From: Ann Brennan

FYI: Note the Senate Advisory Committee on Testing's recommendations on the state assessments.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joan Platz <joan.platz@gmail.com>
To: Joan Platz <joan.platz@gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, May 3, 2015 10:10 pm
Subject: Arts on Line Education Update May 4, 2015

Ohio Alliance for Arts Education

Arts on Line Education Update

Joan Platz

May 4, 2015

1) Ohio News

•131st Ohio General Assembly:  The Ohio House and Senate will hold hearings and sessions this week.

The House Education Committee, chaired by Representative Hayes, will meet on May 5, 2015 at 

9:00 AM in hearing room 017.  The committee will receive testimony on HB70 (Driehaus/Brenner) School Restructuring; SB3 (Hite/Faber) High Performing School District Exemption; HB160 (Devitis) Textbooks-Higher Education. 

The Senate Finance Education Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Hite, will meet on May 6, 2015, at 2:30 PM in the North Hearing Room or after session. The committee will receive testimony on 

SB148 (Lehner) Charter School Oversight; HB2 (Dovilla/Roegner) Charter School Sponsorship; and HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget. 

The Senate Finance Education Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Hite, will also meet on May 7, 2015, at 11:00 AM in the South Hearing Room, to receive testimony on HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget.  

The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Representative McClain, will meet on May 7, 2015 at 1:30 PM in hearing room 121.  One of the bills the committee will consider is HB99 (Curtin) Income Tax-School Funding.  This bill would require that an amount equal to state income tax collections, less HB99 amounts contributed to the Ohio political party fund via the income tax checkoff, be distributed for the support of elementary, secondary, vocational, and special education programs.

•School Issues and More on the May 5, 2015 Ballot:  A primary/ special election will be held on Tuesday, May 5, 2015. Voters will be asked to decide 336 local issues, including 102 school issues.  The school issues include 78 tax levies; 15 income tax issues for schools; two school bond issues; and 7 combined tax issues for schools.  Information about the issues is available at http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/Voters/whatsontheballot/whatsOnBallot.aspx

•ODE Releases Literacy Improvement Results:  The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released on April 30, 2015 K-3 Literacy Improvement results for the 2013-14 school year.  These results will be added to the state report cards for districts and schools.   

The K-3 Literacy Improvement measure shows if a district or school is making progress in improving literacy in kindergarten through grade three, and the progress that “not on tract” students are making to become a proficient reader by the end of third grade. 

The measure is based on the results from the fall reading diagnostic assessments, which students take in kindergarten through grade three, and the results from the third grade reading assessment.

Along with the report card data, the ODE also released the results of a longitudinal study that showed a connection between reading proficiently at the third grade and graduation rates for the class of 2013. The ODE examined the third grade assessment results of about 113,000 students in the class of 2013, and found that 95 percent of those scoring as “advanced” readers at the end of third grade graduated on time, while 57 percent of those scoring at the “limited” reading level graduated on time.

See “New Study Finds Strong Relationship Between Third Grade Reading Proficiency and On-time Graduation Rate for Ohio Students”, Ohio Department of Education, 4/30/15 at

http://education.ohio.gov/Media/Media-Releases/New-Study-Finds-Strong-Relationship-Between-Third#.VUP2gFxSWgs

2)  National News

•States Reduce Testing:  Catherine Gewertz reports for Education Week that the Miami-Dade school district in Florida dropped all but 10 end of course exams after Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a new law permitting districts to make decisions about testing.  The districts had been administering 300 exams a year.  The district will also give end of course exams to a randomly selected pool of students as a field test, rather than require all students to take the assessments.  

The Miami-Dade school district is the largest in Florida, and fifth largest in the country.  The new law caps the number of hours students can spend on state tests, and eliminates the 11th grade English/language arts test. 

The law responds to concerns expressed by parents and educators about the amount of time students are spending on testing.  The article notes that the Texas legislature is considering bills that also eliminate some of the testing state’s requirements.  

See “Florida’s Biggest District Cuts Nearly All End-of-Course Exams”, by Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, April 27, 2015, at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2015/04/miami_dade_cut_nearly_all_end_of_course_exams.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2

•Symposium Addresses Poverty in Schools:  The ASCD will stream live a symposium on May 6, 2015 entitled ”Poverty and Education: Addressing Poverty as a Sector, as a School, and as a Classroom”.  This free event is part of ASCD’s Whole Child Symposium, and will examine poverty as it relates to school reform and education improvement efforts.  According to the advance information, the Southern Education Foundation reports that for the first time, a majority of public school children in the United States come from low socioeconomic households.  Unfortunately there is a strong correlation between poverty and student achievement.  For example, a 2014 study published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that poverty could explain up to 46 percent of the scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).  

•Update on Student Privacy Bills:  A Policy Update from the National Association of State Board of Education describes some of the bills that Congress is considering to regulate online service providers to ensure student privacy, student data security, and family privacy.  

U.S. House Representatives Jared Polis (D-CO) and Luke Messer (R-IN) introduced a privacy bill on April 29, 2015 to regulate how online service providers that serve state and local education agencies, handle student data.  Lawmakers shared a draft of the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015 in March 2015, but student privacy advocates soon identified a number of problems with the bill, and so the sponsors worked with parent groups, students privacy experts, and the Obama administration to tighten the language.  

The bill prohibits vendors from selling student data or marketing to students; requires vendors to meet new standards about data security; provide information about data breaches and contracts with third parties; includes metadata (data about data); and directs the Federal Trade Commission to take charge of enforcement and regulation of the education-technology industry.  Vendors would be required to publicly list the kind of personal information being collected or generated, how the information is being used, with whom is it shared, and how long the data will be held.

Also in the U.S. House, Representatives John Kline (R-MN) and Bobby Scott (D-VA) are working on a bipartisan update of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), first signed into law in 1974.  The law helps parents access the education records of students, but has been amended over the years to regulate online service providers as well.  

The proposed bill would regulate state education agencies, local education agencies, and contractors that serve state agencies and schools.  Among its provisions, the bill would require that parents be notified when a state or local education agency shares data with a third party, and how the third party is protecting the student’s data.

