Source: Ohio Department of Education interactive Local Report Card
THE
OHIO EDUCATION GADFLY
A Bi-Weekly Bulletin of News and
Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Volume 3, Number 31. November 11, 2009
————————————————————————————————————————
As we consider changes and improvements to the Ohio Education Gadfly, we want to know what our readers think. We invite you to take a short survey about the Gadfly here.
————————————————————————————————————————
The incredible shrinking Dayton
In the last decade the Dayton Public Schools (DPS) have contracted by more than 10,000 students; seeing enrollment decline from 24,916 students in 2000 to 14,393 students in 2009. During this same period Dayton has become one of the country's leading charter school markets.
Annually since 2006 the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has reported that Dayton is on its list of top 10 charter communities in the United States by market share. In 2009, Dayton is fifth on the list behind New Orleans; Washington, DC; Detroit; and Kansas City (see here).
Over the years such numbers and ratings have triggered angst and anger among district officials and their supporters. In 2007, for example, then DPS board president Yvonne Isaacs captured the feelings of many when she told a gathering of education journalists that "Over the nine years of charter schools in Dayton the district has lost $283 million that was transferred to charter schools. It would not have cost us nearly that much to educate 6,000 students, we believe" (see here).
But, there is more behind these numbers than meets the eye. Charters have played a role in draining DPS of students, but the city has lost even more children to the suburbs, other states, and private schools (1,568 children attend private schools in Dayton using a state-provided voucher), as illustrated in the chart below. Consider that in 2001 there were 25,638 Dayton students enrolled in public schools (22,590 in DPS and 3,048 in charters). In 2009, there were 19,621 Dayton students enrolled in public schools (14,393 in DPS and 5,228 in charters). In eight years total public-school enrollments shrank by some 6,017 students. But this decline has gone largely unnoticed and unmentioned.
Source: Ohio Department of Education interactive Local Report Card
This may be because the pain of losing students has been shared by the charters. Consider two of Dayton's more established charter schools (both schools are sponsored by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation) -- the Dayton Academy and the Dayton View Academy. In 2002, their enrollments were 977 and 819 students respectively. In 2009, their enrollments had declined to 706 and 631 students. Each school has lost about 25 percent of its students in seven years.
Further, student enrollment in charters peaked in 2006 when 6,403 Dayton students attended a charter. The number of charter school buildings operating in the city crested at 38 schools in 2005. At the start of this school year there were 29 charter schools in operation in Dayton.
With fewer charter schools in operation the overall academic performance of those left standing has steadily improved. Of the 55 Dayton schools (district and charter) to receive academic ratings from the Ohio Department of Education in 2009, 31 earned the equivalent of D or F (56 percent). Only two -- both charter schools -- earned an A. More remarkably, 61 percent of the students in Dayton charters in 2008-09 were in schools rated A, B, or C by the state while 74 percent of DPS students attended schools rated D or F (see here).
What's surprising to school choice advocates is that the district results haven't improved with the charters'. One of the central tenants of school choice is that competition will force all schools to improve but this simply hasn't happened in Dayton. DPS student performance peaked in 2006 when the district was rated C by the state, and the overall performance of district students was superior to that of charter school students. Since then charter performance has steadily improved but the district's hasn't. Why?
We don't know with any certainty what's happening here as this is an area largely unstudied. It is possible that as charter schools have closed the neediest children (those furthest behind academically) have migrated back to the district. Or, flux within district leadership could be the cause (e.g., new school board members, a new superintendent, and transitions to new buildings). The Council of Great City Schools suggested earlier this year that during recent leadership changes "the administration may have taken its eyes off of the ball and lost its focus." Or it may be a combination of these and other issues.
