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August 2008
Study: Ohio tests invalid for rating schools
A Youngstown State professor’s study of testing data suggests Ohio cannot validly claim schools are improving or slipping based on state ratings and says the achievement gap between black and white students is exaggerated.
Randy Hoover’s research showed Ohio has a large poverty gap in test performance between poor students and their wealthier classmates, regardless of race or ethnicity. Hoover said the correlation of non-school factors like family income with test performance was off the charts.
“This is an extremely high correlation for social science research,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything this high.”
Hoover’s findings support a Dayton Daily News 2006 study of test performance and poverty in Ohio’s 610 school districts that produced similar results. For that study, the newspaper’s computer analysis of the impact of several student characteristics on test scores found median income of the district had by far the most powerful impact on its test performance.
Hoover’s study went further. The three factors he found were most likely to predict school district test performance were the percentage of single parent wage earners, the percentage of poor children and the median family income in the district.
Combining those factors for what Hoover called the “lived experience index” he found they were responsible for at least 61 percent of a district’s test performance. Hoover studied about 60 variables to see which correlated best with test performance.
“On most of them I got no correlation whatsoever,” he said.
Karla Warren, an education department spokeswoman, said the study does not fairly reflect efforts to ensure tests treat students of all wealth levels and ethnicity evenly.
“The Ohio Department of Education doesn’t support the findings of this study, and we stand by our tests,” she said. “Our tests undergo a detailed review process.”
But Hoover argues the study shows Ohio draws invalid conclusions about the quality of school districts by using tests that largely measure how poverty impacts each district. In fact, when Hoover, an education professor and former classroom teacher, looked at school district performance after controlling for “lived experience” factors, he found a different range of school district test performance — far more high poverty districts scored well and more wealthy district scored badly.
“There are as many school districts with advantaged students significantly underperforming as there are school districts with disadvantaged populations,” Hoover wrote. “The stakeholders reading the Ohio school report cards have no way of knowing if the schools and districts are actually advancing academic achievement.”
For instance, the gap between white and black student scores — white students score much higher on average — also nearly disappears when you control for poverty and non-school factors.
“The dominant force in the lower district performance as percent black increases is lack of wealth, not race,” Hoover wrote. “When we controlled for the social-economic factors of lived experience, there was only a very slight relationship between the percent black and actual district performance. There is an achievement gap, but it is extremely small.”
Warren said two state committees review test questions for any hint of cultural, racial or ethnic bias.
Read Hoover’s study online here.
Update: Steve at the Daytonlocal blog adds some comments on this story.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment | Categories: Testing
On average, charters went up and DPS went down
Most of the city’s charter schools made gains for test performance last year while more than two-thirds of schools within the school district saw scores decline on state report cards.
Overall, charter schools dominated a list of top scoring schools in the city, and those district schools that did score well were mostly “charter like,” schools with special themes or unique programs.
Consider the top 20 elementary schools as ranked by performance index score, a figure meant to represent test performance in a school across all grades. Charter schools make up 12 of the top 20 and only two of the eight district schools ranked that high — Valerie and Eastmont — are traditional schools. The rest are Montessori themed, single gender or serve only handicapped students.
On the other hand, only seven of the 20 lowest scoring elementary schools are charters.
“If you look at the charter results they are undeniably better than the district on almost all indicators,” said Terry Ryan, vice President of the pro-charter Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. “But if you look at the district schools, the schools that are performing best are the schools of choice. Something is going on there.”
Test performance across the city remained low compared to state averages and nearby school districts. Only one elementary school in the city was rated “effective” by the state — Pathway School of Discovery, a charter school.
Among high schools, The ISUS Institute of Manufacturing charter school was rated effective while Stivers School for the Arts, a district-run specialty school, was rated excellent. Schools are rated on a six-step scale — excellent with distinction, excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch and academic emergency.
The city school district also compared badly to the other seven large urban Ohio districts. Dayton was the only large urban district that met none of the 30 state standards, its performance index score was last among those districts and it had the second biggest drop in performance index from the prior year. The district’s average ACT score of 17 was lowest among the big urban districts, as was its participation rate of 51 percent of eligible students taking the ACT.
Kurt Stanic, interim superintendent of the city schools, said the district has suffered from deep budget cuts over the past two years and is working to refocus on improving student learning.
“Being new I have had the opportunity to observe and I am not happy with our academic achievement,” he said. “We are not anywhere near where we need to be.”
Urban districts, including Dayton, have long argued that the state’s evaluation system failed to give them enough credit for raising student performance. Often very low scoring students make large gains but still fall short of state standards, urban district argued.
This year, the state gave extra credit to district that met growth targets, bumping those district up one level on the state rating scale. None of Ohio’s urban district earned that extra push.
Stanic said his focus is on improving the learning experience for the average student in the average classroom.
“I’m trying to put strategies in place that will improve academic achievement,” he said. “I am concerned about the core students who are not getting the instruction that they need.”
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Dayton Public Schools
Where’s DECA?