In the U.S. Senate, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is expected to introduce a privacy law, while Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) are updating FERPA.

See “A Tale of Two Federal Student Data Privacy Bills,” by  Amelia Vance, National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), May 2015.

http://www.nasbe.org/wp-content/uploads/Tale-of-Two-Data-Privacy-Bills_May-2015.pdf

•Pell Grants to Support Earning College Credits in High School:  Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced on April 28, 2015 the Go to High School, Go to College Act.  The bill would allow Pell Grants to be used by high school students from low-income families to pay for college-level courses.  High schools would be reimbursed with Pell funds for the student’s tuition and fees after the student earns the credit. Representatives Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and Chris Gibson (R-NY) will introduce similar legislation in the U.S. House.  There is some discussion about including this provision in the Higher Education Act.

See http://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=38bf9865-992e-4f8d-98ca-5872cfe31116

3) OBM Critical of House School Funding Plan:  Tim Keen, director of the Office of Budget and Management, told the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Finance Education Subcommittee last week that he and Governor Kasich have concerns about the House changes in the biennial budget bill, HB64 (Smith).

  

After presenting to the Senate Finance Education Committee on April 29, 2015 an overview of the education provisions supported by Governor Kasich, Director Keen summarized the changes made by the House to the school funding formula, and the concerns that he has with those changes.

Director Keen explained that Governor Kasich’s proposed school funding formula builds on the current formula; targets resources to districts with the least capacity to fund an appropriate educational program; and establishes a way in the future for state aid to be distributed to schools through the state formula, rather than using guarantees and the gain cap.

According to Director Keen, the House school funding provisions, which ensure that school districts receive at least FY15 funding levels, could undermine the stability of the state’s school funding system in the future. The House school funding plan directs limited resources to some school districts with high capacity to raise local revenue; perpetuates reliance on the guarantee; increases the number of school districts that are affected by the funding cap; and creates new state funding obligations, which will be difficult to support in the future.  For example, about 28 high capacity school districts are guaranteed at least $1,200 per student in state aid in the new House formula, and the new capacity aid provision will cost the state $260 million.  This provision distributes additional state aid based on how much a district can raise with one mill of local property tax effort.

According to an OBM chart comparing the number of districts affected by the gain cap and the guarantee in the Executive and House budgets, 204 school districts would be on the gain cap under the Executive Budget in FY16, while under the House Budget the number of school districts capped would increase to 408 school districts.

In FY17 under the Executive Budget, 130 school districts would be capped and under the House version 328 school districts would be capped.

While in the Executive Budget school districts fail to receive over the biennium about $943 million through a 10 percent gain cap on the maximum annual rate of increase in state aid, in the House version school districts fail to receive $1.75 billion, because the maximum rate increase in state aid is dropped to 7.5 percent per fiscal year.  The total amount of funds being withheld from school districts as a result of the gain cap would make fully implementing the House formula a major obstacle in the future.

See Director Keen testify before the Senate Finance Committee on April 21, 2015 at http://www.ohiochannel.org/MediaLibrary/Media.aspx?fileId=146312

See Director Keen’s testimony before the Senate Finance Education Subcommittee on April 29, 2015 at http://www.ohiosenate.gov/committee/finance-education-subcommittee#

•Editorial Supports House Plan:  An editorial by Michael Douglas in the Akron Beacon Journal on May 3, 2015 weighs in on the House vs. Executive Budget funding plan for public schools.  Noting the number of changes in the state’s school funding formula over the past years, the editorial concludes that the House plan finally “applies real money to the challenges of equity, adequacy, and an overreliance on local property taxes.”  The editorial recognizes the House for “taking a mess of a formula to a much better place”, and keeping in sight the big picture, and how it would look if lawmakers cut taxes by a billion dollars and cut funding for schools at the same time.

See “Eighteen years after DeRolph, a real plan” by Michael Douglas, Akron Beacon Journal, May 3, 2015 at

http://akronbeaconjournal.oh.newsmemory.com/?token=daf26839eb2204e280b5bf27cf385fcd_55461102_21aa&selDate=20150503&goTo=A01&artid=art_0.xml

4) Testing Panel Releases Recommendations:  The Senate Advisory Committee on Testing released on April 30, 2015 its recommendations for revising Ohio’s state assessment system.  The 30 member panel, created by Ohio Senate President Keith Faber and chaired by Senator Peggy Lehner, was formed to respond to concerns by parents, educators, and lawmakers, about the amount of time students are spending on testing, and the efficacy of the new assessments based on the new academic content standards.  The state has contracted with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College & Careers (PARCC) for math and reading assessments, and with the American Institute for Research (AIR) for the social studies and science assessments at various grade levels.

The committee recommends the following changes for Ohio’s state assessment system:  

•Administer state assessments once a year and shorten the tests.  Move the testing window closer to the end of the school year to provide more time for classroom instruction and less disruption in learning.

•Improve accommodations for children with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and improve communication with parents and schools. Training must be provided for intervention specialists and paraprofessionals who assist students with IEPs.

•Return test results in a timely manner to benefit student instruction – although the committee recognized that results from a writing test may not be able to be returned as quickly as the rest of the results.

•Make available within a reasonable amount of time test questions and answers to ensure the tests are aligned to Ohio’s learning standards and the questions are developmentally appropriate for grade levels. 

•Improve online testing, but continue to provide the option that schools administer paper/pencil tests for at least the next two school years. State funding for technology based on need should be considered.

•Provide a single technology platform for next year’s tests. Improvements in technology are needed to ensure smooth administration of the tests.

•Enact a “safe harbor” provision that allows results from this year’s tests to be reported, but holds students, teachers or schools safe from consequences this year due to the transition to a new test, and the concern that results may not accurately reflect a student’s achievement level.

•Develop a comprehensive communications plan to provide parents, teachers, school leaders, and the general public with clearer information about the tests.

•Find a vendor that will make changes for the test next year. If the current vendors for state tests - PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College & Careers) for the math and English language arts assessments and AIR (American Institute for Research) for the science and social studies assessments, will not make changes to the test for next year to accommodate these issues, the Ohio Department of Education should find another vendor.