Regardless of the reasons for the district's struggles, it is clear that Dayton is literally fighting for its survival. On its current trajectory, public education in Dayton is leading in one direction -- to a city devoid of children, families, and hope. The city elected a new mayor on November 3 (see here). No one doubts that Mayor-elect Leitzell has a plate full of challenges in front of him, but one of the first he should look into is how to get the Dayton Public Schools and the city's charters to work together to improve education as a means for keeping families and children in the city. Dayton simply cannot afford another decade of lost families and children.
by Terry Ryan
———————————————————————————————————————
Ohio's brain drain in action: a firsthand account from a Teach For America recruiter
Editor's Note: Last spring Fordham released a report examining Ohio's brain drain, Losing Ohio's Future: Why college graduates flee the Buckeye State and what might be done about it (see here). We found that even though 88 percent of native Ohioans attending seven top universities are proud of this state, over half plan to leave Ohio after graduation. Among non-Ohioans, the reality is far worse--79 percent plan to go elsewhere after earning their degrees.
As an organization with deep roots in Ohio and a strong commitment to its future, we certainly weren't happy to report that Ohio's best-and-brightest college students are fleeing in droves, but the findings have spurred useful conversations among lawmakers, policy makers, and the general public about how - and why - Ohio needs to do a better job of retaining its top talent. As part of this continuing conversation, we invited Teach For America recruiter and Worthington, Ohio, native Courter Shimeall, who spends his days interacting with the state's top college students, to share his insights on the relationship between Teach For America and Ohio's brain drain.
I see the "brain drain" in action every day as a recruiter for Teach For America, a non-profit organization that recruits top college graduates from all academic backgrounds, trains them, and places them as teachers in America's low-income schools. Because there is no Teach For America site in Ohio, an inherent part of my job is convincing talented Ohio seniors to leave the Buckeye State. On a given day, I meet with 15 to 20 of the top seniors from all majors at some of Ohio's best universities in an attempt to convince them to do Teach For America and join the growing stream of talented students leaving my home state.
To understand how harmful this is to Ohio, it's important to get a glimpse of the caliber of graduates Ohio loses to Teach For America-friendly states. Consider one of the students I recruited to TFA last year -- J.T. Munch, a Cleveland native who attended The Ohio State University. As graduation neared, he contemplated staying in state to work in investment banking in the Cleveland area. As one of the top students in the Fisher College of Business, J.T. had several job business-related job offers in one of the worst economic downturns in our country's history.
The business world was seeking his talents for the same reasons that Teach For America recruited him -- he has a strong record of academic achievement, demonstrates strong leadership potential, and will be good at whatever he does. J.T. ended up joining Teach For America and is now teaching special education in New York City. He plans on being part of Teach For America's movement to end educational inequity for quite a while and would like to stay in New York City to work in finance after he completes his time in the classroom. Had there been a Teach For America site in Ohio (like in his hometown of Cleveland), J.T. says it would have been his first choice.
Another student I recruited last year was Brooke Bockelman. Brooke is from northwest Ohio and was president of the Ohio Union Activities Board (OUAB) at Ohio State, the largest student activities board (in size and budget) in the country. Brooke managed a large executive board and millions of dollars in funding as a senior in college -- a demonstration of leadership potential that Teach For America knows (from almost 20 years of experience) can translate into classroom success. Brooke was also an honor roll student. She considered law school but was swayed to do Teach For America, and now teaches elementary school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Like J.T., she would have strongly considered staying in Ohio had there been a Teach For America site in-state.
J.T. and Brooke were two of the top graduates from The Ohio State University last year. While they are both quite impressive, they are representative of typical Teach For America recruits. To address educational inequality and serve our country's neediest students, Teach For America realizes it has to attract extraordinary talent across the country, like Brooke and J.T. The average GPA for an incoming Teach For America teacher is 3.6; the average SAT score is 1327; and nearly 90 percent of incoming corps members held leadership positions while in college. We are getting some of our country's most outstanding student leaders to teach in our nation's neediest schools.
Unfortunately, losing this caliber of talent to other states represents more than just a loss of teaching talent for Ohio. Teach For America is also an incredible human capital pipeline in the long term. After the two-year classroom commitment, nearly two-thirds of our 17,000 alumni continue to work in the field of education, and many do so from influential leadership positions. Close to 450 alumni lead schools across the country, while more than 20 alumni have founded and continue to lead some of the country's most innovative nonprofits.
