SUMMARY OF THIS UPDATE

·And the feedback continues

·Education policy at the state level

·Education policy at the federal level

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OKAY, I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!

I received a lot of responses to my comment last week that people have been urging me to calm down.  The general drift was – forget it!  In retrospect, it was not very realistic to believe that I am capable of calming down.  (My wife Amy actually thought I was joking.)

The serious point, of course, is that the challenges we are facing in the state are real, and the answers that have been coming out of Columbus just aren’t good enough.  I will continue my efforts to change the complacency in our state capitol.

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STATE EDUCATION POLICY

With the General Assembly still in recess, I have been trying to review where we are on the important issues facing the state and plan my strategies for the fall session.   One of the most uncertain areas is primary and secondary education. 

The main area of uncertainty, of course, is whether the Ohio Supreme Court will accept the funding plan adopted by the General Assembly as part of H.B. 94, the new biennial budget bill.  If they do not accept the plan, then some type of supplemental legislation will be required.  The last time the General Assembly submitted a new school funding plan to the court, the court praised the part of the plan having to do with school construction, but continued to reject the portion of the plan dealing with operating costs.  This decision, which was a partial victory for the state and a partial victory for the coalition of schools that brought the lawsuit, was ultimately portrayed as a defeat for the state because of the outraged reaction of state officials.  In effect, they “spun” themselves into a defeat.  My guess is that the next Supreme Court decision will be similarly split, with the court approving some elements of the new plan and identifying others that still need work.  This time, however, I expect the state officials to “spin” it as a victory.

Whatever happens with the Supreme Court, the most important changes to be expected this fall involve the implementation of S.B. 1, Ohio’s new scheme for establishing statewide academic standards and proficiency tests.   The State Department of Education has the difficult challenge of developing high quality standards on a tight schedule.  They must also develop new tests, and manage the administration and grading of the tests.  (You may have seen the news story recently reporting that only one company in the nation responded to the state’s request for proposals to run the testing program.  The bid, which was way over budget, was in the range of $30 million per year.) 

S.B. 1 also called for the creation of a commission on the teaching profession, which is supposed to come up with recommendations about teacher training, recruitment, evaluation and professional development by the end of this year.  Those recommendations will then be submitted to the General Assembly.  It seems backward to me that we have already decided on academic standards and student evaluation, but have not even begun to debate teacher quality, the most critical element of a child’s education.  

I am still unhappy with the state’s approach to reforming our primary and secondary education system.  I will be following these developments closely, and looking for ways to refocus and improve upon the policy decisions that were made during the first six months of this year. 

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FEDERAL EDUCATION POLICY

As President Bush left this week for his summer vacation in Texas, his staff signaled to the press that his next major legislative push would be to complete the education bill currently pending in Congress.  In time honored political fashion, the president’s team wants to link passage of the education bill to the beginning of the new school year this fall.  This may be the last chance, therefore, to examine the components of the president’s education package before it gets past the point of no return.

In addition to my role in education policy at the state level, I have also been involved in the effort to reform and rebuild the Cleveland Municipal School District.  From my perspective, the president’s proposal has little to do with the issues that really matter in urban education. 

Let’s start with testing, the cornerstone of President Bush’s plan.  I certainly agree that setting high academic standards and measuring student performance is a critical component of education reform.  But it is important to understand what testing is good for.  Though it may seem like an obvious statement, testing tells us how students are doing.  This is valuable information, because parents and teachers want to know if extra assistance or intervention is needed (which is why teachers have always tested students, even without being required to do so by the government). 

Contrary to popular opinion, however, testing does not tell very much about the quality of a school or a teacher.  Many factors impact student performance.  Quality teaching is certainly one.  Other variables have little to do with the teacher or school.  Does anyone doubt that a student from a highly educated, intact, two-parent family will outperform a student lacking these advantages on a standardized test, regardless of the quality of the teaching that each student receives?  One must question, therefore, whether President Bush’s premise that schools with low scores are failing schools from which federal funding should be pulled and directed elsewhere is accurate, and whether the remedy he proposes will make any difference in the long run.

The Bush education plan also includes an increase in overall federal funding.  While additional funds are always welcome, the costs associated with federal mandates will continue to exceed the revenues generated from federal programs.  The most important thing the federal government could do to help with school funding is to simply pay a larger percentage of the costs of special education.

Besides paying for special education, what could the president and congress do that would really make a difference?

As I’ve noted, quality teaching does matter.  The president’s advisors hinted that he would soon be leading a campaign to recruit and train teachers for the twenty-first century.  If this is true, such a campaign couldn’t come a moment too soon.  There is a teacher shortage everywhere in the country, but the reality is that wealthy suburban districts can afford to attract the best qualified, most experienced teachers.  Urban districts struggle to compete

Districts also struggle to find qualified principals.  The principal is a critical figure.  He or she sets the tone for the school, selects the staff, enforces discipline policies, and serves as the ambassador to the community.  The skills required to be a successful principal in an urban school district rival that of the most experienced CEO.  A national campaign to develop and recruit good principal candidates would also make a huge difference.

The president obviously believes that parents should have a choice of schools for their children, regardless of whether they can afford to make the choice to move to a private school. The president’s modest voucher proposal using Title I funds attracted a lot of attention, an idea he has since abandoned.  I would like to see him focus his attention instead on charter schools, a strategy for introducing competition in public education that has bi-partisan support in legislatures across the country.  The charter school movement is at a critical stage.  In some places, charter schools have evolved into an important option for parents.  In other jurisdictions, including Ohio, lax oversight and lack of resources have produced failures and scandals that threaten to permanently tarnish the public’s perception of this promising educational option.  Presidential proposals that aim to promote best practices among charter schools would be most welcome.

Finally, both President Bush and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson are former governors who are intimately familiar with children’s health, safety and welfare programs.  Secretary Thompson is committed to reforming and streamlining these programs, and is a leading advocate of encouraging states to experiment with improved service delivery systems.    For this reason, President Bush and Secretary Thompson could lead a national crusade to guarantee that no child misses a day of school because of a treatable illness, and that supporting a child’s academic success should be a principle goal of all child safety and welfare programs. 

These efforts would be worthy of an administration committed to leaving no child behind.

 

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