See “Senate Advisory Committee on Testing Recommends Improvements to State Tests”, April 29, 2015 at  http://sact.ohiosenate.gov/

5)  NEPC Reviews One of the CREDO Studies:  The Think Twice Think Tank at the National Education Policy Center in Boulder, CO released on April 27, 2015 a review of the study Urban Charter School Study Report on 41 Regions, published by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute.  

According to the review, since 2009 CREDO has published several reports comparing student achievement in charter and traditional public schools. This CREDO study examined the differences in student performance at charter schools and traditional public schools in 41 urban areas in 22 states. 

CREDO found a positive effect on student achievement overall in both math and reading scores for students who attend a charter school in an urban environment when compared to peers in traditional public schools (TPS) in urban areas. The study concludes that ‘...urban charter schools on average achieve substantially greater levels of growth in math and reading relative to local TPS (p. 43).’

The review of the study was conducted by Andrew Maul at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He found that the actual effect sizes on student achievement are very small, under a tenth of one percent of the variance in test scores, questioning how the study could report that the effect was “substantial”.

He also found that although the “propensity-based method” is a more acceptable technique among researchers, CREDO used its own “virtual control record (VCR)” technique, to match charter school and traditional public school students for the study.  According to Professor Maul, this technique is “insufficiently documented” and might not account for all relevant differences among students, because it matches fewer characteristics.  Using the VCR technique the researchers only found matches for 80 percent of charter school students, while a match closer to 100 percent could have been achieved by using the propensity-based method. 

The review also notes that previous reviews of the CREDO techniques by other researchers have raised technical and conceptual concerns about the “days of learning metric” that CREDO uses to report year to year changes in test scores.  Apparently the report doesn’t explain the process used to translate “growth,” estimated via average year-to-year gains on state standardized tests expressed in standard deviation units, into “days of learning”. Professor Maul finds that this metric “cannot be regarded as credible.”

Professor Maul also found that many lower-scoring students were excluded from the analysis; that the study doesn’t clearly communicate that the comparison is not with traditional public schools in general, but with a subset of TPS schools that students have left to attend charters; and the decisions made in reporting the results are “insufficiently described and justified.”

See “Review of Urban Charter School Study 2015” by Andrew Maul, University of California-Santa Barbara, April 27, 2015 at http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/ttr-urbancharter-credo.pdf

See “Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) (2015, March). “Urban Charter School Study”. Palo Alto: CREDO, Stanford University. March, 2015, from

http://urbancharters.stanford.edu/index.php.

6)  Voucher Study Released:  The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability released on April 16, 2015 an analysis study of the Indiana Choice Legislation, and concludes that aside from supporting parental choice ideology, “there is no compelling policy reason to subsidize it with public taxpayer dollars meant to educate children.”

The Indiana Choice Legislation uses public tax dollars to subsidize school choice in the form of vouchers, state income-tax deductions, and state income-tax credits. It is one of the most comprehensive school choice programs in the nation, and in 2014-15 provided $115 million for vouchers.

To answer the question, “can Indiana expect its school choice program to enhance student performance or help build a better public education system statewide?” researchers examined objective peer reviewed studies of voucher programs in a number of states. 

What they found is voucher programs do not enhance student achievement, and furthermore, voucher programs are not among the education reforms used to improve student achievement among the highest ranking nations on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA) exam.

The researchers state,

“In fact, it appears that core aspects of Indiana’s voucher program are directly contrary to best practice education reforms implemented by the five global leaders in education: Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Canada.5”

“Indeed, based on the available evidence, rather than improve student performance and the overall public education system in Indiana, the Indiana Choice Legislation may actually impede student achievement specifically and harm the education system generally. At a time when public resources are scarce, it is not advisable for state decision makers to divert public education funding to programs that cannot be expected to help children learn or improve the education system.”

See “Analysis of Indiana School Choice Scholarship Program” by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA), April 16, 2015 at 

http://www.ctbaonline.org/sites/default/files/reports/ctbaonline.org/node/add/repository-report/1429130411/R_2015.04.16._CTBA_IN%20School%20Voucher%20Report__FINAL.pdf

7)  Bills Introduced

•HB181 (Clyde) Online Voter Registration-Automatic Update:  Requires that eligible persons in certain government and school databases be automatically registered to vote or have their registrations updated automatically unless those persons decline to do so, and creates an online voter registration system.

•HB179 (Stinziano) Automatic Voter Registration:  Amends the versions of sections 4507.05 and 4507.06 of the Revised Code that are scheduled to take effect January 1, 2017, to continue the provisions of this act on and after the effective date, to require that eligible persons in the database of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles be automatically registered to vote, or have their registrations updated automatically, as applicable, unless those persons decline to be registered or to update their registrations.

•HB174 (Barnes) Graduation Degree Entrepreneurial Skills:  With regard to entrepreneurial skills education requirements for professional graduate degree programs at state institutions of higher education.

FYI ARTS

•Poetry Out Loud Finals:  Congratulations to Bexley High School senior Sarah Binau, who received a $1000 award and $500 for her school in the national Poetry Out Loud competition on April 29, 2015.  Ms. Binau presented the poems After Apple Picking by Robert Frost, Onions by William Mathews, and Anne Bradstreet’s The Author to Her Book.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation partner with U.S. state arts agencies to support Poetry Out Loud.  The program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.

Ms. Binau was Ohio’s representative in the national competition and finished among the top nine contenders out of a field of 53. This year’s national champion is Maeva Ordaz from Alaska, who will receive a $20,000 prize.

•OAC Announces Grant Recipients:  The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) announced on April 29, 2015 that it will award nearly $383,390 to 88 recipients in its latest round of approvals. The OAC board met on April 15, 2015 to approve recommendations for Individual Excellence grants, and ratify grants for Artists with Disabilities Access and Building Cultural Diversity.

The OAC has received for FY15 to data a total of 1,222 grant requests totaling over $14 million, and has funded 589 of those requests for $9.76 million this fiscal year. In most cases these grants will be matched dollar for dollar by private or other public funds.  The grant programs support artists, arts organizations, and arts programs across Ohio.