In addition, a growing number of Teach For America alumni are pursuing careers in public service, including more than 500 who work in government, politics, or advocacy, and 26 who serve as a elected officials. Teach For America alumni include the founders of the highly successful KIPP and IDEA charter school networks, and the chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools, who is an Ohio native herself. (You can read Teach For America's 2009 alumni impact report here.) Ohio thus loses out long-term by not attracting and retaining these dynamic leaders.
As an Ohio native who chose to return to my home state, I am acutely aware of our state's brain drain. Ohioans need to realize that our state's failure to open our borders to Teach For America contributes to this brain drain in both the short- and long-term. Last year Ohio was home to five of the top 60 contributing schools sending graduates into Teach For America and had more schools on Teach For America's top-contributors list than any other state with the exception of California and Massachusetts. This is a sign that growing numbers of Ohio's brightest students are leaving the state and devoting their time and energy to bettering communities elsewhere.
Brooke, J.T., and the rest of the more than 100 top seniors from the state who joined Teach For America in 2009 will do a lot of good during the next two years and beyond. Unfortunately, their home state could have benefited greatly from their services -- especially considering that 2009 Ohio Achievement Tests results showing that in Ohio's largest urban areas, only 57 percent of students were proficient in reading and only about 50 percent were proficient in math. While there is a chance some of these Ohio natives will return to their home state, the data bear out that it is unlikely.
All of this matters greatly for the state of Ohio. Ohioans should be worried that our most outstanding college graduates are leaving at high rates; and it is clear that the state needs to do a better job of prioritizing its efforts to keep its top talent. Teach For America is not the only way Ohio can do this, but it is one of the best ways to start.
by Courter Shimeall
———————————————————————————————————————
Making middle schools work, by Kathryn Mullen Upton
The Columbus Dispatch writes that "the truth about Columbus middle schools is brutal." More than 70 percent of the district's middle schools are rated "D" or "F" by the state and none of them met federal Adequate Yearly Progress targets. Through perseverance and collaboration two Columbus charter schools are working to change this urban education narrative. Read the full post here.
Another Ohio ed professor throws the baby out with the bathwater, by Jamie Davies O'Leary
Standards-based reform in education is imperfect. The ways that states and districts assess kids, design tests, and attempt to hold teachers and schools accountable are bound to be flawed, lead to unintended consequences, and create many enemies along the way. But I wish the opponents of standards-based reform in Ohio would at least get a little more creative. Read the full post here.
———————————————————————————————————————
Talking education in the Gem City
On October 29, the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Frank M. Tait Foundation, and the Fred and Alice Wallace Memorial Charitable Foundation hosted an education forum in Dayton to talk about the state of education in that city as well as Ohio and the nation. Fordham's Terry Ryan was a participant in the panel discussion "Making a Difference: What's Been Accomplished and What Needs to be Done," along with Tom Lasley, University of Dayton; Kurt Stanic, Dayton Public Schools; Margy Stevens, Montgomery County Educational Service Center; and moderator Scott Elliott of the Dayton Daily News. Check out selected segments of that panel on our website here.
———————————————————————————————————————
Ohio falls in line with common standards project
Ohio has made official its plan to adopt common national academic standards for mathematics and English language arts in an effort to take advantage of opportunities to partner with other states and also better-position Ohio to tap a few hundred million dollars in federal Race to the Top education grants.
The Obama Administration has made it clear that common standards make more sense than 50 individual state standards, and that adopting common standards is a prerequisite for winning a piece of the more than $4 billion in discretionary federal Race to the Top funding. Ohio has been a participant in a 48-state effort to create common standards for mathematics and English language arts. However, Ohio's intentions for the common standards effort had been unclear (see here and here).
Ohio Department of Education (ODE) officials advised the State Board of Education Monday that Ohio will adopt the Common Core standards in math and English language arts. State law requires the board to adopt new standards for math, English language arts, science, and social studies by June 30, and board member Michael L. Collins, from Westerville, said there should be plenty of time to get the work done.
The Common Core standards in math and English language arts will be released for review in December and should be completed by the end of January. ODE will then take the Common Core standards language in whole and add, as permitted by the Common Core project, additional language to fit Ohio's unique situations. The proposed Ohio standards will be available for public review before finally going to the board in May for action at its June meeting.
