This Week News
1/31/2008
DAVID J. CROSS
ThisWeek Staff Writer
Columbus Board of Education member Betty Drummond voiced her opposition last week to cuts in physical education and health classes at the high school level.
During the Jan. 22 board meeting, Superintendent Gene Harris presented a monitoring report for the non-core content areas in the district. Among those were physical [...]

 By Khalila Perrin
1/30/2008
Suburban News
“How much?” and “For how long?” are just two questions members of the Columbus City Schools millage task force will have to answer before Aug. 21.
The 20-member group met with district Treasurer Michael Kinneer to brush up on levy lingo when it met for the first time Wednesday, Jan. 23, at the [...]

 The Plain Dealer
1/30/2008
Ohio should be proud of the way it is closing the spending gap between rich and poor schools.
But Ohio’s success won’t make it any easier to settle the debate on equitable funding for public schools. It’s harder to argue for changes in a system that, despite its flaws, has taken a step in [...]

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently released their 2008 State Teacher Policy Yearbook. This year’s report focuses on teacher effectiveness. NCTQ gave each state and the District of Columbia a letter grade for (1) identifying effective teachers; (2) retaining effective teachers and (3) “exiting” ineffective teachers-as well as an overall letter grade. Most states received low marks, with 36 (71%) earning an overall grade of “D+” or lower. Ohio was one of six states to receive an overall grade of “C.” Only South Carolina was rated higher, earning a “B-.”

 The Plain Dealer
1/29/2008
Scott Stephens
Plain Dealer Columnist
All children might be created equal.
But when it comes to access to qualified teachers, money talks.
That’s according to a new University of Missouri study that finds poor children simply don’t have as much access to qualified teachers as affluent students. In fact, compared to 46 countries, the United States has [...]