For a list of grant recipients please see http://oac.state.oh.us/news/StaticFiles/2015spring_council_meeting_citypio.pdf

See http://www.oac.state.oh.us/News/NewsArticle.asp?intArticleId=783

From: Ann Brennan 

FYI: Important update: Note that the House approved the budget bill ( Sub. HB 64) , extensive update follows; and the House Education Committee approved Sub. HB 74 the bill that makes substantive changes to state assessments and the use of student growth factors for teacher evaluation purposes and provides testing time limitations to all testing - comprehensive update follows.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joan Platz <joan.platz@gmail.com>;
To: Joan Platz <joan.platz@gmail.com>;
Sent: Sun, Apr 26, 2015 9:16 pm
Subject: Arts on Line Education Update April 27, 2015
Ohio Alliance for Arts Education
Arts on Line Education Update
Joan Platz
April 27, 2015

1) Ohio News

•131st Ohio General Assembly: The Ohio House and Senate will hold hearings and sessions this week.

The House Education Committee, chaired by Representative Hayes, will meet on April 28, 2015 at 9:00 AM in hearing room 017. The committee will receive testimony on HB70 (Driehaus/Brenner) Community Learning Center Process; HB118 (Devitis/Patmon) Tuition Overload Fees; HB148 (Patterson/Latourette) Classroom Facilities Assistance.

The Senate Finance Education Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Hite, will receive testimony from several agencies regarding Sub. HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget on April 29, 2015 at 2:30 PM in the North Hearing Room. Testifying this week will be the Department of Education, the Ohio State School for the Blind, the Ohio State School for the Deaf, the Ohio Lottery Commission, and the Governor’s office.

The subcommittee will also meet on April 30, 2015 at 10:00 AM in the South Hearing Room to receive testimony on Sub. HB64 from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission and the Legislative Service Commission.

•House Votes to Change Date of Primary: The Ohio House approved by a vote of 56-41 HB153 (Dovilla) Primary Elections on April 22, 2015. The bill would change the date of the presidential primary election in Ohio to the second Tuesday after the first Monday in March 2016. The current primary date is set for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. Republicans proposed the change to accommodate a Republican National Committee rule to encourage state Republican parties to hold primaries later in the year. The winner of a state Republican primary held later than the first two weeks in March can win all of the state’s delegates to the party’s national presidential convention, rather than receiving a proportion of the state delegates based on the percent of votes received.

See https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-documents?id=GA131-HB-153

•Senate Testing Committee Report Due Soon: According to Hannah News Service, the Senate Advisory Committee on Testing met on April 22, 2015 to review a draft of some concepts that the committee will use to develop recommendations to revise Ohio’s assessment system. According to the committee, Ohio’s state assessment system should reflect efficiency; provide timely feedback; be transparent; provide a single technical platform; include accommodations for students with IEPs and 504 plans; be a true “safe harbor”; align with standards and be grade appropriate; consider student accessibility and capacity with technology; and support teacher professional development and training.

The advisory committee was brought together by Senate President Keith Faber and Senator Peggy Lehner, chair of the Senate Education Committee.

See http://sact.ohiosenate.gov

See http://www.hannah.com/Hannah/NewsStory.aspx?id=199527&HL=True.

•RESA Assessors Needed: The Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Resident Educator Summative Assessment (RESA) team is seeking teachers, administrators, and university education faculty to become assessors to assist in the scoring of candidate submissions for the 2014-2015 Resident Educator Summative Assessment. The summative assessment is one of the requirements that beginning teachers must pass to qualify for a five-year professional educator license in Ohio. Assessors are needed in general education; low frequency foreign languages; vocational and career-technical fields; special education; and teaching in settings such as crisis centers, detention centers, or medical facilities.

Applicants must have at least five years of teaching experience in preK-12 or in teacher education at a college or university, and must successfully complete online training and a certification test. According to the RESA Assessor web site, “It is strongly preferred that applicants have a current professional educator license or a permanent teaching certificate in the state of Ohio.”

See http://www.ohioresa.com/?page_id=12

2) National News

•Legislation to Address Opt-Out Consequences: According to the Finger Lake Times in Geneva, New York, Congressman Tom Reed intends to introduce a bill in the U.S. House to prevent the U.S. Department of Education from reducing federal funding for a school district that does not meet the federal requirement that 95 percent of students be tested each year in grades 3-8 and once in grades 9-12.

Thousands of students throughout New York State have opted-out of state standardized testing this year, raising questions about possible consequences when school districts do not meet the federal testing requirement. One of the consequences could be withholding federal funds or imposing penalties.

According to Chalk Beat, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently said that the “federal government is obligated to intervene if states fail to address the rising number of students who are boycotting mandated annual exams.”

But the article also explains that there are different interpretations of the federal law, and that some opt-out proponents believe that districts would need to fall below the 95 percent mark for students tested for three years before being sanctioned.

See “Bill would protect schools from testing boycott fallout”, by Jim Miller, Finger Lakes Times, April 22, 2015 at http://www.fltimes.com/news/article_1cbf8356-e8fd-11e4-bc74-03442329fc7d.html

See “As opt-out numbers grow, Arne Duncan says feds may have to step in” by Patrick Wall, Chalk Beat, April 21, 2015 at http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2015/04/21/as-opt-out-numbers-grow-arne-duncan-says-feds-may-have-to-step-in/#.VTvaylxSWgs

3) House Approves $71.5 billion Biennial Budget: The Ohio House approved Sub. HB64 (Smith), the biennial budget for the state, on April 22, 2015 after several hours of debate over amendments and speeches in support and in opposition to the bill. The proposed budget for FY16-17 would total $71.5 billion in general revenue funds and $131.6 billion in all funds.

The House Finance Committee, chaired by Representative Ryan Smith, reported the bill on April 20, 2015 after accepting an omnibus amendment that eliminated some of the provisions just added to the bill the week before. Most noteworthy, the committee removed a provision that prohibited the state auditor from performing audits on public records; added funds to mail absentee ballot applications for the 2016 election; removed a provision that would have restricted certain college faculty members from participating in a union and a provisions that would have prohibited unionized employees of charter schools from participating in the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) or School Employees Retirement System; and, after convincing testimony from a number of school districts, added $102 million so that all school districts will receive in FY16 and FY17 at least the same amount of state aid as in FY15. This last provision solves a problem that 93 school districts faced due to the phase-out of reimbursements for the loss of the tangible personal property tax and kilowatt hour tax revenue.

