in other ways. A review by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that high school graduation tests have done nothing to improve student achievement but have raised the dropout rate. These tests give some students, who have worked hard, played by the rules, and stayed in school, the status of high school dropouts with the same barriers to future opportunities. http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/TimeToAbolishHSGraduationTests.pdf
Adults without diplomas earn less, are less likely to be employed or have a stable family, and are more likely to be imprisoned, as exemplified by the phrase “the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Test defenders claim that end-of-course tests will benefit students with disabilities, English language learners, African American, Latino, and low-income students, but those children are more likely to be denied a diploma for not passing the tests. Test supporters say the exit exams “give value” to a diploma, but the research shows the opposite is true. Advocates of this test-and-punish system also insist that the assessments bring “increased rigor,” but no evidence proves that an increase in assessments can improve student performance. http://testingwindow.blogspot.com/2017/05/i-guess-it-is-all-about-assessments.html
A student’s transcript, not a test score, is what makes a high school diploma “worth more than the paper it’s printed on,” and it gives the most reliable picture of a student’s readiness for college and career. Two major studies confirmed that high school grades are much stronger predictors of undergraduate performance than are standardized test scores. The High School GPA remains the best predictor of college success.
The 23-member graduation work group recommended that the Class of 2018 students who passed their required courses and took all seven state tests, regardless of score, could graduate if they met at least two of the six other requirements the committee created, and the State Board of Education concurred with its recommendations.
The Ohio House chose not to address the pending graduation crisis in its recent budget amendments, so Public Education Partners requested that the Ohio Senate Finance – Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee figure out a way to do what’s right for Ohio’s high school students who are at risk of not receiving a diploma.
Ohio lawmakers need to support the amendment to Substitute HB 49 that allows the Class of 2018 to use course grades for points instead of exit exams for the seven required content areas.
Then they must begin the process of eliminating state-mandated exit testing as a high school graduation requirement for the class of 2019 and beyond.
Ohio’s largest online charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), was paid for 9,000 more students than it should have been paid in 2016, according to an Ohio Department of Education enrollment audit. The Ohio Department of Education told the school that it only had proper documentation for 6,300 of its 15,300 students.
A state hearing officer ruled against ECOT in its appeal of ODE’s determination that the school owes $64 million for enrollment that can’t be documented. The hearing officer recommended that the state school board collect overpayments from the school or deduct the sum it owes from future payments.
On Monday June 12, the State Board of Education of Ohio will decide whether to accept or reject the hearing officer’s report on the ECOT student enrollment/participation matter. ECOT had appealed the decision of the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) that ECOT could not validate the participation of 60 percent of its students during 2015-2016 school year. The State Board of Education had engaged a hearing officer to consider the appeal. The hearing officer ruled in favor of ODE which means that ECOT is obligated to pay back $60 million. (Wm. Phillis, Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy)
Public Education Partners encourages all Ohioans to send letters to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Paolo DeMaria, and to the esteemed members of the State Board of Education to request that funds diverted from their school district budgets to ECOT be returned to their local school districts. PEP sent the following letter:
During your June 12th BOE meeting, please vote to make sure that ECOT reimburses the $60+ million it owes Ohio school districts for 60% of its students whose class participation could not be verified. It’s a small price for Bill Lager to pay compared to the millions and millions of tax dollars our state has given to his unaccountable online school and related businesses for the last 16-17 years.
Please exert your power as our state Board of Education to collect the amount, and then order that the money be returned to the local school districts from which it was transferred.
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 Village $226,523.18, South Euclid-Lyndhurst City $221,661.46, Strongsville City $220,536.62, Troy City $220,458.40.
Those transfers total over $108.5 million for ONE school year. Just imagine what the local school districts, where the majority of Ohio’s children go to school, could do with a 60% reimbursement!
Here are the easy-to-copy-and-paste addresses of the superintendent and the BOE members:
superintendent@education.ohio.gov,
ElshoffTess@education.ohio.gov,
Pat.Bruns@education.ohio.gov,
Stephanie.Dodd@education.ohio.gov,
antoinette.miranda@education.ohio.gov,
cathye.flory@education.ohio.gov,
charlotte.mcguire@education.ohio.gov,
eric.poklar@education.ohio.gov,
joe.farmer@education.ohio.gov,
kara.morgan@education.ohio.gov,
kathleen.mcgervey@education.ohio.gov,
linda.haycock@education.ohio.gov,
lisa.woods@education.ohio.gov,
laura.kohler@education.ohio.gov,
martha.manchester@education.ohio.gov,
meryl.johnson@education.ohio.gov,
nancy.hollister@education.ohio.gov,
nick.owens@education.ohio.gov,
rebecca.vazquez-skillings@education.ohio.gov,
sarah.fowler@education.ohio.gov
The State Board’s hearing officer recommended that it use its power to collect overpayments from ECOT, so please advise them to accept those recommendations.