I got an email Friday from the University of Dayton with an interesting tidbit of news on the Dayton Early College Academy. You might recall that DECA was a crown jewel of Dayton Public Schools’ effort to create innovative schools to attract good students to stay in the district, especially at high school. Then after a dispute with the school board and the teachers’ union, DECA left the district and became a charter school last year, although it is still sponsored by DPS.
UD says DECA has a new rule that may attract more good teachers to the school. Children of it’s faculty members may now attend the school for free no matter where they live. This is a common benefit of teaching at private schools and it is effective in attracting good people.
Speaking of DECA, I thought I had lost my mind while reviewing state report card data on Dayton area high schools this week. I couldn’t find DECA — a top test performer in the past — anywhere. Eventually I was able to get an answer as to why. Ohio law allows charter school to wait until year two of operation before they have to report any test scores.
Last year was DECA fifth year, but because it was its first as a charter school it did not have to report scores. Frankly that seems pretty silly to me, but at least now I know I haven’t lost my mind.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Pat Lynch wins do-over election
Dayton’ teachers union held a re-vote of its May election Tuesday after complaints of procedural problems and President Pat Lynch was again elected to a two-year term when she won more votes than Juanita Collein.
A group of teachers complained after the May election to the Ohio Education Association, a statewide parent union, that errors were made, such as allowing votes after deadlines and problems in vote box handling.
Lynch said OEA sent an independent lawyer to review the case who recommended additional training for election workers. After his report, the OEA asked Dayton to hold a new vote. Elections are run by a committee that Lynch is not a part of.
This will be Lynch’s second two-year term as president.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Find all the results for every local district here
Make sure you check out the interactive map on our Web site that allows you to search report card results for any district in the 13 counties that surround Dayton. It is really cool and great work by our graphics department.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Testing
Report cards out, Dayton last in Ohio again
The good news is Dayton schools somehow managed to escape “academic emergency” on its state report card this year, but still raked last in Ohio for test performance. Meanwhile three northern valley schools were among the fastest gainers in test performance.
The state added a new wrinkle to the report cards this year, pushing districts up a level if test scores grew enough. For top rated districts who also made their growth targets, there is a new top category of “excellent with distinction.” There are 73 Ohio districts in that category but none in academic emergency and only nine in the whole state in academic watch.
I am not sure why Ohio keeps the emergency rating it the worst rated district in the state does not end up there. And academic watch only has nine districts? The scores don’t suggest we’re doing that well.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, Schools and Politics, Testing
Teaching evolution to hostile students
The New York Times has a pretty interesting Sunday magazine story about science teachers tackling the challenge of teaching the widely accepted scientific theory of evolution to students from religious backgrounds who find evolution in conflict with their literal interpretation of the bible. Check it out here.
This is a sticky issue that has been hotly debated here in Ohio. The big example in the story is from Florida, but all the same issues are faced by science teachers here. In the end, it is the teacher in the classroom and the students who are doing the learning that determine the effectiveness of government directives on evolution.
About three years ago, I had a Michigan-based science teacher who personally did not believe in evolution tell me the best he could do was teach it half-heartedly. Which had me wondering how many other classrooms faced that challenge?
Teachers out there, how do you or your colleagues handle this tricky territory?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
Jefferson hanging on by a thread
A last minute change of heart by the state oversight commission now in charge of Jefferson Twp. schools may have saved the district from oblivion Thursday.
The committee backed off its original plan to strip two levies from the Nov. 4 ballot — one for school construction and one for operating money. Commission members said they hadn’t had enough time to decide on a strategy for addressing the district’s financial woes and wanted to put off a decision to seek any levy until they were sure the levies were for the right amount. Thursday was the deadline to place a levy on the November ballot.
But after discussion, they decided to keep the 5-mill operating levy on the ballot and drop just the school construction levy.
With the state auditor suggesting Jefferson consolidate with a nearby school district, pulling both issues off the ballot might have been fatal. Jefferson has a $1.8 million deficit and had to take a $1.5 million loan to meet its payroll. The 5-mill levy will raise $420,000, which will help but not cure the deficit. Big cuts are coming next.
If the operating levy passes, Jefferson can begin collecting Jan. 1. Removing it from the November ballot would have meant the earliest Jefferson could have gotten new money was 2010. Unless the levy passes in November, the momentum for consolidation may be unstoppable.
Whether or not Jefferson should survive as an independent district is going to be a big question. If the decision is to keep the district as is, it will need a new, single-campus K-12 building for efficiency. This fall is probably the best time to seek any school levy in Jefferson Twp., as the hot presidential race should bring a big voter turnout. Bigger turnout usually helps school levies.
Here’s the story on today’s first meeting of the oversight commission:
A state oversight commission for Jefferson schools stripped a levy for school construction off the Nov. 4 ballot, saying they do not have enough information to evaluate the fiscal sense of seeking funds for a new K-12 school.
In the commission’s first meeting Thursday it nearly also pulled off an 5-mill operating levy but after a long discussion decided to leave it on the ballot. If it passes, it would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $82.69 a year and raise $420,000 annual for the district.
Commission members said they were not sure the levy was big enough. Paul Marshall, a commission member appointed by the Ohio Office of Budget and Management, said the district’s financial condition is murky but its deficit for this school year is currently estimated at about $1.8 million, or about 23 percent of last year’s revenue, which is worse than previously thought.
