School Choice Ohio Blog

Two lists emerged this week regarding school building achievement and the education that our children receive. The timing of the release of each list for this week was probably a fluke or an ironic twist of fate.

The first inauspicious list was released by the Ohio Department of Education. This release listed the 207 failing public school buildings that have been in academic watch or academic emergency for two of the past three years leaving 88,000 students eligible to apply in February for the EdChoice Scholarship and to enroll in private schools.  This is an increase from the 199 schools that received a similar designation last year.

In direct contrast to the first release, the U.S. Department of Education released a list of schools designated as Blue Ribbon Schools. The Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors public and private elementary, middle and high schools that are either academically superior or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement for disadvantaged students. Ohio has 19 schools this year that have received this distinguished honor.

Last year, 12 Ohio schools were dubbed Blue Ribbon Schools.

Furthermore, the Blue Ribbon Schools Program does more than just list the names of high achieving schools.  The program also attempts to distribute information about how these schools, both public and private, manage to become marks of excellence and offers a collection of best practices for other schools and state education agencies to use.  This program has existed since 1982 and despite its existence the number of poor schools has exponentially increased instead of decreased. What does this mean?

Instead of using what works, there seems to be a tendency for low-performing schools to either (1) ignore that information, (2) dissect the information into something unrecognizable and then implement parts and pieces that are unusable unless related to the whole, (3) keep doing what has been done in the past hoping for change, and (4) throw away all that is old for the new, which only serves to further destabilize an unstable system.

On one of my living room walls there are three pictures of nursery rhymes:  Jack and Jill, Little Miss Muffet, and Humpty Dumpty.  In all these stories there is the image of someone falling and/or failing.  Perhaps ironically too, there is only one letter difference between the words falling and failing.  Our public educational system manages effortlessly to do both.

Two lists emerged this week that are seemingly diametrically opposed when in actuality they should work hand in hand.  The question is, will the 207 failing schools look to the blue ribbon schools for viable education solutions to turn their schools around or will they continue to be like the kings men in Humpty Dumpty and fail to fix that which is broken?

Tisha Brady

Accountability, standardized testing, measures, scores, education reform, “Race to the Top”…  ask a child what these mean and you’ll probably get the same blank stare and confused “What?” that my son gave me. 

Often in educational discourse, we talk incessantly about the student, around the student, and at the student.  We talk to the teachers, to the school boards, to the community, to the parent sometimes, but it is a rare moment when someone speaks directly to the children.

Amidst much fuel and fury, President Obama delivered what actually turned out to be a not so controversial back to school speech.  He spoke of the need for studying hard, setting goals, accepting personal responsibility, and getting “serious this year”.   Back to school themes that many students are familiar with and yet this time it was different.   It was personal.

As much as the conversation was about a child’s personal responsibility to obtain an education, it was far more.  It was a conversation that sought to nurture the soul of children.  It was a conversation of hope, self belief and the ever eternal quest of self-realization. 

He talked to them about finding and developing their talent and overcoming overwhelming obstacles. Unlike many previous presidents, he has firsthand knowledge of poverty, single parenting, lack of focus in school, working hard and grabbing at second and third chances to turn your life around.

Although he stated, “Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future,” unfortunately for many students where they are right now will determine where they end up. Their futures have already been predetermined by virtue of living in areas where the schools are failing, are often in economically depressed areas and the access to opportunities are near nigh impossible.

These children are in desperate need of options now.  Although the president’s “Race to the Top” is headed in the right direction, by encouraging innovative schools, quality charter schools and the promotion of merit pay, it does not go far enough.  For these children all options must be made available and that means vouchers have to be a part of the solution.  To deny a child a scholarship that will help to nurture his abilities, is to deny that child his future.  For these children no stone should be unturned and no opportunity should be denied.

In order for President Obama to call upon students to “… set your own goals for your education — and do everything you can to meet them,” he must provide children every and all opportunities to do so. If we are to nurture and encourage children to find their dreams through education, they must first have access to all educational opportunities.  Only then can they become a great writer or the next inventor or the next politician.  Only then will they be able to fulfill their goals.