According to the Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO), the bill includes $900 million in new money for primary and secondary education when compared to FY2015. However, overall GRF appropriations for the ODE are less than in FY2015. The following are some of the areas with significant changes in proposed funding between FY15, FY16, and FY17:

General Revenue Funds - ODE
FY15 (estimated) $8,415,765,295
FY16 $7,618,575,127
FY17 $8,049,885,889

Lottery Profits
FY15 (estimated) $1,042,200,000
FY16 $1,012,050,000
FY17 $1,013,400,000

Revenue Distribution Fund
FY15 (estimated) $510,000,000
FY16 $0
FY17 $0

Early Childhood Education
FY15 (estimated) $45,318,341
FY16 $60,268,341
FY17 $70,268,341

Student Assessments
FY15 (estimated) $75,895,000
FY16 $40,241,438
FY17 $39,830,050

Democrats on the House Finance Committee proposed several amendments, which were all tabled. One amendment, offered by Representative Debbie Phillips, would have required boards of education to employ five of nine “education service personnel” per 1000 students in the areas of school nurse, school counselor, library media specialist, school social worker, technology, English as a second language, and art, music, and physical education teachers. This provision would have placed in law, rather than in Ohio Administrative Code rule, the so called “five of eight” rule, which was recently changed by the State Board of Education. The amendment was slightly different than the original rule, and would have eliminated the area of “visiting teacher” and added technology and English language learners as new educational service personnel categories.

Some of the same amendments were submitted again by House Democrats when the Ohio House took action on HB64 on April 22, 2015. Representative Cera proposed to direct income tax cuts to middle and low income Ohioans; Representative Phillips tried to remove a $25 per student payment to e-schools for school facilities; and Representative Ramos tried to increase the Ohio Opportunity Grants program to $250 million and repeal the Pell-first policy.

Again, all amendments proposed by Democrats were tabled, and the bill passed by a vote of 65 to 35, with three Democrats supporting the bill, and five Republicans opposing the bill.

Action on Sub. HB64 now moves to the Ohio Senate, where hearings have already started. The bill has been assigned to the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Oelslager, Medicaid Committee, and Ways and Means Committee, which will review the tax components. The provisions for primary and secondary education will be considered by the Education Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Hite. The committee also includes Senators Balderson, Widener, Coley, Lehner, Sawyer (Vice Chair), Thomas, and Yuko.

The budget for the Ohio Arts Council will be considered by the Higher Education Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Gardner. Other committee members include Senators Bacon, Hughes, Manning Cafaro (Vice Chair), and Thomas.

4) Summary of Amendments to HB64: According to the Ohio Association of School Business Officials, Sub. HB 64 as approved by the House “...makes positive structural changes to the school-funding formula”, and the “total package represents a major improvement to the as-introduced version of HB 64.”

In addition to holding school districts harmless for losses due to formula changes, which was included in the substitute bill approved on April 14, 2015, an omnibus amendment accepted by the House Finance Committee on April 20, 2015 included a hold-harmless provision that would keep Tangible Personal Property (TPP) and Public Utility Tangible Personal Property (PUTPP) tax replacement payments to schools at FY15 levels. No district would receive less money than in FY15, including TPP and PUTPP replacement payments, and 446 districts would receive a net increase in funding. Some of the education-related amendments included in the omnibus amendment are included below:

•Provides $1.25 million in FY16 for the Secretary of State to mail absentee ballot applications to all Ohio voters.

•Establishes the Joint Education Oversight Commission to advise the General Assembly on education issues.

•Extends the safe harbor provisions accepted in the substitute bill for teachers and districts to children as well.

•Specifies the allocation of the Ohio College Opportunity Grant between public institutions and private for-profit and nonprofit institutions of higher education, and states that the funds will be distributed on a need basis if the appropriation cannot cover all students funded in the prior academic year.

•Removes language prohibiting the Auditor from conducting public records audits.

•Removes language that considers faculty members of state institutions of higher education involved in specified policy decisions supervisors or management level employees, and therefore ineligible to be in the union.

•Increases line item 200-597, Education Program Support, by $1.5 million per year and earmarks that money for Teach for America.

•Requires the Ohio Department of Education to complete a study on the feasibility of creating three gifted schools in different ESC regions.

•Increases the cap, from $360 to $420 per pupil, on reimbursements to chartered nonpublic schools for clerical and administrative expenses, if appropriations are sufficient. This provision does not include new money.

•Reinstates the exemption for chartered nonpublic schools accredited through the Independent Schools Association of the Central States from the high school graduation assessment requirements, and the requirement to take the high school end-of-course exams, as well as current exemptions for nonpublic schools and scholarship students.

•Permits the Auditor to elevate a situation from financial watch to emergency even if an entity has a financial recovery plan. Also lowers the time frame for a local government to create a financial plan from 120 days to 90 days.

•Provides an option for universities to increase their tuition by 2 percent or $200 and for community colleges, and regional campuses to increase by 2 percent or $100.

•Compels The Ohio State University Board of Trustees to adopt a resolution either for or against providing voting power to student members.

•Removes language regarding win-win agreements,

•Restores current law related to the education of a person up to the age of 22, who has not received a diploma or equivalent, and appropriates $2.5 million per year for this purpose.

•Removes language prohibiting community school employees who collectively bargain from membership in STRS or SERS.

•Changes the administrative deadline for the reading skills assessment of the 3rd grade reading guarantee to November 1st for kindergartners.

•Inserts early childhood education language from House Bill 2 to direct the appropriation that exists in HB64.

•Permits the administrator of a school district to approve the installation of security devices, including door barriers, as part of the school’s emergency management plan.

•Increases 200-597, Education Program Support, by $250,000 in FY’16 for We Can Code IT.