Send a letter to the State Board of Education of Ohio TODAY!
The public common school ensures that all children have the opportunity to participate in the educational opportunities required by the state and provided by the local communities. It is interesting that the 1802 Ohio Constitution had a provision that no law shall be passed that would prohibit the poor from an equal participation in government-supported schools.
Private schooling, at the expense of individuals who choose such, has always been permitted. Early in Ohio history some parents chose to opt their children out of any formal schooling. But the state, during decades of struggling with the attendance issue, made formal education compulsory.
Some private school providers started to demand public funding for private schools soon after the 1851 constitutional provision for the common school. Ohio lawmakers resisted public funding for private schools until the late 1960s when the fair bus bill passed. This bill required school districts to provide transportation for students attending private schools. State funding for auxiliary services and administrative cost reimbursement for private schools soon followed. And then, in the early 1990s, the first voucher program was enacted. Expansion of voucher programs and publicly-funded private schools, known as charters, followed.
Ohio taxpayers fund private education entities to the tune of $1.5 billion per year. Public funding of “privates” disenfranchises a segment of the community from the public system.
The retreat from the public system causes a myriad of problems for the state and local communities such as:
*Inefficient use of public tax resources by funding multiple systems
*Reduction in the core constituency that support the public common school system
*Segregation of students
*Stratification of communities
*Conflict between the public system and the private alternatives
*Competition for public tax resources
*Corporatization of the charter sector which diverts resources slated for classrooms to marketing, political campaigns, profits, etc.
*Fraud and corruption in the unregulated charter sector
*On the average, lower academic performance and graduation rates in the private sector compared to the common school
In general, school choice at public expense inflicts harm on communities, school districts, parents and students, and taxpayers.
The common good is compromised by choice policies which divert funds and students from the community common schools.
~William Phillis, OhioCoalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding
Here’s a graphic created by Public Education Partners that shows school district patrons how a portion of their school levy funds flows to charters. Some state officials have argued that no local funds are involved in chartering.
They may be aware that the use of revenue from local levies is restricted to the operation of the school district; hence, they fabricated the following argument:
· Districts must use their local revenue first for their district students.
· Districts must use their state funds first for charter students.
· Therefore, only state funds support charter students.
School district revenues, both state and local, are co-mingled in the districts’ general fund.
The idea that the source of funds dictates the group of students to be funded has no basis in law.
After the E & A Coalition distributed spreadsheets showing most districts receive less state money per pupil than is deducted for charters, and that some districts receive less total state revenue than the state deducts for charters, many state officials abandoned the state’s baseless argument.
However, some less-informed state officials still rely on talking points of the past and continue to tell people that no local levy funds are involved in chartering.
To find out how many of your local tax dollars are used to subsidize charter schools, check this website comprised of data from the Ohio Department of Education. https://knowyourcharter.com/map/
~William Phillis, Executive Director
Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding
OEA Opposes HB 176 and HB 181: Both Bills Seek to Rehash Prior Attempts to Eliminate Common Core Standards
Testing: OEA opposes HB 176 and HB 181 because each bill would shift gears on students and teachers by implementing yet another set of academic standards and tests.
HB 181:HB 181 would replace all current state tests in grades 3-8 with “norm-referenced” achievement assessments. The same number of tests would be given except for the fall administration of the 3rdgrade English Language Arts (ELA) test. (OEA supports maintaining the fall administration of the test as long as it is attached to high stakes student retention). But overall, the number of tests in Ohio would exceed federal requirements by maintaining state Social Studies tests in grades 4 and 6.
HB 181 would replace the 7 current end-of-course exams in high school with “a series of nationally norm-referenced standardized assessments” in ELA, math, science, American history and American government. The number and type of tests is not specified, but there would be a minimum of 5 based on the subjects specified. Federal law requires three high school tests (English, math and science).
In sum, the bill would establish yet another set of academic standards and does little to reduce testing. Feedback from education stakeholders and parents around testing was to 1) reduce the amount of testing and 2) not create yet another new set of tests after they changed three times in three years.