Tisha Brady

The power and ability to tell the truth is a powerful thing.  Ever read something that just struck at your very core?  Ever read something that made you want to shout out loud even though you were in public?  Perhaps I have an unnatural affiliation with words being an English professor, but reading the Boston Consulting Group’s unflinching report of the Columbus Metropolitan School District made me want to dance.

Now, people are often wary of reports because they are often just that – a report.  Statements and more often than not restatements of issues that everyone knew existed, except it comes from a different group in a different year which is often the only novelty that exists about the report.

People are also wary about reports because they tend to lend themselves more to inaction than actual action.  The problems are identified or re-identified and then we admire the beauty of the data.  It only seems to serve as a way to further detach ourselves from the actual lives, emotions and problems from which the data is derived.  Thus the action taken is number driven instead of people driven and the effort to change the problem fails.

Yes, there have been plenty of reports produced about the Cleveland schools and things need to change and problems exist, but we’re still a good system and etc.  I have read these reports and never had hopes that things would actually change.  Not so secretly, the district, parents, students, and politicians had very little faith that academically CMSD could rise above the deep inertia in which it exists.  But then again, these reports were self reports and on a good day, an individual might know that they have a problem but barely admit to the truth of the problem; even when directly confronted with the stark baldness of that truth. 

What is beautiful about this report is that the district, to its credit sought an outside analysis based on funding from The Cleveland Foundation and The George Gund Foundation.  In doing so, it looks like the district has finally finished the five steps of grief and in that acceptance there is hope and a glimmer of a chance that CMSD is indeed about to change for the better.

However, it is unfair really to call it a report, because it is in truth a strategic development plan.  The CMSD Strategic Development Initiative: Progress update and path forward, lays out starkly the challenges that exist within the district.  As a document it is not bogged down with overly technical terms, but terms that any parent or interested citizen can understand which should make it easier for the district to achieve its goals, because it is a community document.

It notes that given the national and local context of education today CMSD must implement dramatic changes.  It sums up the district’s system by stating that the quality of education provided is not sufficiently preparing children.  It goes on to note:

            “As expectations for success have risen, CMSD has been unable to keep pace

• % of schools in academic watch or emergency has increased
• few effective or excellent rated school options exist within the district

Graduation rates remain unacceptably low and many who graduate are not prepared for college or the workforce”

The update also provides maps of the areas with failing schools and not surprisingly, several academic neighborhoods have all failing schools.  It underlines the importance of not only fixing public schools, but giving parents vital options that will allow their child to become a productive citizen. The plan will also seek to engage other education stakeholders such as charter, private, parochial schools and city leaders. These partnerships are vital to educating our children because the act of educating our children is a shared responsibility.

As like all good strategic development documents, this document is the product of the first phase of development in the quest for change.  Perhaps more importantly the update lays out a clearly defined path to move forward.

The second phase which will soon occur if it has not already begun will seek to engage the community, synthesize research and community feedback to create a system-wide plan, translate the plan to school-by-school decisions using a decision tool and will deliver the plan to the board for approval in December.

This is a document that is well worth reading and could actually be a starting point for other districts that find themselves in academic watch or emergency such as Youngstown City Schools.  It is said that the truth will set you free, well as the CMSD continues its process of change hopefully it will be the children that will benefit.

– Tisha Brady

On Wednesday, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute hosted a simulcast panel discussion on the future of charter schools and vouchers. The panel featured national experts including Ohio’s own Dr. Susan Zelman, namesake of the famous Zelman v Simmons-Harris US Supreme Court case based on the Cleveland Scholarship.

Much of the discussion landed on questions of accountability for schools outside the local public school district. Those same questions have routinely been raised in Ohio.

Accountability can take lots of forms, but the greatest attention is given to academic accountability (testing). Charter schools take all the same state tests as district schools and face closure if they don’t show student achievement. And private schools are both accountable to paying customers (parents who are free to leave the school if they feel it fails to educate their child) and required to administer state tests to students who receive vouchers.

Still, the question has been raised: When a school accepts state vouchers, how much information should the public have about student achievement?

At School Choice Ohio, we believe the student achievement of a student using a voucher matters and these students’ test scores should be among the information made public.

That’s why we supported landmark legislation in the latest budget that requires the Ohio Department of Education to report test scores of the students who use the EdChoice Scholarship and the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program.