The Sub. HB64 as passed by the House is available at http://www.lsc.ohio.gov/budget/mainbudget.htm

5) Education Committee Reports Sub. HB74: The House Education Committee, chaired by Representative Hayes, reported HB74 (Brenner) Primary and Secondary Education on April 21, 2015. The bill responds to concerns expressed by parents, educators, and students about the amount of statewide testing and the consequences for students, schools, and teachers. It includes provisions that address testing limits, statewide assessments, Ohio’s report card, and Ohio’s teacher evaluation framework. For example, the bill leaves it up to local boards of education to establish a method for determining student academic growth for teachers who teach in a subject area other than English language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies in any of grades four through twelve for which the value-added progress dimension or alternative student academic progress measure is not applicable.

HB74 also requires that the ODE send out a request for proposals to develop new state assessments, but prohibits the ODE from accepting proposals from any testing consortia that received funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This provision would therefore exclude the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balance consortia from responding to the RFP.

The following is a summary of provisions included in Sub. HB74 as reported by the committee:

Section 3301.079 Diagnostic Assessments: Changes the grade levels and types of diagnostic assessments that the State Board of Education is required to adopt. States that the board will adopt diagnostic assessments for grades kindergarten through three (rather than two) in reading (eliminating writing).

-Further states that the ODE shall specify not less than two mathematics
diagnostic assessments that are approved for identifying students as gifted in the specific academic ability field of mathematics, and for the student academic growth component of teacher evaluations.

-Requires each academic standards review committee to submit its review of the state’s academic standards to the state board and the ODE not later than September 30, 2015.

Section 3301.0710 Student Assessments: States that beginning with the 2015-2016 school year, each assessment prescribed under division (A)(1) of this section, which is unchanged in the bill, shall be administered as an end-of-year summative assessment.

-After July 1, 2015 the assessments in division (A) shall not exceed three hours per assessment; the duration of the administration for each high school end-of -
course examination prescribed by division (B)(2) of section 3301.0712 of the Revised Code shall not exceed three hours per year.

-States that the limitations prescribed by this paragraph shall not apply to assessments for students with disabilities, the English language arts assessment or any related diagnostic assessment for students who failed to attain a passing score on that English language arts achievement assessment, and the nationally standardized assessments that measure college and career readiness, or substitute examinations.

Section 3301.0711 Third Grade Reading Assessment: States that for the 2015-2016 school year, and for each school year thereafter, school districts shall administer the English language arts assessment once annually to all students in the third grade. The ODE shall not require districts to administer the reading assessment in the fall.

-Requires the ODE to identify and approve at least two assessments that can be used for multiple purposes, including a diagnostic assessment administered to third-grade students; an assessment that permits a student to demonstrate an acceptable level of performance for purposes of the third grade reading guarantee; and an assessment used to identify students as gifted in specific academic ability fields in reading, writing, or both.

-Allows school districts to charge a fee to a student for an advanced placement or international baccalaureate examination.

Section 3301.0712 College and Work-Ready Assessments: Reduced the number of end-of-course exams from seven to five in English language arts I, science, Algebra I, American history, and American government.

-NEW. Requires the state board by March 1, 2016 to compile a list of multiple assessments that are equivalent to the end of course exams that schools districts, charter schools, and non public schools may use instead of the end of course exams. Requires the state board to develop a table of corresponding score equivalents for all end of course exams. Requires a school district to notify the ODE which assessment or assessments the district or school selects for each subject area by September 15th of each school year. Requires the entity that scores the equivalent examination to provide the student score data on that equivalent examination on behalf of the district or school, for purposes of calculating measures for the state report card.

-States that a score of two on an advanced placement examination or a score of three on an international baccalaureate examination shall be considered equivalent to a proficient level of skill as specified under division (B)(5)(a)(iii) of this section.

-Removes a provision that allowed a school district that utilizes an integrated approach to math instruction to administer an integrated math II end of course exam in lieu of the prescribed geometry end of course exam, because the bill removes this provision from the law.

-Requires the state board to revise the job skills assessment with input from individuals and educators who have a background in career technical education.

-(I) States that beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, a school district may use the end-of-course examinations, substitute examinations, or equivalent exams, as final examinations for the related subject-area class or course of study.

Section 3301.0715 Diagnostic Assessments: Allows school districts to administer a diagnostic assessment to kindergarten students between the first day of August and November 1, 2015. Requires the language and reading skills portion of the assessment to be administered by the thirtieth day of September to fulfill the requirements of division (B) of section 3313.608 of the Revised Code.

-Allows school districts to use another kindergarten literacy assessment identified by the ODE not later than July 1, 2016. Requires that the exam shall not exceed one hour.

NEW Section 3301.132 Resident Educator Program: Requires the ODE to determine which components of the resident educator performance -based assessment for purposes of the Ohio teacher residency program may be used as part of the teacher evaluations.

-Requires the ODE to develop a table of assessments that may be used for multiple purposes for which a measure of student performance or aptitude is required in order to reduce the total number of assessments. The table shall include achievement assessments, diagnostic assessments, end-of-course examinations, substitute examinations, examinations related to student academic growth measures, assessments used to identify students as gifted in superior cognitive ability and specific academic ability fields and other assessments. Requires the department to make the table available to school districts, community schools, STEM schools, college-preparatory boarding schools and chartered nonpublic schools.

NEW Section 3301.80 State Standards: Requires the state board and the ODE to develop a procedure to consult with teachers and superintendents from rural, urban, and suburban school districts, and develop a procedure to collect public feedback, both electronically and in person, for a period of not less than sixty days, when adopting education policies or standards required by state statutory law. For purposes of this section, “urban” districts shall include those that belong to the Ohio 8 coalition or its successor.

Section 3302.02 Report Cards: Requires the state board to adopt rules to establish proficiency percentages to meet each indicator that is based on a state assessment for the report card, and specifies the deadlines for doing so each school year.

Section 3302.03 Report Cards: (4) States that for the overall letter grade assigned each component grade assigned under this section, and each performance measure grade assigned under this section for a district or school, the ODE shall express that grade as a percentage of the total number of points possible for the respective overall grade, component grade, or performance measure grade.

-Requires the state board by July 1, 2017, rather than 2015, to develop a measure of student academic progress for high school students using data from assessments in English language arts and math, and assign a separate letter grade for the 2017-18 school year. For the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 school years the ODE may include this measure on a school district or school report card.