Stan Heffner, ODE associate superintendent for curriculum and assessment, said the math and English language arts standards the department has been developing are closely aligned with the Common Core standards. However, those draft standards will not be released as planned to avoid confusion. There are no Common Core science and social studies standards, so Ohio's drafts in those subjects will be released this week for public review and will be adopted along with the Common Core standards in June. Since Ohio's science standards will be finalized by early next year, they could be influential in the preparation of any national science standards.
Heffner said the Common Core math and ELA standards will be bench-marked so the achievement of Ohio students can be compared with those of other states as well as to students internationally. "We can look at the lessons learned and benefit from the collective experience of other states," he said.
Timing of funding panel calls its impact into question
Alongside putting in place Governor Strickland's "evidence-based" model of school funding, House Bill 1 -- the state's biennial budget -- called for an advisory panel to issue "recommendations for revisions to the educational adequacy components of the school funding model," among a slew of other charges.
Appointments have been made to the panel, and the group's work will get underway soon. There has been much chatter around Capitol Square about who is on the council (a who's who of players from the state's political and education establishment) and what they'll ultimately recommend (odds are they'll call for directing more money to schools, see here). But such chatter, and the council itself, may be moot because of political timing.
The Ohio School Funding Advisory Council's recommendations are due December 1, 2010, four weeks after the gubernatorial election. If Kasich prevails, it seems unlikely that he'll heed the advice of a panel convened by the previous administration to improve its flagship policy initiative (in similar fashion, Strickland largely ignored the Taft-era Achieve/McKinsey report on Ohio's education system, here, when he assumed office).
There is reason to believe that Governor Strickland won't embrace the panel's recommendations either, especially if they call for more resources to be poured into the system. Whoever takes the oath of office in January 2011 will assume a multi-billion dollar budget deficit (though the exact amount of that deficit is up for debate). A second-term Governor Strickland could have his hands full trying to plug the budget hole and keep the state afloat; he may not be keen on revisiting his school funding model.
And unlike 2009, he won't be in the position of needing to keep teacher unions and other campaign-contributing education special interests happy. State law would prohibit him from seeking a third-term as governor; and Strickland, who would be 73-years old at the end of his second term and who has already served a long and distinguished career in Congress, isn't likely to seek another elected office.
The Ohio School Funding Advisory Council's report will find its place on the bookshelves of politicos and policy makers but in the end may not impact much in the way of Ohio school funding policy.
———————————————————————————————————————
Thinking outside the quality/quantity box: focusing on strategic use of teachers' time and talent
Teacher quality is arguably the most important variable impacting student achievement. Americans have generally accepted this truism, either through common sense or nostalgia, and policy wonks and politicians (armed with substantive evidence that good teaching matters) are elevating teacher quality as a primary focus of reform and pursuing relevant policy changes.
Ohio House Bill 1 moved teacher tenure decisions back from the third to the seventh year of a teacher's career, a move with potential to help weed out ineffective teachers. The legislation also lowered the legal bar for terminating teachers and laid out requirements for a four-year teacher residency program. Both are attempts to improve the quality or quantity (through retention or recruitment) of teachers.
On a national level, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has begun visiting America's teacher colleges, calling for them to reform the way they train teachers and put an end to "mediocrity" (see his remarks here and here). Duncan references the teacher shortage: more than half of the 3.2 million teachers working in America's schools are Baby Boomers nearing retirement, and the U.S. Department of Education projects one million new teaching slots by 2014. The message seems straightforward -- we need better prepared teachers, and we need more of them.
Two recent reports view the teacher quality issue through a slightly different lens. Education Sector's Teachers At Work: Improving Teacher Quality Through School Design (see here) and Public Impact's 3x for All: Extending the Reach of Education's Best (see here) are premised on the idea that recruiting more (and even better) teachers is not sufficient unless, as Teachers at Work notes, "we fundamentally overhaul the way the work of teachers is organized in schools."