These recent changes to Ohio law will put our state on the forefront of voucher accountability nationwide. Parents will have more information about how their children are doing and the public will have information about the investment they’re making in scholarship programs with tax dollars.

- Sarah Pechan

Crayons, pencils (endless supply), notebooks (spiral, perforated, wide rule, single subject, five subject…the variations are endless as well as the want of each individual teacher), ink pens, tissues, etc.  This is the supply list that many parents are familiar with and when you add on to that school clothes, shoes, socks and other school necessities, even with good back to school shopping deals, somehow you still seem to be out the same amount of money if not more than last year.

Going back to school is fraught with anticipation and anxiety alike for both parents and students.  We want our children to excel and in most cases children want to excel also, but can quickly succumb to learning handicaps from which they may never recover.

As we pack lunches and ensure that every labeled item is in that spanking new backpack, parents and students alike harbor an unspoken hope for the year:  that students will enjoy learning. This not only means the ability to place your child in an environment that is safe and conducive to learning, it also means arming your child with the knowledge of why he or she is learning.  A learner’s bill of rights, if you will.

Curious as to whether someone was inspired to create such a bill of right’s for learners, I came across two that speak to the nature of learning and also why school choice is important. If children are to exercise these rights, the ability is often found in a parent’s ability to choose the best school that fits the individual needs of their child.

John Harris Loflin who is with the Democratic Education Consortium in Indiana has creatively combined a learner’s bill of rights with the music “Get Up, Stand Up” on YouTube.  He describes the ideal school as a place where children want to be and he believes that these rights are inalienable and fundamental human rights.

Very similar in nature to Loflin’s but more succinct and tangible are the bill of rights penned by Kirsten Olson in her newest book Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture.  Olson states:

1.       Every learner has the right to know why they are learning something, why it is important now, or may be important to them someday.

2.       Every learner has the right to engage in questioning or interrogating the idea of “importance” above.

3.       Every learner has the right to be confused and to express his confusion openly, honestly, and without shame.

4.       Every learner has the right to multiple paths to understanding a concept, an idea, a set of facts, or a series of constructs.

5.       Every learner has the right to understand his or her own mind, brain, wiring, and intellectual inclinations as completely as possible.

6.       Every learner has the right to interrogate and question the means through which his or her learning is assessed.

7.       Every learner is entitled to some privacy in their imagination and thoughts.

8.       Every learner has the right to take their own imagination and thinking seriously.

So, let us add on to our list of back to school supplies a learner’s bill of rights. After all, all the supplies in the world are just meaningless instruments if children do not understand what they are learning and why they are learning.

 — Tisha Brady

Most people can imagine that the parents of kids who have special needs lead busy lives. Between appointments with specialists, doctor’s visits, making sure siblings aren’t lost in the mix, and keeping up with daily life, these families have added challenges (and joys).

With all of these added dimensions in their lives, families have enough on their plate without having to fight for their child to receive an appropriate education.

But many do spend valuable hours, days, and years fighting to convince skeptical schools that their kids with dyslexia can learn, they just need to be taught differently. Fighting to secure services they know will jumpstart their kids’ learning. Fighting to ensure that their kids with developmental delays have a chance to live independently.

Parents of students with autism have a way out of the fighting. It’s the Ohio Autism Scholarship, the first of its kind in the nation.

This tax-funded scholarship is a form of follow-the-student funding touted by education reformers nationwide. Parents can direct $20,000 (a fraction of the roughly $30,000 designated for these students in public schools) to the private education services they prefer. They can combine early intervention services, private schools, and cutting edge therapies – in other words, parents are empowered with options.

What difference has it made? Public schools step up their game, kids aren’t stuck in a holding pattern, and innovative ways of teaching kids with autism are expanded. Ohio is becoming known as an “autism-friendly state,” and parents are free to focus their energy more on helping their kids and less on fighting to get the services their child needs.

Shouldn’t this same opportunity be available to students with other learning differences and special needs?

Want to help this solution become a reality? Read up on the proposed special education scholarship legislation we mentioned last week, share your story with us, and tell your state legislator about it. Let’s all be a part of the solution.

- Sarah Pechan