October 08, 2009
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Upcoming Events
DC takes action: Through your lens
National Photo Exhibit About Public School Building Conditions
October 5 – October 8, 2009
5:00 – 7:00 pm
Rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building, Northeast of the Capitol, bounded by Constitution Avenue, First Street, Delaware Avenue, and C Street, NE. Announcing the launch of the Through Your Lens Exhibit, spotlighting the remarkable images and stories of school facilities shared by students and teachers from around the nation. To view the gallery, spread the word, and invite your legislators to view the exhibit, visit www.throughyourlens.org. For more information contact Sean O‚Donnell, sodonnell@21csf.org or 202-745-3745 ext.13.
Jumpstart Read for the Record Day: Read with the world
October 8, 2009
Jumpstart’s Read for the Record, an international campaign to bring preschool children together with valued grown-ups in their lives to read the same book, on the same day, in communities all over the world. Join Jumpstart as we read Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Pledge to read today to help us set a world record. Together, we’ll celebrate the joy of reading all over the globe! You can participate by pledging to read, donating books, or holding your own Read for the Record event at your school or community group. Visit http://www.readfortherecord.org for more information.
Upcoming Webinar: How Parents, Communities and Schools Can Join Together To Increase Graduation Rates
A Proposed Framework for Parent Engagement: The 3 A’s – Attendance Every Day, Achievement Every Year and Attainment Over Time
October 14, 2009
3:00 – 4:00 pm
A growing body of research suggests that significantly reducing our drop-out crisis requires a strong focus on parent engagement and ensuring children are on track for educational success as soon as they begin their educational careers. This second installment of our two-part webinar series shares how communities can make a difference by bringing educators, parents and community agencies together to ensure children’s educational success. Please RSVP no later than noon on Tuesday, October 13 to reserve a conference line at info@americaspromise.org
COBIDA Fall Reading Conference. Imagine Every Child Reading!
October 16, 2009
8:15 am – 5 pm
Columbus Convention Center
Afternoon breakout sessions and workshops. Contact Mary Damer or call COBIDA at (614) 538-9878 or (614) 899-5711. Sponsored by The Central Ohio Branch of International Dyslexia Association. For information, click here
Why is Education Important to your future?
Students, Secretary Arne Duncan invites you to create a video about why education is important to fulfilling your dreams. Submit your video to the “I Am What I Learn” video contest. You could win $1000. Click here for more information. Send your video by November 2, 2009!
America’s Favorite School Contest
DEADLINE: November 8, 2009
Vote for your school and they could win $20,000. Once you have voted, you will see easy tools to use to spread the word online - how to post to Facebook, Twitter, send emails through the contest tell-a-friend tool, etc. Go to www.AmericasFavoriteSchool.com (you can search by zip code or by city and state) to vote for your school. Don’t see your school on the website? Go to www.greatschools.net and follow the steps to add your school.
Poetry Out Loud
The Ohio Arts Council, in partnership with Thurber House, the Ohioana Library, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, is offering the national recitation contest Poetry Out Loud in 2009 – 2010. This program provides an exciting avenue for high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance. For more details and online registration, click here.
2nd OAPCS Annual Conference, Transforming Education
November 16 – 17, 2009
Crowne Plaza Columbus North
Registration information is available here.
For other conference questions, please email Becky Leija at BLeija@oapcs.org.
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Articles of Interest...
Inside School Research: Study Says N.Y.C. Charters Help Disadvantaged Pupils Catch Up
For the full article click here
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Contact Us
Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools
33 N. Third Street,
Suite 600
Office: (614) 744-2266
Fax: (614) 744-2255
www.oapcs.org
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REGISTER HERE FOR THE ANNUAL STATE CONFERENCE NOV 16 – 17 |
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Notes from CEO Bill Sims
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Charter Schools Lose a Good Friend
Donald Fisher, founder of the GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy died this past week, September 27, 2009. Don and his wife and business partner, Doris, established the Fisher Fund (formerly: Donald and Doris Fisher Fund) and were avid charter school supporters. The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools is and has been a grantee of their fund since the Ohio Alliance’s inception.