Teachers At Work showcases the Generation Schools model and offers a glimpse into its Brooklyn-based pilot high school, where teachers are organized into grade- and subject-based teams, teach 90-minute core classes as well as shorter elective classes, and have two hours of daily planning time. Twice a year, grade-based teaching teams go on a four-week break -- three weeks for rest, and one week for planning and collaboration. Breaks are staggered among teacher teams so that students won't miss learning time; students take intensive month-long literacy courses during teacher breaks. The school year stretches for 200 days for students without adding any extra work time or pay for teachers.
3X for All, which gets its name from research showing that students taught by top-quintile teachers make three times the progress of those taught by the bottom fifth of teachers. Even if we entice more great teachers to join the profession, "our nation still will not have an excellent teacher in every classroom... [because] the magnitude of the gap is too enormous." Our current attempts to address education's human capital challenges simply are not enough.
The report's authors argue that schools should use the good teachers they already have so that more children can benefit from "3X" (the best) teachers. 3X teachers should devote nearly all their time to student interaction (and no time to rote and non-instruction duties). Schools can maximize 3X teachers in three ways: 1) "in person reach extension," which changes how schools are organized so that the best teachers only focus on instruction (and can opt to teach larger classes for extra pay); 2) "remote reach extension," which leverages technology so that 3X teachers can interact with students through videos, e-chats, etc.; and 3) "boundless reach extension," which uses technology not based on direct teacher-student interaction but is boundless in the number of students who can be reached.
3X for All contends that while the number of top-flight teachers is limited, the number of students they could reach is not. The report is reminiscent of many ideas underlying NYC's School of One pilot (see here), whose founder, Joel Rose, argued that "superhero" teachers are hard to come by and that technology and better use of data can change the effectiveness of the inputs we already have. While 3X for All offers some good and feasible ideas to expand great teachers' digital reach, the argument to reorganize the profession so that the best teachers lead "pods" of classrooms and manage other teachers (and that average or below average teachers shouldn't be allowed to "own" their classroom) would require significant cultural shifts and changes to collective bargaining agreements.
The thrust of both reports is spot-on: recruiting and retaining more good teachers is only part of the strategy to ensure that all students receive excellent instruction. Policy makers and educators should think creatively about reorganizing teachers' workload, planning time, and school calendars, and should consider the power of technology to expand excellent teachers' reach.
Perhaps the most important conclusion to draw from both reports is that if we wish to organize teachers' time and talent strategically, many other policy changes must happen in tandem (Ohio, pay attention). Traditional budget allocation makes such experimentation difficult; therefore states should consider funding that follows students. Charter schools are a likely vehicle for experimenting with school calendars, and start-up models like Generation Schools must be encouraged. Though class size mandates are well-intentioned, they impose restraints on maximizing teachers' interactions with students. And teacher licensure barriers, mandates on minimum hours of instruction, and rigidity in school calendars all hinder the innovative ideas described in these reports.
If Ohio is serious about improving its teaching force, leaders must ease regulatory burdens on schools and think outside of the teacher quality/quantity box. Quality and quantity do matter, but current reforms won't go far enough unless we rethink policies that constrain how well teachers' time and talent are used to impact students.
————————————————————————————————————————
The Ohio Education Gadfly is published bi-weekly (ordinarily on Wednesdays, with occasional breaks, and in special editions) by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Have something to say? Email the editor at [email protected]. Would you like to be spared from the Gadfly? Email [email protected] with "unsubscribe gadfly" in the text of your message. You are welcome to forward the Gadfly to others, and from our website you can even email individual articles. If you have been forwarded a copy of Gadfly and would like to subscribe, you may email [email protected] with "subscribe gadfly" in the text of the message. To read archived issues, go to our website and click on the Ohio Education Gadfly link. Aching for still more education news and analysis? Check out the original Education Gadfly.
Nationally and in Ohio, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, along with its sister organization the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, strives to close America's vexing achievement gaps by raising standards, strengthening accountability, and expanding high-quality education options for parents and families. As a charter-school sponsor in Ohio, the Foundation joins with schools to affirm a relentless commitment to high expectations for all children, accountability for academic results, and transparency and organizational integrity, while freeing the schools to operate with minimal red tape. The Foundation and Institute are neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.