Plunderbund » Education

[Exclusive] Teachers on ODE’s List for “Retesting”

Greg — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:00:44 +0000

The Ohio Department of Education has released the State Report Cards for schools and districts (though school report cards have incorrect state data that has yet to be corrected) and that means the names of the teachers who will be required to take the Praxis exams is also available. I’ll be posting the list of 349 schools and over 5,900 teachers on Plunderbund later today.

To help catch you up, here is some light reading about the “Retesting Teachers” provision in House Bill 153 (Budget Bill):

As prepared by the Legislative Service Commission:

Retesting Teachers
RC 3319.58

[...]

John Kasich finally admits that he’s been pushing for school consolidation all along

ModernEsquire — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:30:16 +0000

In the final months of the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Governor Strickland’s campaign and his allies in education starting warning people in rural districts that a vote for John Kasich was a vote to consolidate your kids local school district out of existence.

And the Kasich campaign called it a totally untrue “smear” designed to scare voters:

“John has never talked about consolidating schools. John has talked about sharing services," Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told the Toledo Blade on Wednesday.

Kasich, at a campaign stop later that day, noted it was Halloween season and accused the Strickland campaign of making things [...]

Kasich threatens veto if General Assembly continues to provide more money for schools, seniors, and local governments

ModernEsquire — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:23:41 +0000

Welcome Kasichstan, where the Governor issues veiled veto threats if the legislature considers more funding for schools, seniors and local governments!

Here’s Governor Grumpy Pants in today’s Columbus Dispatch:

Gov. John Kasich said the Senate’s version of the two-year budget shares his overall vision, but he warned that he soon will grow cold to additional spending.

"We are watching spending very carefully," Kasich said. "We cannot put ourselves back in the hole by spending too much. There can be some give, but if there’s much more, we’re going to have a problem with it."

John Kasich is still seething [...]

[UPDATED:] The Ohio Senate listened and revised the budget even further (but…)

ModernEsquire — Tue, 31 May 2011 23:11:07 +0000

It’s hard to capture every nuisance and change in the budget when it takes the Senate GOP caucus fifteen pages just to describe the amendments, and I haven’t the time (or yet present ability) to read the amendments myself.

WHAT’S OUT:

Workers Compensation Council. InnovationOhio was quick to declare a partial victory in that the Ohio Senate’s omnibus budget amendment eliminates the unstaffed Workers Compensation Council. That’s pretty remarkable when you consider ordinarily such a move should have been made in the separate budget for Workers Compensation that has already been signed into law. Also, we all know that [...]

Kasich, Republicans Don’t Actually Support Teacher Merit Pay

Greg — Sat, 14 May 2011 15:00:40 +0000

The merit pay provisions contained in Senate Bill 5 and House Bill 153 (Kasich’s Budget) have been contentiously debated by both sides for their, well, merit. While supporters might claim that it brings these public sector jobs in line with the private sector, opponents will fiercely debate the lack of evidence that these methods have proven to work. When merit pay existed in the union-busting Senate Bill 5 legislation, it was easy to draw the conclusion that it was a power play by the Republicans, but now that merit and performance pay language has been lumped into the budget, one [...]

The “e” in e-schools apparently doesn’t stand for “education”

ModernEsquire — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:30:32 +0000

InnovationOhio has released a new report that examines the nexus between e-schools’ academic performance (or lack thereof) and yet their political popularity with Republicans that might, just might be, influenced by the rather large campaign donations made by e-school businesses, like… White Hat Management executive David Brennan.

Among the findings of the report:

Of Ohio’s 7 state-wide E-schools (which account for 90% of all E-school enrollment), six are not even rated “effective” by the Ohio Department of Education. 5 of the 7 have graduation rates worse than Cleveland Municipal Schools, which has the lowest graduation rate of all traditional [...]

House Finance Committee passed budget, and casino developers are fuming

ModernEsquire — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:23:10 +0000

Yesterday was a train wreck. Speaker Batchelder held a press gaggle in which he declared, definitively, that the CAT tax on gross receipts amendment that the House Finance Committee added on Thursday would be struck today:

Reporter: What about the CAT tax? There seems to be concerns on both sides.

It will be part of the changes, it’s out of the bill. We have a memo from LSC that language we put in is in the law. There have been meetings between the Governor and the industry. We are seeing a lot more action now. The budget will not say [...]

Mr. Governor, Shut This School District Down!

Greg — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:34:01 +0000

Today’s story is about the 21st largest school district in the state of Ohio and how district leaders are working to attain financial success while being under attack on multiple fronts. I will not reveal the names of the district or the leadership until nearer the end of the story so as to try and avoid any bias. Please read with an open mind.

The 21st largest district in Ohio provided services to just over 9,000 students in grades K-12 in 2009-2010. Enrollment has increased 139% in the last five years, a rate slightly higher than the Olentangy Local Schools’ [...]

More schools in deep GOP terrority call Kasich’s SB 5 savings projections a fantasy

ModernEsquire — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:42:30 +0000

Yesterday, Joseph wrote about how the Springfield School District objected to the Department of Administrative Services’ (DAS) “analysis” on how much SB 5’s provisions would supposedly save school districts obscene amounts of money. In Springfield’s case, the school district estimated that the Administration exaggerated its saving by 784%, which, in most people’s estimation would be “a tad off.”

Today, the Hamilton Pulse-Journal reports that school districts in Warren County, the heart of GOP country, is protesting the DAS analysis as grossly overstating their potential savings as well:

The Ohio Department of Administrative Services report indicates the eight [...]

House Republicans balking at Kasich budget as Strickland surplus grows

ModernEsquire — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:10:54 +0000

As Speaker Batchelder and other members of the GOP-led House are getting earfuls at town hall meetings across Ohio over the Governor's unpopular education budget, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Kasich's budget hurts the Cuyahoga County school districts that Kasich actually carried in the district. As the House GOP asserts some measure of distance from Kasich's budget by introducing hundreds of amendments, a real debate is shaping up between the House GOP and the Kasich Administration as to whether the half a billion expected "Strickland surplus" should be used to reduce Kasich's job-killing cuts or to replenish the State's "rainy day" fund to please Wall Street.