HB 176: The bill would repeal current academic content standards and replace them with standards in place in Massachusetts prior to 2010. HB 176 does reduce the amount of state testing to levels that are consistent with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by repealing the Social Studies tests in grades 4 and 6 and reducing the number of tests in high school to 3 (one in English language arts, math and science). The current tests would be replaced by those used in Iowa prior to 2010.
While HB 176 would reduce the amount of state testing to minimum levels required under federal law, it would introduce a new set of academic standards (no longer used in Massachusetts) and a new slate of tests (no longer used in Iowa). Feedback from education stakeholders and parents around testing was to 1) reduce the amount of testing and 2) not create yet another new set of tests after they changed three times in three years.
Teacher Evaluations: OEA opposes HB 176 and HB 181 because each bill makes proposals disconnected from the teacher-driven OTES reform recommendations recently made by the Ohio Educator Standards Board (ESB). The ESB recommendations have been endorsed by the State Board of Education and are expected to be introduced in legislation soon.
HB 181:The evaluation changes in HB 181 would interfere with teacher-driven efforts to reform the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) based on comprehensive recommendations from the Ohio Educator Standards Board.
OEA supports the recommendations of the Ohio Educator Standards Board regarding how OTES can be improved. The State Board of Education passed a resolution on April 12 requesting the Ohio General Assembly to consider the ESB recommendations to update OTES, which are expected to be introduced in legislation soon.
The ESB recommendations to update OTES are far more comprehensive and educator-focused than the HB 181 teacher evaluation proposal. The ESB recommendations include:
Embedding the current 50% Student Growth Measure (SGM) into five performance areas: Knowledge of students, Differentiation, Assessment of student learning, Assessment data, Professional responsibility.
Remove the use of shared attribution in calculating teacher evaluation ratings.
Maintaining the two- and three- year evaluation cycle for teachers who are rated skilled and accomplished respectively.
Refining formal and informal observation procedures tailored to meet the needs of teachers in order to focus on improvement and growth.
Provide professional growth process for teachers rated accomplished or skilled
Importantly, the ESB recommendations will focus on encouraging and supporting growth for teachers and students. Further, they will bring more emphasis to classroom instruction, professional growth, and help to reduce testing.
In contrast, under HB 181, teacher evaluations would continue to focus on rating teachers and students in a watered-down version of the current OTES.
HB 176:Under HB 176, teacher evaluations would be unilaterally adopted by local school boards without input from teachers or guidance under state law.
The current version of HB 176, introduced and co-sponsored by Ohio ALEC members, appears to address many of the issues about which parents and education professionals have been very vocal.
Dr. Laura Chapman, a retired professor of art education and frequent contributor to Diane Ravitch’s blog, shared her views on this piece of legislation that almost seems too good to be true:
As usual you have the key idea nailed. “Eliminating the Common Core” is the bait for marketing this bill, especially to Republicans, but that feature is also a distraction from the really horrible part—competency-based education.
You are correct about the slicing and dicing of everything into little bitty “competency” modules with the end game everything on line and completely programmed. Algorithms determine what kids learn as soon as they get online to learn something. There will be gameified and cartoony graphics and cute little Quests to get kids to master a narrow and conventional easy to map and test subject. Anything that cannot be programmed for instructional delivery by a computer is destined to become a relic. Students will also earn credit through awards for learning outside of school (e.g., give me credit, I went to the art museum. The museum certifies the attendance).
This bill is not so much about the CCSS as the power of tech lobby when it is completely unified with the testing industry. In Ohio, the big push for competency-based learning has been led by KnowledgeWorks.org — well-funded by the Gates Foundation. But competency-based education is really a huge initiative with venture capitalists hoping to cash in on the guarantee of public money. Some have already made a mint by investing in apps and entire systems that pre-empt the need for face-to-face encounters with teachers. I sound alarmist, but this train is on a fast track as you can see from many websites. Here are two websites I recommend.
The first is Wrench in the Gears. The editor/author is Allison McDowell, a savvy parent from Philadelphia. The blog subtitle says: “A Skeptical Parent’s Thoughts on Digital Curriculum.” This relatively new blog, started in September 2016, has amazing research that connects the dots on who is pushing various tech initiatives. Here is the latest post with some amazing connect-the-dots graphics on who wants to capture Rhode Island. “Dear Rhode Island: That April Fools Day Blended Learning Conference is no joke!” https://wrenchinthegears.com/…/dear-rhode-island-that-apri…/
Not long ago, Allison offered Seattle Education a remarkable presentation on the evolution of the tech industry and where it is headed. She is anything but a cheerleader. This presentation is titled “What Corporations, Bill Gates and the Department of Defense Have Planned for Public Education: A video.” The event was sponsored by Parents Across America.