Don Fisher was more than just a financial supporter of charter schools, he was an outspoken leader and thinker within the movement. Entrepreneur that he was in conceptualizing and effecting the GAP business model, Don made it his business to challenge conventional precepts and encourage innovative practices, with special interest and conviction in the realm of education.
The San Francisco Chronicle noted that, “The chief object of Mr. Fisher's philanthropy was education. He was for years a financial supporter of Edison Schools, a for-profit company that contracted with local districts to run their schools. In 2000, he shifted his focus to the nonprofit Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, which then consisted of two charter schools.”
Don Fisher’s vitality and leadership in education reform will be sorely missed.
The Swine Flu - “Calamity Days” and Charter Schools
Much to the dismay of Rep. Stephen Dyer (D-Green), Chairman of the House Finance Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education Funding, and his colleague Rep. Clayton Luckie (D-Dayton), I invoked the phase “Separate and Unequal” during the recent budget battle hearings because the Governor’s plan to cut funding for charter schools would have so disabled charter schools that they would have been either permanently crippled or forced to close within two years.
So what does this have to do with “Calamity Days”? Think Swine Flu (H1N1). Traditionally public schools are allotted a certain number of “snow days” for inclement weather. Beyond that allotment, days have to be made up. Exceptions are made, however, for “calamity days.” For example, if a school has to close because of a flu epidemic, those days would not have to be made up - unless the “calamity” exceeds 5 days. Makes sense; but, not if you are a public charter school. So public charter school students once again are treated separately and unequally on a fundamental public-school matter.
The Ohio Senate tried to correct this disparity in the recent omnibus biennial budget bill, but the Governor decided to line-item veto the correction. On what basis? “Under current law, community schools have the flexibility to adjust their daily schedule on an hourly basis to address missed learning opportunities due to public calamity.” In other words charters are, once again, different. Charter schools apparently have a convenient genetic mutation that gives them some special “flexibility” to deal with floods and flu bugs that district public schools don’t seem to have.
Let us all hope that the Swine Flu does not turn into a pandemic in Ohio. But if it does, this is a case where all public school students and schools should be treated with the same dispensation, equally, under the law. Correcting this disparity can still happen in what will most likely be a budget corrections bill. Making things more difficult for charter schools is a petty game that needs to end.
A Recommended Good Read
House Bill 1 (HB1) contains code, rules and regulations related to Ohio public schools for the next biennium. But the bill itself is encumbered with legislative language that makes it very difficult to understand. The Legislative Services Commission (LSC) writes the narrative interpretation of bills passed by the Ohio Legislature. This document, the LSC Greenbook Analysis of the Enacted Budget Department of Education, just released at the end of September 2009, provides a comprehensible narrative of the new provisions related to education contained in House Bill 1. The section related specifically to Community School Funding begins on page 27 of this document. All school leaders should at least be familiar with this section and other charter school elements of this bill. The entire document is linked above but is also available on our web site in the “Resources” section, “Studies and Publications” / “Other Studies.” It’s a worthwhile read.
– Bill Sims
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Six Northeast Ohio schools honored for Blue Ribbon performance including the Horizon Science Academy Cleveland
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By Bill Benedict
Sept 15 (Metro-Cleveland.com) – Six Northeast Ohio schools are among 314 nationwide that were honored Tuesday as Blue Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education. The annual awards program, which began in 1982, recognizes public and private schools for superior academic performance and for posting dramatic gains in student achievement.
Area schools honored this year include: Chagrin Falls Intermediate School, Horizon Science Academy in Cleveland, St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, St. Joseph School in Cuyahoga Falls, St. Paschal Baylon School in Highland Heights and Seton Catholic School in Hudson. In all, 19 Ohio schools were recognized.