To combat the deficit, the commission authorized a loan from the state of $1.5 million, without which Marshall said Jefferson could not have made payroll through the end of September.
“Without this money, the district could not have opened its doors,” he said.
The state moved to take over the fiscal operations of Jefferson schools earlier this month, saying the district had repeatedly failed to implement improvement recommended by the state auditor or to submit an acceptable recovery plan.
A five-member commission with veto power over all school board decisions includes:
—Willa Bronston, a 35-year township resident who’s son graduated from the district.
—Kim Potter, owner of New Visions Interior Plantscaping and a 20-year resident with a son attending Jefferson High School and a son who graduated in 2007.
—Emmitt Orr, a 33-year resident who works at Wright State University.
—Marshall, a financial planning administrator for OBM.
—Mike Watson, of the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of School Options and Finance.
Jefferson school board President Robin Mobley said she spent much of Thursday trying to persuade the oversight board members to keep the levies on the ballot out of fear that putting off levies until 2009 could lead the commission toward recommending Jefferson consolidate with neighboring districts.
“I believe in what we’re doing and I believe we are going to be here,” she said.
The commission will meet next on Sept. 22 to begin crafting a recovery plan that will seek to dramatically reduce spending and raise new revenue to bring the budget back in balance and pay back the upcoming state loan.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Schools and Politics
This time the big guns are on board early
Mayor Rhine McLin
At last night’s board meeting the mayor, city commissioners and a host of community leaders rallied around the school board as it placed a 4.9-mill levy on the November ballot.
This was a noticeable change from 2007, when it took weeks for the city commission to formally endorse the 15.17-mill levy try and the chamber of commerce only grudgingly signed on after demanding data and meetings with school officials over more than a month of discussions.
In 2007, the board’s huge levy request left everyone shocked and more than a few key Dayton players dismayed. A quick consensus formed that there was no way voters would pass such a big levy. A lot of people were ticked off the school board put them in what they viewed as an impossible position of having to anger a huge swath of economically troubled constituents in order to support the schools.
This time things were different. Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic immediately began courting Mayor Rhine McLin to co-chair the levy campaign upon his arrival here this summer. But McLin told him flat out that she would not support any levy bigger than 5 mills. That was even a little less than what Stanic wanted — he was shooting to keep the levy under six mills. But he had to go lower to get McLin.
So now the fun begins. For the average home valued at about $59,000, the new taxes will be about $96 a year if the levy passes. School officials were quick to point out that is about $8 a month, an amount they hope voters can stomach even in hard times. The players are in place and the political season kicks off in earnest after Labor Day.
What do you think? Will this smaller levy make it this time?
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Prom cop wins at the state fair
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a fascinating prom innovation — the dress enforcement officer. First Alter and now Chaminade Julienne Catholic high schools arranged for Sunny Hickey, an accomplished seamstress, to guard the door at their proms armed with a sewing kit to enforce modesty on young ladies who arrive show just a bit too much skin.
Hickey is a great character. She is a tiny little lady with curly hair and a big smile who is impossible not to like. Imagine the kindliest grandmother you know. That’s her. She has a great rapport with the girls, some of whom seem to genuinely not realize their dresses are inappropriate. She does an excellent job of using her sewing skills to tastefully improve dresses without ruining them.
And once the word got around that Hickey would be standing by with her thread and two-sided tape, there was a noticeable improvement in dress modesty.
Frankly, I am surprised other schools haven’t tried this. Hickey made a point to say that she was not looking for work. A St. Henry parishioner and parent of Alter alumni, she does her prom work for the Catholic schools out of a sense of religious mission. But there have to be other sewing experts out there who could probably be had for a small fee to police other proms. I would expect principals and superintendents would love to have their services.
As for Hickey, her story has a happy addendum. She has competed at the state fair for more than 40 years in sewing competition. While I interviewed her and Lisa Powell photographed her in June she was working on a reversible coat for this year’s fair. I got a nice letter from her yesterday in which she mentioned that the coat won “best of show” at the state fair.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Teaching and Learning
A few words on the role of education blogs
Richard Whitmire
My friend and fellow Education Writers Association member Richard Whitmire from USA Today is guest blogging this week over at Eduwonk, one of the best known national education blogs. Richard has some kind words for Get on the Bus in the course of arguing that education coverage needs traditional media sources because free-standing education blogs could not provide the depth of coverage necessary for quality commentary on the issues without relying on traditional journalism.
I agree with Richard in general. At least for today.
I do think there will be opportunity, however, in the near future for self-supporting quality niche websites on topics of local interest. What it will take is talented journalist bloggers willing to cover issues in depth that will be overlooked as traditional media shrinks and narrows its coverage. But these bloggers also will have to handle the business side of blogging for a living, which is new territory for most journalists.
And yet there is an ever increasing supply of quality journalists exiting the corporate side of the media. We’ve already seen examples of these folks making local impact through niche websites. Just as an example look at Minnesota, where former traditional journalists now cover Minneapolis online through MinnPost and former New York Times foreign correspondent Doug McGill writes about the impact of world events on Rochester, Minn., at The McGill Report.
