Many of you requested a synopsis of Ohio’s 387-page proposal.  In response, KidsOhio and Ohio Grantmakers Forum are providing this independent summary.  Our organizations have no financial interest in the proposal, but we want to ensure that a wide range of Ohioans understand the state’s plan and its specific goals and performance measures.

To read this report, click here

To read the brochure, click here.

To read the guide, click here.

A new state law will require Ohio highschoolers to take a nationally standardized college readiness exam (such as the ACT), pass end-of-course exams instead of five 10th grade tests, and complete a senior project. Details are still being developed.

Ohio’s efforts are part of a national initiative to regain America’s world leadership for college attainment by 2020. The United States is currently ranked 15th, down from first place in the 1970s. 

In order to meet these goals, Ohio must reach out to disadvantaged students, who comprise 40 percent of the state’s student body. This policy brief documents ACT scores and poverty rates in the 20 largest school districts.

We hope the brief informs you about an important bipartisan state initiative.

Click here to download the report: Can requiring all high school juniors to take the ACT improve college preparation and the number of Ohioans going to college?

Encarnacion Pyle

The Columbus Dispatch

Technology will never replace a good teacher.

But more Ohio teachers could use technology to better prepare students to succeed in school and life, a new state report finds.

“Just as literacy has the power to reduce barriers to success and advancement, technology has the ability to open new doors and opportunities by transforming the learning and teaching environment,” said Kate Harkin, executive director of eTech Ohio.

The state agency, which promotes educational technology in Ohio, announced yesterday that it has submitted a five-year plan to Gov. Ted Strickland and lawmakers to prepare students for jobs and help grow the economy.

The group found that although most Ohio schools and colleges use computers and the Internet to teach students, they don’t do enough with new technology.

“Existing technologies allow high-school students to assess their skills and prepare for college online, college students to develop lower-cost educational plans that will land them a career in a growth industry, and educators to access the latest, most effective curriculum without having to leave their classrooms,” said Eric D. Fingerhut, Ohio’s higher-education chancellor.

ETech’s plan calls for the state to provide more training to help teachers use handheld devices, podcasts, social-networking sites and other technology. The report doesn’t provide details about how this might be done because it wants school districts and colleges to create individual programs to deal with their particular needs, Harkin said.

“Educators have long recognized that people learn in a variety of ways, whether reading textbooks, watching lectures or listening to tapes,” she said. “All can be delivered by technologies that currently are readily available.”

The agency also would like schools and colleges to provide more online classes and to take better advantage of the state’s network of public radio and television stations, which have provided educational content for years.

High-school students, for example, can take Advanced Placement or early-college courses online, earning credit for college and saving money. And underqualified and laid-off workers can gain skills to get better jobs.

Columbus State Community College has a center that teaches instructors how to use new technology, said Tom Erney, dean of institutional services. The school is the state’s largest provider of online classes.

Erney said he likes eTech’s focus on emerging technologies, such as smart phones, digital recorders and electronic textbooks.

The state plan includes 12 ways to measure how many students and teachers use technology for learning and teaching and how many of those students later go on to college, including classes online.

Mark Real, who heads KidsOhio, a nonprofit education-research group based in Columbus, said the plan provides a good starting point.

“I think it is absolutely the right direction and helpful because it outlines next steps,” he said.

epyle@dispatch.com

The Columbus Dispatch editorial

Those who care about public education should know by now that long-established methods haven’t been serving poor urban or rural students for a long time. More and more effort and money have been poured into traditional approaches but yielded only modest improvement in student achievement.

Significant improvement is going to require, in many cases, dramatic change.

That alone should be reason enough to welcome Teach for America to Ohio, by making it easier for members to be certified to teach in Ohio schools. The program, founded in 1989, recruits top graduates from America’s best universities to make a commitment to teach for two years in the nation’s neediest schools.

But good intentions and talented recruits are by no means all that TFA has to offer. The program has a track record of success in helping struggling students catch up. It has been the backbone of most Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools, which have produced excellent results with some of the nation’s most disadvantaged students.

The Ohio Senate should keep this in mind and pass Senate Bill 180, which, among other reforms, would ease some of the obstacles to obtaining teacher certification for TFA teachers.

KIPP Journey Academy, Columbus’ KIPP school, has turned to Teach for America members to help improve over its disappointing first year. Some observers attributed the Columbus school’s atypically poor performance on standardized tests last year to the fact that the school in its first year didn’t follow the standard KIPP model closely enough, including the fact that it had no TFA-trained teachers.

This year, KIPP Journey is staffed with TFA members putting in the 15-hour days typical of KIPP teachers, but officially they’re only long-term substitutes, because Ohio law doesn’t allow them to be licensed as teachers without completing the education-methods courses required as part of the standard path to teaching.

Teachers unions have fought allowing anyone to teach without standard training.

Of course those allowed to teach Ohio’s children full-time should be subject to standards; the question is whether traditional teacher preparation is the only way. The passion and intelligence of Teach for America graduates — they’re at the top of their classes, and many postpone lucrative private-sector careers to try to make a difference as teachers — have worked wonders in school districts where they’ve been hired.

The program uses data on individual student performance to judge the effectiveness of each teacher. That should make a decision about welcoming TFA teachers easier for Ohio policymakers: They’d be considering not an untried new idea, but a proven program.

Adhering rigidly to traditional teacher-preparation programs cuts off one of the most important avenues of innovation in schools where innovation is desperately needed.

Lawmakers needn’t and shouldn’t let just anyone teach in Ohio’s classrooms. Teach For America graduates aren’t just anyone. They’re part of an established program that has been a boon to schools that have used it. Ohio schools should have the same opportunity.