To qualify for the award, schools must post scores that rank in the top 10 percent on state or national tests; or, schools where at least 40 percent of students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, must show dramatic academic improvement. Public schools also must meet Adequate Yearly Progress, a federal benchmark, in reading and math. Public schools are nominated by the state: private schools by the Council for American Private Education.
The winning schools – 264 public and 50 private – will be honored at a November awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. Since the program began, more than 6,150 schools have been designated as Blue Ribbon Schools.
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EMIS Web is Gone Workshop
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The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) held their third workshop in their Quality Workshop Series, EMIS is Gone, on October 1st, 2009. This workshop brought together a number of different student software companies together to discuss the advantages of their software to accommodate the new EMIS_R (EMIS Redesign). Student Software companies that participated in the OAPCS workshop were DASL, ESIS, School One, Pearson (Powerschool), and Harris School Solutions.
Since August of 2007, ODE have been working to move all EMIS reporting entities to reporting to a SIF (School’s Interoperability Framework) compliant software. The current EMIS_R will allow for “flat files” until 2014, after which all school will need to be sending their EMIS data through the SIF format. Major changes in EMIS reporting for FY10 will be the following: EMIS web reporting will not be allowed for October EMIS, ITC’s will also no longer be able to mass update or mass upload data, and all local validation and verification reports will no longer be available through your ITC, but instead through the Data Collector. The Data Collector will have Level One and Level Two reports, as well as they will hold the ODE official reports.
As of FY10, it will be imperative that all district’s, are using a student software package that will allow flat file extracts that contain all the EMIS reporting fields in ODE’s requested format which will be adjusted and compatible to the SIF capabilities by FY15.
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact OAPCS, Jennifer Brzoski at jbrzoski@oapcs.org or at 614-744-2266 ext. 205, or contact your ITC. If you are interested in speaking to any of the Student Software companies that were in attendance at the EMIS Web is Gone Workshop, please feel free to contact them directly or request information or request their contact information through OAPCS.
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October (K) EMIS
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As of September 25th, 2009, per the Ohio Department of Education’s (ODE’s) most recent Newsflash, October (K) EMIS reporting period has not yet been determined. To accommodate the current situation ODE has extended the Graduate reporting period, please be sure that you have submitted your data accurately and submit this data as soon as possible. Although the October (K) EMIS reporting period has yet to be determined, please keep in mind that October Count Week will still be considered to be October 5th-9th, 2009.
All ODE’s Newsflashes will keep you updated on this current situation, be sure to keep your eye on any updates
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Charter Schools Gain Support From 64% of U.S. Adults in Survey
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By Molly Peterson
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) – Public support for charter schools, a component of President Barack Obama’s $100 billion education overhaul, rose to almost two-thirds of Americans this year even as most remained confused about what they are.
Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults said they favor charter schools, up from 51 percent a year ago, Gallup Inc. and Phi Delta Kappa International, a public-school advocacy group in Bloomington, Indiana, found in a poll released today. More than half of the survey’s 1,003 respondents didn’t know charters, which operate under contracts with districts and are exempt from many state and local rules, are public schools.
“Americans are embracing charter schools, even though they’re not sure what charter schools are,” executive director of William Bushaw of Phi Delta, said yesterday on a conference call with reporters. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed mistakenly thought charter schools charge tuition, while 71 percent didn’t know charters are barred from selectively enrolling students based on ability.
The survey indicates Americans have “signed a permission slip for the president’s education agenda,” Bushaw said. Most respondents, in addition to backing charter schools, favored Obama initiatives such as linking student achievement to teacher pay and expanding early childhood education.
The poll, conducted from June 2 through June 24, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, Bushaw said.
Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are using $100 billion in stimulus funds to save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs and reshape U.S. education. The money includes $4.35 billion in competitive grants for states that make the most progress in raising academic standards, tracking student gains, boosting teacher quality and improving failing schools.
Grant Guidelines
States that fail to increase the number and quality of charter schools would be at a competitive disadvantage in seeking stimulus grants, under guidelines Duncan and Obama proposed last month. More than 1.4 million U.S. students now attend 4,600 charter schools in 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a Washington-based advocacy group.