These pioneers are charting paths for effective stand alone journalism in the future, even if they are not yet self-sustaining through the old advertising-supported model.
I expect as media transitions to primarily an Internet delivery system, more advertising dollars will follow until the financial model will begin to work more effectively, whether for traditional media or for new entrepreneurs running niche sites.
So while Richard is certainly right for today when he says bloggers can’t really go it alone without traditional media, this may not remain true going forward.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Journalism
Dayton: New Orleans without the storm?
In Sunday’s New York Times magazine there was a long story about the effort to rebuild the schools of New Orleans in the years since Hurricane Katrina.
The storm just about wiped the city’s school district — long known as one of the worst run and lowest performing in the country — nearly off the map. The school system there is being rebuilt largely with charter schools. There are three oversight bodies — the now much smaller school district, the state education department and the “recovery” school district, which was set up to charter new schools as part of the rebuilding effort.
New Orleans is a closely watched test case. One of the few good things that resulted from the storm was an opportunity to practically start over when it comes to educating kids.
So now, nearly three years after the storm, education in the city is considerably less centralized and the story covers efforts to police entrepreneurs after they get green-lighted to start new schools, including the need for vigilance both to support schools that slip and, ultimately, to close schools that fail.
There are some parallels between New Orleans and Dayton, the nation’s two biggest charter school markets.
While we had not storm here, we did have an intense crisis in education about 10 years ago that led to an explosion of charter schools to provide choice options to families, who responded by choosing those schools in large numbers.
And like New Orleans, Dayton today has three distinct education sectors, all of which were affected by the emergence of charter schools — the much smaller public school system, a thriving charter school movement and private (mostly religious) schools. Also like New Orleans, the chaos of the early days of the choice movement have subsided and our local education marketplace has begun to settle.
So perhaps a similar discussion is needed here, much like the conversations that are beginning in New Orleans. How can we bring these education sectors together? How can we effectively police the wide variety of schools — holding them to high standards, offering supports when the falter and, when all else fails, closing or restructuring the consistent poor performers?
Late last month during Gov. Ted Strickland’s “conversation on education” in Dayton U.S. District Court Chief Judge Walter E. Rice raised his hand during the question period and suggested Strickland try to organize a summit to include public and charter schools to begin the conversation about where we go from here.
Those folks really do not want to get together and talk. It probably would take a major political play for a summit like Rice described happen. But at some point doesn’t there have to be a unifying force over the total education market here pushing all schools toward better achievement?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
In search of a “data driven” school district
In today’s paper, I did my best to give readers some perspective on how attendance was affected by the lack of busing for high school students during the first week of school.
But the truth is, my math is just guesswork.
As much as school officials like to talk about how “data driven” the city schools are in the classroom, in the central office it seems even the most basic data is hard to come by.
Let’s look at the problem we are trying to analyze: Has the lack of district-paid busing negatively impacted attendance during the first week of school?
There are a couple way to evaluate the question. The most forward is to simply look at the attendance rate. Of the students enrolled in each school, how many came to school each day? Sounds easy, but it isn’t. School officials cautioned that their first day of school enrollment figures are notoriously off the mark. That’s because kids transfer, move, drop out, etc. It usually takes a few weeks, they said, before those numbers are reliable.
Still, how far off are first day enrollment numbers? Maybe 10 percent? Because even if its that much, the attendance rate at some of the high schools last week were still atrocious.
Consider Meadowdale High School. Using the district’s admittedly fuzzy first day enrollment figures, attendance was only 71 percent last week. That’s awful. The state expects 93 percent enrollment for report cards, as a frame of reference. But let’s give the district a break. Since they don’t have better numbers, we’ll guess that Meadowdale’s first day enrollment is off by 10 percent. After making that adjustment, it would mean attendance last week at Meadowdale was more like 79 percent last week. That’s much better than 71 percent, but still pretty awful.
So I had a better idea. What if we just compared the first day attendance numbers for 2008 against the first day enrollment numbers for 2007? They should be roughly comparable, and it would eliminate the variability of “enrollment” figures during the first week.
School officials said they would try to get me that number by the end of the day Monday. Then they said they’d try to get it by the end of the day Tuesday. By Friday, they apologized profusely, but the bottom line was they still were unable to produce last year’s first day enrollment numbers after five days.
Folks, these are very basic numbers, the kind of baseline data any organization should be tracking. And even if the district wasn’t tracking enrollment closely for whatever reason don’t you think it might have occurred to administrators to pull that data for comparison’s sake since everyone has known for weeks that the impact of busing changes was going to be paramount during the first week of school?
It has to make you wonder how academic data is handled.
Meanwhile, Dayton schools have a serious concern. Even by these fuzzy measures, attendance looks to be pretty low. Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic said he will re-evaluate attendance and busing after Labor Day. Stanic has a point that in Dayton has a long-term problem with attendance before Labor Day. But can the district really wait nearly a month before it starts making judgments about its transportation problems?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Hear me yak on WMUB radio
Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties on the blog that prevented me from alerting you in advance to my appearance this morning on WMUB’s Forum program. I was on with Bill Cohen, a public radio reporter in Columbus, talking about Gov. Ted Strickland’s community “conversations” on education, being held in 14 cities around the state. (See my coverage of Strickland’s meeting in Dayton here and here.)