Download the one-hour video lecture on what she calls Education 2.0– the anything-but-personalized schemes to make teachers go away in favor of algorithms that will gather information from every stroke of the keyboard. She also shows the end game in “competency-based education.” That piece is illustrated by a video that shows how competency credits can be earned and offered by almost anyone, anytime. If you cannot find time for the whole presentation, go near the end to find the recommended list of vocabulary changes for “truth-telling” about what’s happening. Here is a teaser list:
Innovative means untested (untried)
Student-centered means isolated. (e.g. Rocketship kids, in a carrel with computer, earphones).
Personalized means data-mined.
Blended learning means limited access to a teacher.
For the rest of this, find the marker 1:11:43 in the following video. Unfortunately, the video does not do full justice to the importance of Allison’s message, or the slides she has. BUT>>> Allison is making the slides she has gathered available for editing and reuse by others. https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/…/what-silicon-v…/
The second website is hackeducation.com with writer Audrey Waters raising red-flags about technology and education. In this post you will find a reference to Betsy DeVos and Uber. Here is a brief passage from Audrey’s March 30, 2017 talk presented at The University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education. The title of the talk is “History of the Future of Automation in Education.” (Caps were italicized in her post.)
Let me pause here and note that there are several directions that I could take this talk: data collection and analysis as “personalization,” for example. The New York Times just wrote about an app called Greyball that Uber has utilized to avoid scrutiny from law enforcement and regulators in the cities into which it’s tried to expand. The app would ascertain, based on a variety of signals, when cops might be trying to summon an Uber and would prevent them from doing so. Instead, they’d see a special version of Uber – “personalized” – that misinformed them that there were no cars in the vicinity.
How is “personalized learning” – the automation of education through algorithms – a form of “greyballing”? I am really intrigued by this question.
Another piece of the automation puzzle for education (and for “smart car” and for “smart homes”) involves questions of what we mean by “intelligence” in that phrase “artificial intelligence.” What are the histories and practices of “intelligence” – how have humans been ranked, categorized, punished, and rewarded based on an assessment of intelligence? How is intelligence performed – by man (and I do mean “man”) and by machine? What do we READ as signs of intelligence? What do we CULTIVATE as signs of intelligence – in our students and in our machines? What role have educational institutions had in developing and sanctioning intelligence? How does believing there’s such a thing as “machine intelligence” challenge some institutions (and prop up others)? More at http://hackeducation.com/2017/03/30/driverless.
Now here is the topper and it could be the bill-killer. Recall that Congress just eliminated privacy requirements for internet service providers so these “wholesale gatherers of data from from computers and mobile devices” can compete with the retail data gatherers like Google, Facebook, Amazon.
I have yet to get a firm answer if this loss of privacy extends to FERPA and COPPA, but the more hell that can be raised about privacy and H.B. 176 the better. Add some healthy outrage about on-line testing that the bill retains with data-mining designed to shove ads to kids and parents.
~Dr. Laura Chapman
Whether or not this bill succeeds in eliminating all but the minimum of high-stakes tests remains to be seen. It will be very important for public education advocates to keep a close watch on how it evolves. Be vigilant.
When I read the following “report” from the National Conference of State Legislatures on “International Comparisons in Education,” it really disturbed me. I was not happy to hear that some of Ohio’s education leaders consider this as a “report we must take seriously.” http://www.ncsl.org/documents/educ/Edu_International_FinaI_V2.pdf
The document began with this statement: “We cannot ignore the reality that most state education systems are falling dangerously behind the world, leaving the United States overwhelmingly underprepared to succeed in the 21st century economy.”
WHEN did becoming excellent test-takers, which is what “high-performing” and “high-achieving” means, become the end-all, be-all measure of educational success? Creativity, innovation, wherewithal, and other extremely important “soft” skills essential for success, that cannot be measured on a standardized test, are what U.S. students have in abundance, that so-called high-performing countries like China do not.
Why would we want to set all of what makes us Us aside to become more like other countries, when China, for example, is starting to do things differently to become more like Us?