States and school districts should set a “very high bar” for approving additional charter schools and hold them accountable for student performance, Duncan said last week.
“When you pick the best of the best, when you give them clear autonomy and clear accountability, we’re seeing great things happen,” Duncan said in an Aug. 21 interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt.”
Narrow Focus?
The proposed grant guidelines focus too narrowly on charter schools as “the only model of reform for schools worthy of serious attention,” the 3.2 million-member National Education Association said in an Aug. 21 letter to Duncan.
“Despite growing evidence to the contrary, it appears that the administration has decided that charter schools are the only answer to what ails America’s public schools,” NEA, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, said in the letter.
A study of charter schools in 16 states, released June 15 by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, found that 46 percent aren’t outperforming traditional public schools in student achievement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net
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10 Ways to Pick the Right School?
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By Jay Matthews
Sept. 29 (The Washington Post) – We say we are buying a house. But for most of us parents, the house is not the whole story. It is the local public school we are investing in, and sometimes it can be a very daunting financial and personal decision.
In the early 1990s, when my journalist wife was making what seemed to me big bucks as a television producer, we could afford to live in Scarsdale, N.Y. That village's public schools cost us about as much in real estate taxes as the tuition at the private schools our kids had attended in Pasadena, Calif. Fortunately, we got what we paid for in Scarsdale. That is not always the case.
How do parents evaluate the schools their children may attend and escape the heartbreak of buying a great house that turns out to be in the attendance zone of a flawed school? Here are 10 ways to make the right choice, in descending importance. Feel free to re-prioritize them based on your personal tendencies:
1. Go with your gut. This sounds unscientific, but I don't care. After you have analyzed all the data and had the conversations outlined below, you still have to make a decision. Consider how you react emotionally to a school. Consult your viscera. If you're not feeling it, don't send your kids there. They will sense you have doubts at a time when they need to believe that this is the place for them.
2. Talk to parents. If strangers knocked on your door and asked what you thought of the local school, would you tell them? Of course you would. An unspoken code of honor exists among parents on such occasions. Ask the school for the names and numbers of a few PTA officers, or check with the neighbors and ring the bell of a house with kids that go to that school. Be polite. Listen carefully. They might even invite you in for coffee. You will learn much from those chats, even though the other parents may ask for deniability.
3. Visit the school and ask to speak to the principal. Picking up the vibes within the building is useful. Is it well-maintained? Do the walls have lots of recent schoolwork? But trying to see the principal is crucial. If he or she has no time to see you, beware. Even if an assistant principal agrees to answer your questions, an unreachable principal is a danger sign. The best principals I know are delighted to talk to new, and even potential, school parents. Act as if the principal were applying for a job at your office. Ask about philosophy. Discuss your child's interests and needs. Make sure you spend at least 30 minutes. The school leader makes or breaks the place.
4. Listen to your kids. We think we do this all the time, but we don't. We assume our children share our values, but sometimes they don't. Elementary school students won't have much to offer, but ask them anyway. Middle and high school students may have significant views. Be particularly careful to pick a school that offers extracurricular activities in which they are interested.
5. Look for a challenging high school in the neighborhood. Here is the link to The Washington Post's Challenge Index rankings of all Washington area public high schools. Here is the Newsweek list of the top high schools nationally, ranked the same way. If you Google the Challenge Index, you will find pieces by me and others on this way of rating schools. I don't look at test scores, which I believe are just a measure of average parental income. I look at participation in college-level exams, such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate. No matter the neighborhood, if the high school rates highly on my list, it can be counted on to work hard to prepare your child for college.
6. Make sure the middle school encourages study of algebra. The school's math teachers should be trying to prepare as many children as possible to take Algebra I by the eighth grade. Nationally, an average of 25 percent of eighth graders leave middle school having completed Algebra I or a higher course. If the middle school doesn't meet at least that standard, look elsewhere. Fifty percent is much better. Beware of schools that say only students with 90 percent or better averages may take algebra in eighth grade. If the school has good teachers, they can do much with B students, and even some C students. Mastering algebra is important to starting high school on a good note.