-Allows cumulative totals from both the fall and spring administrations of the third grade English language arts achievement assessment until the 2015-16 school year.

Section 3302.13 Third grade reading achievement improvement plan: Clarifies which assessment would apply.

Section 3313.608 Third grade reading guarantee: States that the reading skills assessment shall be completed by the 13th day of September for students in grades one to three, and by the first day of November for students in kindergarten.

NEW Section 3313.903 Industry credential: States that except as otherwise required under federal law, the ODE shall consider an industry recognized credential or a license issued by a state agency or board for practice in a vocation that requires an examination for issuance of that license as an acceptable measure of technical skill attainment, and shall not require a student to take additional technical assessments regardless of whether the student has earned the credential or taken the licensing examination at the time the technical assessments would otherwise be administered.

Section 3319.111 Teacher evaluations - Student academic growth: (B)(1) States that for teachers who teach English language arts or math in any of grades four through eight for which the value-added progress dimension or an alternative student academic progress measure, if adopted by the state board, is applicable, the board of education shall use the value-added progress dimension or the alternative student academic progress measure.

-(2) For teachers who teach English language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies in any of grades four through twelve for which the value-added progress dimension or alternative student academic progress measure is not applicable, the board shall administer assessments identified by the ODE.

-(3) For teachers who teach in a subject area other than English language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies in any of grades four through twelve for which the value-added progress dimension or alternative student academic progress measure is not applicable, the board shall establish and use a method for determining the student academic growth measure.

-(4) For teachers who teach English language arts or mathematics in any of grades one through three, the board shall administer assessments on the list developed by the ODE.

-(5) For teachers who teach kindergarten or teach in a subject area other than English language arts or mathematics in any of grades one through three, the board shall establish and use a method for determining the student academic growth measure.

Not later than thirty days after the effective date of this amendment, the state board of education shall provide guidance to districts for the evaluation of the student academic growth of a teacher under divisions (B)(3) and (5) of this section.

Section 3: Amends Sections 10 and 13 of Am. Sub. HB487 to do the following:

-Adjusts the applicable school years to 2015-16 in a provision that permits, but does not require, school districts, STEM schools, community schools, or nonpublic schools to administer assessments online.

-States that boards of education and the governing authority of community schools and STEM schools, that have entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the representative of teachers to not use student academic growth for the purposes of making decisions about teachers, shall use a different measure of student progress, approved by the ODE for purposes of teacher evaluations under sections 3311.80, 3319.111, and 3319.112 of the Revised Code.

Section 5: Requires the ODE to determine the impact of online testing on student performance.

Section 6: Requires the state board not later than July 1, 2016, to submit recommendations to the Governor, the chairpersons and ranking members of the education committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the State Board of Education, about how to revise the framework for evaluation of teachers prescribed under sections 3319.111, 3319.112, and 3319.114 to reduce the estimated time necessary to complete teacher evaluations.

Section 7. Requires the ODE to conduct a comprehensive survey of the capacity and readiness of each school district for online administration of the assessments and report the results.

Section 8: Requires the state board to provide on the ODE web site an online opportunity to make comments about the academic content standards. Based on the review by the Academic Standards Review Committee and the public comments, requires the state board by June 30, 2016 to adopt revised academic content standards in English language arts, math, science, and social studies.

Section 9: Requires the ODE to issue requests for proposals to develop new state assessments that meet certain criteria, and prohibits certain multi-state consortia from participating in the RFP.

Section 10: Requires the ODE to complete a study of state diagnostic assessments and include at least a comparison of ease of administration, overall quality, performance levels, cost, and type of analysis available to school districts and schools.

Section 11: Requires the state board not later than November 1, 2015, to make a recommendation on whether or not to extend by one year the safe harbor provisions.

6) Report Analyzes Funding for Charter and Traditional Schools: The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project, a joint effort of the Ohio Education Association and Innovation Ohio, released on April 21, 2015 a new report that examines spending patterns and revenue sources for charter schools. The report is based on 2013-14 data included in the Ohio Report Card Advanced Reports prepared by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE).

The purpose of the report is to respond to charter school proponents who are seeking more funding for charter schools in the biennial budget by accessing directly local tax revenue for school districts.

According to this report, charter schools spend less on classroom instruction than traditional school districts; spend more per pupil than districts spend on administrative costs, professional development, and programs to support pupils combined; pay teachers 40 percent less than districts; in most cases do not pay for transporting students, saving more than $1000 per student on average; and some 53 charter schools receive on average $137,000 in private donations. The average amount of private donations for traditional public schools is $152,000 for about 507 out of 613 school districts.

The report concludes that “If charter schools spent the same amount per pupil as school districts spend on administration, charters would have enough money to spend about the same amount of money in the classroom as local school districts. And that’s without directly receiving any local money.”

The report also examines the difference between the average amount of state aid received by charter schools compared to traditional public schools. According to a separate report, charter schools receive on average $1,596 more than traditional public schools from the state. This happens because school districts never receive the full amount of base state aid per pupil, because state aid is adjusted in the school funding formula for school district wealth. But, the state still deducts the full per pupil base amount in state aid for charter schools from school district state aid funds. This means that traditional public schools receive less state base funds per pupil than charter schools. To make-up for the reduced state funds due to the full per pupil base amount deduction for charter schools, traditional public schools must either raise more local revenue, or cut educational programs. For the 2013-14 school year, for example, after charter school deductions, school districts on average received $4,149 per pupil in state base funding, while charter schools received $5,745 per pupil in state base funding.

See “Money for Ohio’s Charter Schools - More than Meets the Eye”, April 21, 2015 at
http://knowyourcharter.com/files/2015/04/Charter-School-Funding.pdf

See “How Local Tax Revenues Subsidize Ohio Charter Schools”, Ohio Charter School Accountability Project, December 16, 2014 at
http://knowyourcharter.com/2014/12/16/local-tax-revenues-subsidize-ohio-charter-schools/

7) Bills Introduced

•HB160 (DeVitis) Textbooks-Higher Education: With regard to the selection, availability, and purchase of textbooks that are required for a course offered by any state institution of higher education.