Most high-performing countries educate and test only their wealthiest students and “best” test-takers, whereas in the United States, we educate and test ALL students. Of COURSE those other countries will have higher test scores than we do, because they aren’t testing everyone! It’s an apples to oranges comparison…or, really, more like apples to watermelons comparison.
This simple fact was not mentioned anywhere in the NCSL report.
Perhaps before we completely dismantle our entire public education system and declare it “broken,” why not try something simple first: Maybe we should test only our brightest and wealthiest like They do to see how we rank for an apples to apples, rather than apples to oranges comparison?
I guarantee we would be right up there at the top.
Or, if we REALLY want to be like the “high-performing” countries our politicians are so envious of and want to emulate, why not take it one step further… since test scores are all that clearly matter right now, perhaps the U.S. should stop testing poor and other-than-the-best students. THAT would certainly solve our “achievement” issues and make our education system just like Theirs. Problem solved!
But is that what we really want? The amazing thing that differentiates Us from Them is that here in the United States, ALL students have the right to a good education – not just the brightest and wealthiest students, like most so-called high-performing countries do. Ironically, though, it is that same differentiation that brings down our overall test scores.
No matter how many tests we throw at our students and how much folks may want it to be, it is impossible to make ALL students good test-takers. Child development has a funny way of being like that.
We need to re-evaluate our measure of educational success. Achievement is and should be seen as only one small facet. We need to decide whether it’s important as a country to continue the high-stakes over-testing of all of our students in order to make misleading comparisons to countries that don’t, or should the U.S. only test its best students?
Did you know that the Ohio General Assembly created new graduation requirements for students beginning with the class of 2018?
*High school students must score well on new state tests to graduate- beyond earning credits and good grades in school.
*One third of Ohio’s Class of 2018 is now at risk of not receiving a high school diploma!
*The percentage of non-graduates could reach 60-70 percent in urban areas.
*Students earn 18 points toward graduation on seven end-of-course exams. They can earn one point if they score as Limited on a state end-of-course exam, two for Basic, three for Proficient, four for Accelerated, and five for Advanced.
*High school pupils must achieve four points in Math, four in English, and six between Science and Social Studies, as well as an additional four points somewhere else.
*High schoolers must take exit exams in Algebra I or Integrated Math I, Geometry or Integrated Math II, American Government, American History, English I, English II, and Biology.
*Students will need Proficient scores on four of the seven tests to reach 18 points, or some scores better than Proficient.
*The tests have changed three times in the last three years.
*There are no federal regulations that tie graduation to standardized tests.
*The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows districts to use a locally determined, nationally recognized test like the ACT or SAT instead of end-of-course tests in high schools.
*A Certificate of Completion has been suggested as a solution to the graduation crisis. Getting into college without a diploma would be difficult, and students couldn’t get federal student loans with just a certificate of completion.
*According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a person without a high school diploma can expect to earn about $10,000 less per year than someone who has a high school diploma.
Thanks to Matt and Mandy Jablonski of Lorain County for inspiring advocacy and providing details about this pending catastrophe!
Public Education Partners urges all Ohioans to contact those in charge of public education policies about averting this pending crisis. In messages to the state Board of Education and Supt. Paolo DeMaria, add this additional request: Until Ohio’s graduation crisis is fixed, require that letters be sent from each high school to families of students not on track to graduate.
A template, created by Superintendent Power, is provided below.
I am writing you to voice my concern about the over-testing of students and the lack of local control in K-12 education. The job of educating our children should be up to the local Boards of Education, not the State. I urge you to bring back local control of our schools. I also ask you to fix the current testing system.
Changing the assessment system three times in three years is hurting our students and making them less competitive with students from surrounding states. It is time for the state to follow the federal guidelines and allow the schools to use the ACT test or industry accredited professional certification exams to assess college and career readiness. I ask you to take a hard look at this system and do what is right for all students across Ohio.
Sincerely, Your Name & Address
If your student is at risk of not graduating due to the state’s new graduation requirements, please consider sending this email as well:
Subject: Fix Ohio’s Graduation Crisis
Dear NAME,
My child has followed all the rules. However, (s)he is now at risk of not walking across the stage and to get a diploma, because the State is once again changing the assessment system and the requirements to graduate. [Insert any information about your child that you want them to know.]
It is wrong to damage my child’s future due to a failed accountability experiment. Enough is enough. I expect you to remedy this situation, and let teachers get back to teaching and our children get back to learning.