7. Check the data. Visit the state education department's Web site and look for the school's profile. In general, a school in a wealthy area will have high test scores, and a school in a low-income area will not. Compare its average scores to schools in similar neighborhoods. You may find something that will influence your decision. But . . .
8. If an elementary school passes tests Nos. 1 through 6 above, don't worry if it has low test scores. There are plenty of elementary schools in vibrant but lower-income neighborhoods that have great teachers and raise the achievement of every child. Usually they have some middle-class children whose parents have realized the school's value and stayed. Consider joining them.
9. If the district has gone through several superintendents recently, be careful. It is not an absolute deal-killer, but it is not a good sign.
10. Don't count on a prestigious, competitive high school to get your child into the Ivy League. I don't think attending an ultra-selective college is important, which is why this tip comes last. For those of you who do care, the data show that the more brilliant the student body of the high school your child attends, the more likely he or she will lose out in the competition for the most prestigious colleges. But those high schools will give your kid a terrific education, which is all that should concern you.
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Professional Development Opportunities
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The State Support Team, Region 11, at the Educational Services Center of Central Ohio, is proving the following professional development opportunities.
October 27, 2009
Transition to College: Preparing Students with Disabilities
This session will provide high school and middle school personnel and parents with information regarding requirements and considerations in college planning for students with disabilities. Panelists include Margo Izzo (OSU), Wayne Cocchi (Columbus State CC), Tim Conrad (former Ohio Guidance Counselor), Lydia Block (Ohio Wesleyan University), and Lois Burke (OSU). Learning targets include: (1) planning for successful transition to college (including course of study, accommodations for college entrance exams, instruction and technology); (2) self-advocacy and self-determination skills; (3) legal rights from IDEA to ADA; (4) required admissions documentation; and (5) accessing disability services.
February 25, 2010 8:30 am – 3:30 pm
Demystifying Secondary Inclusion
Dr. Lisa Dieker, University of Central Florida, will provide middle school and high school personnel with information that will (1) enable more students with disabilities access to general education settings and curriculum; (2) establish inclusive classroom climates; and (3) prepare them to work collaboratively. She is the author of Demystifying Secondary Inclusion and Making Inclusion Work at the Secondary Level.
Registration is through STARS.
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National Governors' Association Draft of Common Core National Curriculum Standards
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GOVERNORS, EDUCATION LEADERS ISSUE NATIONAL STANDARDS DRAFT
A coalition of governors, state education leaders and stakeholders took another step Monday toward creating national learning standards designed to ensure students graduate ready for college or careers.
The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers released a draft English and math standards as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The groups are soliciting public feedback.
Governors and chief state school officers in 51 states and territories are leading the process to develop national education standards that define the knowledge and skills students should have to succeed in entry-level college courses and workforce training programs, NGA said.
“These standards are vital to ensuring our students are prepared to compete and succeed in a global economy,” Dane Linn, director of the NGA Center’s Education Division, said in a statement.
Draft standards were developed with the goal of providing “fewer, clearer, higher” guidelines for teachers that cover only areas critical for student success, according to NGA.
In addition, the organization said the draft standards were designed to take into account: evidence; international benchmarks; special populations of learners; assessments; and “21st Century Skills.”
CCSSO Executive Director Gene Wilhoit said college and career-readiness standards were just the beginning of the process.
“We need this confirmed, validated goal of fewer, clearer, and higher standards to take on the real work of ensuring students have a roadmap from grades K-12 for achieving these standards,” he said.
Following the feedback period, a panel of national and international experts will review the standards to ensure they are research and evidence-based, NGA said. Governors and state superintendents are currently selecting members that will be formally announced in the coming weeks.
