Obama’s speech available for preview

By Megan Gildow | Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 12:25 AM

President Barack Obama’s planned words for an address to the country’s students Tuesday, Sept. 8 is available for parents to check out before their kids may view the speech at school.

You can find the speech here.

I read through it and I saw a couple points that some may find objectionable but even those couple things are really very tame - it appears to be party neutral, as the administration has been saying.

What do you think? Does this change your plans about allowing your child to participate in viewing the speech if the class plans to watch it?

I’ve heard from a couple parents who didn’t know about the speech until this weekend and weren’t sure about their child’s class plans regarding it or how to find out over the long weekend: If you want to opt out, you should probably send a note with your child if you are sure it will get to the teacher; if your child is younger, an e-mail would probably be better or taking it in when you drop off your child. Having it in writing is always a good idea and the schools may be getting a lot of calls Tuesday morning.

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Obama to address nation’s students

By Megan Gildow | Friday, September 4, 2009, 07:03 AM

In a 15-20 minute address Tuesday, Sept. 8, President Barack Obama will speak to the nation’s students about the “importance of education, the importance of staying in school, how we want to improve our education system and why its so important for our country.”

The U.S. Department of Education describes the speech as:

During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.

The U.S.D.E. released suggested activities to go along with the speech; fairly basic stuff like discussing what the role of the president is for younger kids or discussing goals for yourself for older students. The activities all seemed pretty non-partisan to me but you can check them out for yourself here.

Of course the question of partisan or not will depend on what Obama actually says and it it supposed to be “party neutral,” from everything I have seen.

Some people are still upset about it though and in other parts of the country, it’s become a pretty big deal. I’m a member of a national group of education journalists, the Education Writers of America, and I’ve heard stories of protests outside of district offices and at board meetings. There’s concern that the speech and the suggested curriculum is a form of “political indoctrination.”

Some parents locally have asked that their child not be involved in anything related to the speech. I know the Greenon Local Schools district is planning to allow teachers to make decisions about how they will handle the speech and is not setting a district-wide stance; Superintendent Lori Lytle also said they have had some parents ask that their child not be part of listening to the speech and are treating it the same as any other objection to something in the curriculum. Lytle said she expects the speech to be inspirational and motivational and not to fall into party lines.

It looks like the White House is working to relieve some of the concerns. The text of the speech will be available prior to the actual event for review. The USDE made adjustments to its suggested activities in response to some of the criticism.

Obama isn’t the first president to speak directly to students and isn’t the first to cause controversy with it, as noted in the Education Week article. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both did it and the Bush one stirred the pot a bit. You can see the text of his address here.

I will be out at a school Tuesday during the speech talking to students and teachers about what they thought.

It would be fairly easy for Obama to make a speech to the nation’s students that most people would agree with: The majority of Republicans, Democrats and everyone in between agree that education is important and children should stay in school. Even the theme Obama is said to be highlighting, “personal responsibility,” is something most people agree with. It’s when we dig a little deeper into the specifics that we start to see disagreements. It’s also fairly easy to see where this could go bad.

What do you think of Obama’s speech to students? Teachers, will you be tuning in?

Check Saturday’s News-Sun to see what local districts are doing about Obama’s speech.

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Springfield maintains “Continuous Improvement” rating

By Megan Gildow | Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 06:00 PM

Later tonight/early tomorrow we’ll have capsules on each district up on springfieldnewssun.com and I’ll link to them but for now I’ll go over some highlights on the blog.

Springfield City Schools kept its “Continuous Improvement” rating for the 2008-09 school year.

Early word indicated that Springfield would drop back down to the “Academic Watch” category, making the district’s boundaries eligible for charter school start ups again. Under Ohio law, charter schools can be built in the really big urban areas (Columbus and Dayton for example) any time but not in other districts if they are ranked “Continuous Improvement” or higher.

Springfield picked up one more indicator this year than last (indicators are standards for Ohio Achievement Test proficiency, Ohio Graduation Test proficiency, graduation rate and attendance) for a total of 4 and didn’t meet the Adequate Yearly Progress standards for subgroups of student populations (for racial, economic and ability differences).

Springfield owes its “Continuous Improvement” rating once again to the value-added measure, lobbied for by urban districts and those that serve special populations in higher numbers. Value-added measures a student’s growth of a particular year, with no regard to proficiency.

Prior to value-added, if a student came in already behind it didn’t matter how much they learned unless they were caught up by test time.

So say a student comes to a 4th grade class at a 2nd grade level in reading and at test time, the student is reading on a 3rd grade level. Without value-added, that progress wouldn’t be reflected anywhere on the report card.

With value-added, however, the district is rewarded for making a full year’s progress during the course of the year, even though the student doesn’t end up on grade level.

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Northeastern penalized on report card for AYP

By Megan Gildow | Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 12:29 PM

The state released district report cards today, Aug. 25, and all but one local district maintained or improved its rating over last year.

Check out more detailed information for your district or school building.

I’ll be posting more on each district throughout the afternoon but I’m going to focus on Northeastern for now.

Northeastern is one of only eight districts across the state to receive a lower rating than last school year. There are 610 districts statewide, so we are talking about 1 percent.

The district was penalized for missing Adequate Yearly Progress goals, a standard established by No Child Left Behind. Northeastern didn’t meet the benchmark for students with disabilities or black students.

This is actually the first year that Northeastern had enough students to measure the progress of the black students sub-group for the report card. Ohio requires that there be at least 40 students in a given group, to create statistically significant data and protect the identities of the students in smaller populations.