You can hear the show again tonight at 7 p.m. WMUB is a public radio station in Oxford, Ohio. You can hear the show in the Dayton area on 88.5 FM.
Later today the show should be posted on the station’s website.
Give the show a listen and then tell us what you think in the comments here.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Journalism
Jefferson Supt: Consolidation not an option
Jefferson Twp. schools hope a change at treasurer, a November levy try and tougher fiscal management will help the district escape state takeover.
But consolidation with a neighboring district or shifting all of the district’s approximately 700 students to one building — ideas suggested by the state auditor — are options that are not on the table, Superintendent Richard Gates said.
“That is not something we talk about,” Gates said. “We’re very confident in our ability to offer residents an effective school district.”
On Monday, Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor’s office ruled that Jefferson was in “fiscal emergency.” That designation allows the Ohio Department of Education to place a commission in charge of the district, with veto power over all spending decisions. The commission, a combination of state and local appointees, will be named within 10 days.
But Gates said the district has already moved to address its financial woes, and step one is a new 5-mill levy that the school board has approved for the November ballot. It has been 10 years since a levy for new money was approved by voters in Jefferson Twp.
“We are asking voters to approve that because, honestly, that is the only way we can improve our financial situation,” Gates said. “This is a great school district. We are determined. We know we have mandates coming. We recognize we are at a critical point financially. We cannot continue to operate our district on 1998 money and pay 2008 bills.”
In a June audit report on Jefferson schools, Taylor’s office reported that seven treasurers in four years and high turnover among support staff led to “a loss of historical data and perspective” along with “weak or nonexistent” internal management controls.
Since an earlier audit in 2004, Taylor’s office said the district had failed to address enrollment declines, high attrition and turnover, weak internal controls, data and information mismanagement, poor employee relations, high per pupil spending and low academic performance.
Jefferson last year was rated in “academic emergency,” the lowest of Ohio’s five school district rating categories.
Treasurer David Robinson resigned on Aug. 5 and was replaced the same day with a new interim treasurer — former Dayton Business Committee executive director Doug Mangen.
Since 2004, the district merged its middle school and high school, cut jobs and took other steps toward reducing costs, Gates said. Now it will just have to do more.
“This situation is not something that just happened,” he said. “We worked hard to improve our fiscal health so far. We’re in a tightening mode. We have to do things differently in terms of cutting expenses.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: School Funding
Tough times ahead for Jefferson schools
In today’s paper, I wrote about the state takeover of Jefferson schools and some of the tough choices ahead for the district. This will be a painful period over the next couple of years, I am afraid to say.
In reading the state auditor’s report on Jefferson from June, one thing seemed clear — the state feels this district with less than 900 students should consolidate with a neighboring district.
That is a lot easier said than done.
Jefferson is an unusual district in that a large chunk of it is rural but it is also primarily African American and borders Dayton. The rural/suburban nature of the district hurts it financially. Jefferson very little commercial tax base, which means it must depend on home and farm owners for tax revenue. That makes it difficult to pass levies, and levies for new money have repeatedly failed for a decade.
So on paper it makes sense to suggest Jefferson ought to consolidate with another district. But that overlooks some of the realities of the situation. First of all, many Jefferson parents chose the district because it is a small, tight-knit community. The kids stay close to home, everybody knows each other and there is a lot of support for the kids. I can tell you right now few people in Jefferson will favor the idea of consolidation.
But even if consolidation were a must, where would Jefferson’s kids belong? While the ethnic make up of the district has more in common with Dayton schools than any other adjacent district, it would mean busing most, if not all, Jefferson kids off to city schools. Other than the cost savings of closing down Jefferson’s school district there are not too many other advantages. Perhaps the one good thing is that at least the city school district has the existing infrastructure to address the special education needs and other urban-style problems common to Jefferson and Dayton.
But would Dayton would even be interested in such an arrangement? Seems to me like this would be a hard sell. The district might like to get the state aid for a few hundred more kids but would those additional funds cover the cost of extra busing and other higher costs related to serving Jefferson kids? That would be a big question and the answer could demonstrate that a partnership with Dayton makes no sense.
Even so, it’s hard to see how Jefferson would be a better match to consolidate with its other neighbors, small and rural schools in Brookville, Valley View and New Lebanon. Those other districts are both culturally different, with far fewer African American students, and under resourced themselves.
These are painful questions to contemplate. Unfortunately for Jefferson, I think options like this will have to be on the table for the district to escape state takeover.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: School Funding
Dayton schools to seek 4.9 mills
The city schools will ask voters to approve a 4.9-mill levy for operations on Nov. 4.
School board members voted unanimously Tuesday, Aug. 12, to place the levy on the ballot. In May 2007 the district’s 15.17-mill levy try was soundly defeated. That levy would have raised $30 million a year. This levy would raise about $9.5 million annually.