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Study Shows Better Scores for Charter School Students
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Sept. 22 (The New York Times) – Students who entered lotteries and won spots in New York City charter schools performed better on state exams than students who entered the same lotteries but did not secure charter school seats.
The results were from a multiyear study done by Caroline M. Hoxby, a Stanford economist. She used a methodology that compared charter school students with students of traditional schools who applied for charter spots but did not get them. Ms. Hoxby found that students who attended a charter school from kindergarten to eighth grade would nearly match the performance of their peers in affluent suburban communities on state math exams by the time they entered high school, a phenomenon she characterizes as closing the “Harlem-Scarsdale” achievement gap. The results are somewhat less striking in English, where students closed 66 percent of the gap, according to the study.
The “Scarsdale-Harlem achievement gap” is a term used to compare achievement levels of students from one of the most affluent New York suburbs, Scarsdale, with those of students in Harlem. The study also finds that lotteried-in students who attended a charter high school scored three points higher on their Regents exam for each year they were matriculated in a charter school prior to taking the exam than their lotteried-out peers. For example, a charter high school student taking a Regents exam three years after being in a charter school would score nine points higher.
In evaluating the progress made by charter school students who were lotteried-in versus students who were lotteried-out, the Hoxby report cites potential policies that may have affected such progress:
• Long school year
• Great amount of time devoted to English every day
• Disciplinary policies that offer small rewards/small penalties for student behavior
• Teacher pay based on performance rather than solely based on seniority/tenure
• Mission statement that underscores academic performance over other goals
For more information about this study and to read The New York City Charter Schools Evaluation Project, click here.
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Budget "hole" dominates headlines in Ohio
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We first heard about a significant “hole” in the state’s biennial budget before H.B. 1 was sent to the Ohio Senate for consideration. House Speaker Armond Budish said he was unaware of the bad news of a nearly $1 billion shortfall in revenue delivered to Gov. Ted Strickland by his budget director just as the House was passing the bill.
Gov. Strickland’s proposed solution, embraced by his fellow Democrats and reluctantly supported by a handful of Republicans, was to expand the state lottery to include video slot machines at seven horse race tracks. Although that plan isn’t dead, legal questions remain and five of the seven race tracks failed to make required initial payments to the state by the first deadline. In addition, the Supreme Court has ruled that voters have the right to weigh-in on the issue which would appear on the ballot in 2010.
Further complicating the situation is state Issue 3 which, if approved on the Nov. 3 ballot, will allow for casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo and would compete with the Governor’s lottery expansion.
Recognizing that his video slots plan is unlikely to produce the revenue needed to fill the budget hole and fund his education budget, Gov. Strickland introduced an alternative plan last week. His new proposal would delay the final year of a Republican-crafted five-year, 21 percent income-tax reduction plan that would raise an estimated $844 million.
Minority Republicans in the House are unlikely to vote in support of postponing the proposed tax cut and would be well-positioned to criticize many of their opponents in the 2010 election for voting in favor of it.
Senate Republicans have voiced strong opposition to solving Ohio’s budget crisis by raising taxes, but may not have a better alternative to offer, potentially forcing at least some of them to vote for Gov. Strickland’s plan.
Tough times, which we surely face here in Ohio, call for tough choices. Let’s hope that Gov. Strickland, House Speaker Budish and Senate President Bill Harris can work together to solve Ohio’s financial problems and to ensure adequate funding for the state’s system of K-12 public education.
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A New Benefit for our Member Schools!
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Staples and the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) have developed an innovative program designed to help your school reduce costs, cut paperwork and control spending on the office and school supplies that you use every day. By enrolling with the Staples Advantage program, each school will be able to access programs to help you save money, and work with a dedicated customer care team, a technical support team, and a Staples Account Manager.
If you are a new school in 2009-2010, you can take advantage of an additional 10% for the first 90 days. This new program is currently only available to OAPCS member schools. For information on how to join OAPCS, please contact Jennifer Brzoski at jbrzoski@oapcs.org or at 614-744-2266 ext. 205.
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