Sincerely, Your Name & Address
A sincere THANK-YOU goes to Supt. Greg Power for implementing this important call-to-action!
Until legislators cut back on high-stakes graduation tests, the future of Ohio’s children will be at stake!
President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), an overhaul of federal education law, in December of 2015. According to the Ohio Department of Education’s website, “passed with bipartisan support, ESSA represents a shift from broad federal oversight of primary and secondary education to greater flexibility and decision making at the state and local levels. Ohio is committed to involving educators, parents and other stakeholders as we explore new ways to ensure that all our students receive the education they need for bright futures.”
I was happy to hear about the proposed involvement of experienced educators and parents, because since the early 1990s, ODE and many of our elected leaders seem to have depended more heavily on edicts from Washington, anti-public education think tanks, and major foundations, such as Gates and the Walton family, for advice and direction in education issues.
I attended the ESSA meeting at the King Arts Center in Columbus in August, a conversation in one of a series of conversations across the state. The event was sponsored by Philanthropy Ohio, the Ohio Department of Education, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and was promoted as a way to “engage in a regional meeting to share thoughts and perspectives on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and Ohio’s developing state plan.” This meeting was billed as “an exciting opportunity to gather valuable input from various perspectives from local educators, funders, parents, students and community members.” https://www.eventbrite.com/e/columbus-essa-stakeholder-meeting-registration-26527330961#
I participated in the Ohio Department of Education’s online survey, because I read that ODE was “actively engaging with stakeholders, school leaders, teachers and parents as the department works to develop the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan. In an effort to reach out to more Ohioans about these important issues, the department created a survey to get feedback on several focus areas within ESSA, including accountability measures, school improvement, educator quality and student supports.” http://education.ohio.gov/Media/Ed-Connection/Aug-22-2016/Help-Develop-Ohios-Every-Student-Succeeds-Act-Sta
The massive amount of feedback from the statewide ESSA stakeholder meetings and the ODE online survey was overwhelmingly in support of less state-mandated testing and less test-based accountability.
In ODE’s ESSA online survey, there were 11,287 responses received from each of Ohio’s 88 counties, and in addition to responding to specific questions, several general themes emerged. Survey respondents generally referenced a preference for a reduction in testing; more stability and consistency; reduce the rate of change; more “wraparound” services, including mental health services; additional art, music and physical education offerings; additional services for students with disabilities and students identified as gifted; more decision making at the local level; and greater accountability and less funding for charter schools. http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Every-Student-Succeeds-Act-ESSA/ESSA-Online-Survey-Results.pdf.aspx
Imagine everyone’s surprise when ODE unveiled its draft ESSA plan in February, which did exactly the opposite of what 15,000 stakeholders said they wanted. The draft plan proposed to keep the same level of testing!
Each state was expected to reach out to stakeholders for input, a mandate ODE spokesperson Brittany Halpin said Ohio takes very seriously. “A plan that is deeply rooted in the needs of Ohio’s students, educators and communities requires everyone’s input,” she said in a written statement. “Our goal was to meaningfully engage diverse groups of stakeholders to solicit a range of thoughts, opinions and recommendations.”
So, was the goal simply to reach out, engage, and solicit feedback from parents, education professionals, and other stakeholders, only to exclude the responses from well over 15,000 people and stay with the status quo?
I recently had a casual conversation with a person closely connected to the sponsors of the statewide stakeholder meetings, and I said that it was very unfortunate that stakeholder feedback had been ignored by ODE leaders when developing their draft ESSA plan. I was told that our responses were rejected, because they didn’t go along with the philosophy of the leaders at the Ohio Department of Education. How disingenuous to waste the valuable time and dismiss the thoughtful input of thousands of people, because they didn’t provide the same old answers that ODE wanted to hear!
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) promised to return fundamental decisions about education to parents, community members, and educators with the most at stake in our public schools, while continuing to focus on our students. The law’s ultimate success will depend on state plans being carefully crafted and implemented– and that, in turn, requires collaboration between stakeholders, legislators, and ODE.
I urge the Ohio Department of Education to hold on to the ESSA Plan until September, and submit it after it’s been corrected to reflect the ideas of thousands of Ohioans who continue to ask for less state-mandated testing and less test-based accountability. Ohio’s state plan must streamline the number of high stakes tests to the federal minimum and develop a more balanced school accountability system that relies less on standardized test scores.
Our children are counting on us to get this right!
Jeanne Melvin – Public Education Partners
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