“I would say the $30 million and the 15 mills was what we needed,” board President Yvonne Isaacs said. “What we know having gone through this past year is the community simply cannot afford that kind of a levy.”
While the 2007 levy was for five years, the 4.9-mill issue is a continuing levy, which does not require voters to re-approve it.
Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic said the levy will cost the owner of an average Dayton home worth about $59,000 less than $8 a month.
By Sept. 1 Stanic said would prepare two “recovery” plans, one for if the levy passes, the other for in case it fails.
Stanic said the district must get into a routine of asking voters for smaller levies every few years. It has been 16 years since voters last approved new operating money. He also said the district had cut 1,100 jobs and $77 million from its budget since 2002, not counting $2.2 million and 25 positions cut since July 1.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
DPS attendance very low at some high schools
(Junior Latoya Allen, left, and freshman Katherine Gaile, right, wait for the RTA bus to pick them up after school in front of Stivers School of the Arts.)
There weren’t too many problems getting kids to school Monday, even without district-paid bus service.
But the question is how many kids stayed home?
Initial attendance figures for city high schools ranged from good to bleak. Based on the number of students on the books as enrolled compared to those who actually came to school, attendance was solid at Stivers School for the Arts (93 percent) and Patterson Career Center (87 percent) but well off the pace at Meadowdale (67 percent) and Belmont (67 percent).
School officials cautioned that first day enrollment is often a hazy figure, as the district has not accounted yet for all transfers and other changes from the prior year. The district did not have last year’s first day attendance for comparison.
Mark Donaghy, executive director of the Dayton Regional Transit Authority, said RTA officials suspected low attendance contributed to fewer than expected problems.
“It matches the attendance at the schools,” he said.
Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic said he has asked his staff to compare attendance with last year’s first day of school. School officials need to study why attendance was high at some schools and low at others, he said.
“It’s not unusual for urban school populations to gradually increase right up until Labor Day,” he said. “But no matter what it was last year, I’d like it to be higher.”
Stivers School for the Arts senior Megan Hegner said she walked to her friend Brittny McNabb’s Old North Dayton house for a ride to school. At dismissal, the two waited for the No. 2 bus on Fifth Street for a ride downtown where they could get a bus home.
“I have to scrounge money for the bus,” Hegner said.
The two said they may start walking home from Stivers, but are worried about getting to school as they year goes on.
“We’ll be out there freezing in the winter,” McNabb said.
First Day of School Attendance
School district high school attendance Monday was:
Meadowdale 67 percent
Belmont 67 percent
Thurgood Marshall 81 percent
Dunbar 81 percent
Patterson 87 percent
Stivers 93 percent
(Image credit: Teesha McClam, DDN)
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School begins smoothly in Dayton
(Students wait to board an RTA bus outside Stivers School for the Arts Monday.)
As city high schools opened for the school year Monday without bus service, most kids appeared to make it to class on time and with relatively few problems.
At Belmont and Dunbar high schools, officials and students reported more cars dropping off students than normal along with crowded city buses but overall few had major concerns.
Deputy Superintendent Lori Ward, who oversees transportation in the district, said she had no significant bad reports following the start of classes. School officials will continue to monitor traffic at the schools and attendance during the week as students settle into new routines.
“There appears to be a lot more automobiles, but will that keep up or is it a sign of the time?” she said. “A lot of kids like to have a ride to school on the first day. We need to watch the week in full to get a better picture.”
Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic said he visited at the bus garage at 5 a.m. and was pleased with how the day was going by mid-morning.
“People have been cooperative,” he said. “There are still concerns. It’s early. I want to see attendance at the end of the day.”
Busing was first eliminated last summer to save money after a levy defeat in May of 2007 but the city, county and Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority helped raise funds to restore the service in time for the start of school.
This summer, those partners said they could not offer funds and the district again dropped high school bus service, which is not required by state law. The RTA estimated up to 4,000 students could have to pay their own way to school on city buses, many of them on regular routes as fewer “limited service” buses going directly to schools are on the road this year.
The district continues to struggle with deep budget cuts and the school board has promised a new levy try in November. Bus service is not expected to be restored this year.
Students said RTA bus routes were crowded. Dunbar senior Edward Brown rode a city bus from his Five Oaks neighborhood downtown, where he switched to a limited service route that connects to Dunbar.
“It made everything harder,” he said. “There were people standing and sitting on the steps.”
Tobeshia Jones, a freshman at Belmont, said driver on her bus from North Main Street to downtown did a good job controlling the large crowd of students mixed in with the regular adult passengers.
“It was a little rowdy,” she said. “It was really full. But the bus driver could control them.”
(Image credit: Teesha McClam, DDN)
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Sewing champ helps police the prom
(Sunny Hickey makes a coat for competition at the Ohio State Fair)
Sunny Hickey slid the seam of the coat she was making through the rumble of the 1972 Viking sewing machine she’s been using exclusively for more than three decades.
When she goes to her 41st Ohio State Fair this month in the clothing construction division, some of Hickey’s competitors will make their entries with programmable sewing machines that can cost up to $1,000.