There’s a bit of confusion about Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP. It’s essentially a measure of improvement from one year to the next for sub-groups of students. There are six sub-groups based on ethnicity and one each for economically disadvantaged, English language learners and students with disabilities.

The basis for these sub-groups is that typically these groups do not perform as well on achievement tests as their peers. AYP holds districts accountable for the progress of these sub-groups.

Take for example, Northeastern. The district met every single reading standard for all students (3-8th grade Ohio Achievement Test and 10th grade Ohio Graduation Test). That means more than 75 percent of students tested proficient or higher. Actually Northeastern has pretty strong reading scores, and most were 80 percent or higher.

But when you separate the scores by sub-groups, only about 51 percent of students with disabilities and 60 percent of black students tested proficient or higher in reading.

NCLB, however hated it may be, aims to force schools to pay attention to how those sub-groups are performing.

If a school district does not meet AYP for all groups for three consecutive years and in two or more groups for the most recent year, the district cannot be rated higher than “Continuous Improvement.” That’s how Northeastern ended up here.

And from what I’ve heard, AYP was a factor in most of the eight districts that received a lower rating. At least five of the eight are Southwest Ohio schools: Northeastern, Kettering, Lebanon, New Miami and Hamilton.

I haven’t heard back from Superintendent Rick Broderick yet but will update as soon as I do. If anyone has questions about AYP, leave them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them as quickly as I can.

And watch for updates on other districts throughout the day,

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District opens convocation to public

By Megan Gildow | Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 07:14 AM

Springfield City Schools will open its annual back to school convocation to the public for the first time in recent history, according to Superintendent David Estrop.

The Aug. 25 convocation will be Estrop’s first with the district since joining Springfield this summer.

“It will be more than speeches,” Estrop said. “We will have some fun and I hope you will be pleasantly surprised.

It begins at 8:30 a.m. in the cafeteria/auditorium Tuesday, Aug. 25 at Springfield High School and all buildings will be closed that morning so staff can attend, said Estrop. (Thanks to SCS parent for letting me know I forgot to include the location).

In many urban districts like Springfield, convocation serves as a celebration of the new school year and is one of the few times during the year that staff from every building across the district are together in one place.

Will you attend the convocation?

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Local superintendent will be state association president

By Megan Gildow | Monday, August 10, 2009, 11:20 AM

Clark-Shawnee Superintendent Debbie Finkes will be sworn in as the 40th president of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators Tuesday, Aug. 11.

BASA is the Ohio association representing education leadership and tackling topics like finance, issues, legislation and leadership.

As president, Finkes is among the leadership of a high profile education platform in the state. BASA frequently works with organizations like the Ohio School Boards Association or the Ohio Association for School Business Officials to champion causes and Finkes and other BASA representatives were invited to meet with Gov. Ted Strickland at the governor’s mansion not long ago to discuss his education reform proposals.

Finkes will be sworn in as president at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Shawnee High School.

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Who wants to be your school board member?

By Megan Gildow | Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 04:13 PM

Citizens interested in being a school board member have three more weeks to obtain the petitions to run on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Petitions are due to the board of elections by 4 p.m. Aug. 20.

As of Monday, we have 25 people who have taken out petitions for one of the eight school board races in Clark County, according to the board. It’s possibly others have gotten the form online and not notified the board of elections yet of their intention to run for a seat.

Only one person — board member Steve Feagins — has taken out petitions to run for two seats up for grabs on the Springfield City Schools Board of Education, but it hasn’t been returned yet. Board member Don Reed confirmed that he is not seeking re-election in November.

If there aren’t enough candidates to fill all open seats, the board would likely have to accept applications and appoint someone.

Northeastern and Greenon also have fewer candidates than open seats right now. Northeastern board members Leonard Kadel and Edward Steiner have taken out petitions, but haven’t returned them. Tom Flaherty’s seat is also up this fall.

Greenon board member Anna Bucy has pulled petitions, but hadn’t returned them. Seats currently filled by Nelson Henning and Cynthia Boone are also in the mix.

The Clark County Educational Services Center board has had three candidates pull petitions to fill three seats up for vote in November: board members Dale Steinlage and Sarah Weigel will seek re-election and Cindy Knapp will also campaign for a seat. Board member Elliott Turner has not taken out petitions as of Monday.

Five people will vie for three seats on the Clark-Shawnee board, including board members David DeHart and David Speas. The other candidates are: R. Jason Moore, James Hogan and Thomas Markley. Judith Pierce hadn’t pulled petitions as of Monday. DeHart has returned his.

All three Northwestern board members whose terms expire this year (Donna Myers, Bruce Lemley and Keith Baldwin) have taken out petitions, as well as challenger and 2009 Northwestern grad Richard Birt, Jr.

Two seats are up for grabs in Southeastern and neither current board member (Julia Daniels and Tim Sullivan) had pulled petitions as of Monday. Four others have: Frances Edwards, Darron Routzahn, Kari Toops and Tony Entler. Edwards has returned her petition.

And in Tecumseh, all three incumbents (Dan Studebaker, Jane Manemann and Beverly Quinn) have taken out petitions, as well as challengers Mert Christmann and Marc Vlasic.

No one will officially be a candidate until they have returned their petitions and the board of elections has verified the signatures so some of these names could drop off the list before all is said and done.

I suspect we’ll have a few additions too. If someone asks you to sign a petition and I didn’t mention them, shoot me an e-mail.

In the meantime, we’ll be gearing up for election season, sure to be a busy one on the education beat with board races in every district and a few tax issues on the horizon too (Northwestern and Springfield have already started the process).

Send me an e-mail or leave a comment if you have a suggestion for a question for school board candidates during the campaign this fall.

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