“It’s not computerized and I’d just as soon keep it that way,” Hickey said of her well-worn machine. “I am a firm believer that it is the person driving the machine that makes the difference.”
Through the years, Hickey has won more state fair ribbons than she can count. This year’s entry is a reversible coat.
“The state fair has changed dramatically,” she said. “They’ve reduced the number of style show classes from six for spring and summer wear and six for fall or winter wear to two classes — one for coats or outerwear and one for any other garment.”
Over time, fewer women are competing in sewing. The decline has Hickey worried that her passion will become a lost art.
“You could see as more women went to work that unfortunately sewing has been dying,” she said. “Lots of women are still involved, but they are primarily in knitting.”
Yet, sewing skills are as valuable as ever — so much so that Hickey has become something of a celebrity as local Catholic proms. When it comes to prom dresses, she is part cop and part rescue squad.
For two local high schools, Hickey accompanies the chaperones at the door, ready to repair dress disasters or impose greater modesty.
“They get the message, you might say, just by having yours truly standing in the wings as, I hate to use the term, the ‘enforcer,’” Hickey said.
In the early years of chaperoning the Alter High School prom, Sunny Hickey used her sewing wizardry mostly for emergency repairs for busted spaghetti straps, ripped halter tops, torn dress vents and split zippers.
Badly made dresses — that was the cause of most of the trouble. But over time the root of the problems shifted to the dress design.
Plunging necklines, strapless bras, badly placed sheer fabric and lots of bare skin — that’s what Hickey spends the bulk of prom night on now. For the last two years, Hickey has been a mainstay at the Alter and Chaminade-Julienne high school proms with pins, thread and two-sided tape, ready to patch up dresses that don’t meet the dress code.
“The movie industry has been pushing the envelope and a lot of young ladies feel to be popular, that’s what they should wear,” Hickey said. “But to defend the young ladies, the fashion industry markets what sells. They make it very difficult for moms who want to find their daughters a decent dress that is not risque.”
Hickey, an accomplished amateur clothes maker, has been winning ribbons for sewing at the Ohio State Fair for decades. This month, she is competing in her 41st state fair.
But she came to her prom duties by chance. Her first chaperone duties were as a parent when her son Steve was an Alter senior in 1986. When the school asked her back the next year, she packed a “survival kit” with items she wished she’d had the prior year — coins for pay phone calls, band-aids for small injuries and especially sewing supplies for repairing dress disasters.
The next year, Alter asked her to come back and it became an annual event. She got connected with Chaminade Julienne when a friend from St. Henry Catholic parish heard about her success maintaining modesty at Alter and begged her to do the same for her daughter’s prom at Chaminade.
At both schools, Hickey said, the dress problems have improved.
“I really think it helps just by having an enforcer there and knowing if they came in with the wrong kind of dress someone is going to make it appropriate,” she said. “They were more careful in their dress selection this year. They shopped harder.”
Even if “dress enforcer” is a great idea, Hickey is not looking to add more schools to her schedule next spring. She views her prom work as part of her commitment to her church. The only other sewing she does outside of her family is for vestments for priest or decorations at church.
Instead, she’d like to see more women rekindle sewing skills so they can use them in similarly creative ways. Today’s clothes are often cheaply made, which is the main cause of prom disasters, she said.
With basic designs, Hickey has earned many a state fair ribbon. She likes to start with a simple style and experiment with different fabrics and trims. A client once told her that Princess Diana had the same dress pattern made 23 times with different fabric and trim.
“At least in her casual clothes, she had the same design made up in four or five color combinations,” Hickey said. “I suppose she liked the way it fit and felt. You hang on to what’s good on you. You get that pattern and the sky is the limit for what you can do with it.”
The Survival Kit
When she returned to chaperone her second Alter High School prom in 1987, Sunny Hickey packed an “survival kit” of items she might need to help students with problems that she has used every year since. Over time, the kit has changed. Twenty years ago, she packed quarters for kids who needed to make phone calls. Now nearly every student carries a cell phone. And back then, it was OK to offer a student a pain reliever. Now school rules prevent administering even over-the-counter drugs to kids. In the 2008 kit, Hickey now carries two-sided tape and nude-colored knit to patch up dresses that are too revealing, a problem the prom didn’t have in 1987.
Sunny Hickey’s prom kit in 1987:
band-aids
safety pins
pin cushion
needles
threads
quarters
Tylenol
Sunny Hickey’s prom kit in 2008:
band-aids
safety pins
pin cushion
needles
threads
two-sided tape
antibacterial ointment
nude colored knit
(Image credit: Lisa Powell, DDN)
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Dayton teachers approve contract, raise
City school district teachers Thursday overwhelmingly approved a new three-year labor contract that includes a 2 percent raise retroactive to July 1.
Teachers got no raise last year and a 1.25 percent raise the prior year as the district struggled with tight finances. Union President Pat Lynch said following the vote at Thurgood Marshall High School that there was strong support for the deal.
Workers will pay the same 15 percent of their health care premiums, but the cost will go up for visits to the emergency room and urgent care. The deal sets the emergency room copay at $100, up from $25, and urgent care at $25, up from $10.
Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic said recent cuts of about $2.2 million, including the elimination of a half dozen central office jobs, helped free up enough money to make the raise possible for teachers despite the district’s difficult financial position.
“The teachers provide the most important thing that goes on in our school district and that’s instruction,” he said. “We want to protect the integrity of our instructional program.”
Teacher planning periods also will be restored during the school day, rather than before or after school as they were last year. This is made possible by the return of music, art and gym class at elementary schools. When those subjects were curtailed last year and planning periods moved, teachers complained that the long stretches without a break caused more illness and stress.
The union had filed a grievance over the elimination of planning periods, which it said were required by its prior contract to be during the school day.
Under the terms of the new deal, the raise and insurance premiums for the last two years will negotiated next summer and the following summer.
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Stanic: It’s about learning and the levy this year
Kurt Stanic
City schools interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic, in his first speech to the district’s workforce, promised a new focus on learning and warned of a difficult year financially.
“The focus this year is simple: Teaching and learning,” Stanic said. “With your help, I will work to maintain a stable and consistent program that offers students excellent educational opportunities in safe, cleaning learning environments.”
The annual convocation address, held Wednesday at the University of Dayton Arena, was decidedly less elaborate under Stanic, who will fill in for this school year in the wake of Percy Mack’s departure to Columbia, S.C. Classes starts Monday.
Gone were bands and student performances that accompanied past convocations. Only Stanic and the teacher of the year, Franklin Montessori School kindergarten teacher Susan Grant, spoke.
Stanic touted a new student conduct code, instructing principals to take as much time as needed to be clear about expectations for students.
He also said the push to pass an operating levy will be a heavy focus between now and election day on Nov. 4. The district must raise new revenue after going 16 years without passing an operating levy for new money, he said.
“The district has reached a critical point financially,” Stanic said. “The failure to pass an operating levy last year has weakened our financial position. The district is facing rapidly increasing operating deficits and will exhaust cash reserves this year. We have been forced to cut staffing and programs to stabilize our finances. School funding in Ohio necessitates appearing on the ballot.”
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Dayton schools name new deputy superintendent
Lori Ward
Kurt Stanic, city schools interim superintendent, reorganized the central office Tuesday, Aug. 5, by naming a new deputy superintendent and eliminating six unfilled central office jobs.
Stanic named Lori Ward to replace Debra Brathwaite as his chief deputy. Brathwaite left to join former Dayton superintendent Percy Mack as deputy superintendent for him in Columbia, S.C.
Ward came to the district for a career change to be an elementary school math teacher in 1995 after working in systems engineering management for IBM. She became the district’s chief information officer in 1999 and was promoted to chief of business operations earlier this year.
Brathwaite’s duties heading the academic operations will shift to Jane McGee Rafal, who moves from executive director of elementary education to chief academic officer. Rafal and Ward will report to Stanic along with assistant superintendents Jonathan Brown and Rebecca Lowry.
Stanic also announced the elimination of three open administrator jobs — director of early childhood education, executive director of school operations and associate superintendent of humanities. Three open central office clerical jobs also were cuts — a financial clerk, an accounting clerk and an administrative assistant.
“We are streamlining the central office,” Stanic said.
Classes begins Monday in Dayton. Teachers report today for Stanic’s convocation address at 9 a.m. at the University of Dayton Arena.
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Here’s your chance to give feedback
OK, so Gov. Ted Strickland’s “conversation on education” was a bit overly scripted. That doesn’t mean that thoughtful people of all political stripes and ideologies can still give intelligent feedback.
Over at Cleveland’s Catalyst Magazine, they are asking anyone who wants to comment on Strickland’s ideas to send them email (the link is on Catalyst’s main page in the upper right hand corner).
So go ahead, tell ‘em what you think.
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Will they arm wrestle over math and science teachers?
Last week I wrote about a new effort to train future science and math teachers that will be part of the new career technology high school that Dayton Public Schools is building to replace Patterson Career Center.
If only the Dayton area could get those future teachers before next fall. That’s because the fall of 2009 will bring the opening of two new science and math oriented high schools here.
The plan for both calls for concentrating high quality teachers of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). It’s just that those folks don’t grow on trees.
The other school is tentatively known as the Dayton Regional STEM School. It’s a collaboration supported by local colleges, school districts and Wright Patterson Air Force Base. It will be located on the campus of Wright State University. This will be a college prep program with a goal of turning out engineers and scientists.
Dayton’s high school also will be a STEM school, but with a slightly different focus. The David Ponitz Career Technology Center will have 15 “pathways” for study, somewhat more career tech in nature.
And the two efforts are not very well coordinated. Dayton is not one of the districts partnering on the STEM school at Wright State. The efforts to build the two schools are quite independent of one another.
Which brings me back to hiring. Next spring both schools will be seeking to build a faculty of well-regarded science and math teachers. Each has some advantage. Dayton will have the existing Patterson faculty it can import, but the goal is to add more STEM specialists. The Wright State STEM school will have connections with laboratories at Wright Patt AFB and private business.
But the bottom line is both will be seeking new teachers. So school districts with great science and math teachers ought to treat them like kings and queens this year.
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