FYI ARTS

•Nominate Ohio’s First Poet Laureate!: The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) is accepting nominations for the first Ohio Poet Laureate through May 20, 2015. Ohio’s Poet Laureate will serve a two year term that begins on January 1, 2016 and ends on December 31, 2017. Nominations will be reviewed by the OAC’s Ohio Poet Laureate Committee, which will make a recommendation to Governor Kasich, who will make a final decision.

The position was created through enactment of 130-SB84 (Kearney) in 2014 to “...foster the art of poetry, encourage literacy and learning, address central issues relating to the humanities and heritage, and encourage the reading and writing of poetry across the state.”

Information about qualifications and submission requirements are available at
http://www.oac.state.oh.us/grantsprogs/StaticPages/Ohio%20Poet%20Laureate%20-%20nomination%20guidelines.pdf

•Tax Credit for Music Production Proposed: Ohio House Democrats posted on their web site on April 17, 2015 a proposal by Representative Kent Smith from Euclid to promote the growth of Ohio’s music industry through enactment of the Ohio Sound Recording Investor Tax Credit, called “OhioSounds,” The tax credit would provide incentives for music production, studio construction, and recording within the state.

According to the post, the nation’s music industry earns nearly $7 billion of revenue annually, and has become recognized for stimulating the development of new technology, innovations, and new business models.

OhioSounds would help Ohio’s musical industry become more competitive by providing tax credits for up to 25 percent of the related sound recording production costs for music projects created in Ohio. It would also refund up to 25 percent of music studio construction and recording infrastructure costs. The proposed tax incentive plan models one in Louisiana.

Democrats are working to include the tax credit in Sub. HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget.

See http://www.ohiohouse.gov/kent-smith/press/cleveland-lawmaker-wants-ohiosounds-incentive-to-spur-economic-growth-in-music-industry

Legislative Update 4-20-15

1) State Board of Education Activity

The State Board of Education approved on April 13, 2015 by a vote of 11-7 a final resolution to revise OAC (Ohio Administrative Code) Rules 3301-35-01 through 3301-35-10, Standards for School Districts and Schools Kindergarten Through Twelfth Grade (Operating Standards). This revision included the controversial “ five of eight rule”, definition of education service personnel (OAC 3301-35 (A) (3) 3301-35-01 (B) (13). Several opponents of this revision testified for restoration of the current ESP rule, including representatives from the OEA. OSPA provided written testimony to the Board last fall advocating for the restoration of the current rule.

The revised rule eliminates the requirement that boards of education employ five of eight educational service personnel per 1000 students in the areas of school nurse, social worker, counselor, visiting teacher, and elementary art, music, and physical education. It also expands the definition of educational service personnel to include more school employees.

The revised rule is as follows, the language directing the State Board committee to develop a method for collecting ESP staffing data is not included in the rule, however it was approved by the State Board in December 2014.

Rule 3301-35-01 (Definitions)

(B)(13) "Educational service personnel" are specially qualified individuals who possess the knowledge, skills and expertise to support the educational, instructional, health, mental health and college and career readiness needs for all students. All educational service personnel shall hold appropriate qualifications, including applicable special teaching certificates, multi-age licensure or specific licensure in the areas to which they are assigned.

(a) Educational service personnel that support educational, instructional and college and career readiness programs include, but are not limited to: elementary fine arts, music, and physical education teachers, librarian or media specialists, school counselors and reading intervention specialists;

(b) Educational service personnel that support the learning needs of the special needs student population include, but are not limited to: gifted intervention specialists, adapted physical education teacher, audiologist, interpreter, speech-language pathologists, physical and occupational therapists and English as a second language specialist;

(c) Educational service personnel that support the health and mental health of the student population include, but are not limited to: the school nurse, social worker, school psychologist, and school resource officer.

Rule 3301-35-05 (Faculty and Staff Focus)

(A)(3) The local board of education shall be responsible for the scope and type of educational services in the district. The district shall employ educational service personnel to enhance the learning opportunities of all students. Educational service personnel assigned to elementary fine arts, music and physical education shall hold the special teaching certificate or multi-age license in the subject to which they are assigned.

Referral to Accountability Committee

The State Board of Education directs the Accountability Committee to develop a method to report education service personnel on the report card for each area defined in rule 3301-35-01(B)(13). This method shall specify how the data will be reported annually by school, district, and state, including the total number of educational service personnel and the number per 1000 students or less. The Accountability Committee shall direct the Ohio Department of Education to report this data on the report card as soon as it can be implemented, but no later than the 2015-2016 report card.

2) Ohio General Assembly Activity

A) Budget bill update:

The House Finance Committee is expected to approve Sub. HB 64 this week for a full House vote possibly also this week. The House Finance committee accepted the substitute bill the week of April 13. The major school funding amendment increased the funding for primary and secondary education by $179 million, bringing the total in state funds to $845 million over the biennium. The guarantee was also amended, to provide that school districts would be guaranteed no less than the FY 15 formula aid.

Compared to the executive budget, in which over half of school districts would have lost state funding, the substitute bill increases state formula aid for 494 school districts over the next two years, and holds 116 districts harmless. Increases in state aid are capped at 7.5 percent rather than 10 percent. And, 28 wealthy school districts will receive additional funding above the cap, so that they receive at least the same amount of state support per student as private schools, which is about $1,200 per student. This provision will be phased-in. Some 93 districts would receive less state funding in FY16 and 17 compared to FY15 due to other adjustments made in state aid for the phase-out of the tangible personal property (TPP) tax and public utility tangible personal property tax reimbursements. Several districts losing funds under the TPP phase out testified in opposition to this last week.

The House bill funding formula changes include:

According to House leaders, Sub. HB64 revamps the state’s school funding formula proposed by Governor Kasich to better address state funding differences among the seven typologies of school districts: poor rural; rural; small town; poor small town; suburban; wealthy suburban; urban; and major urban school districts.

The House bill increases formula funding in both fiscal years for all typologies of school districts, and all typologies receive increases in state and local resources for schools over the biennium, but the House bill directs more state aid to school districts with less capacity to raise local funds.

The House bill provides funding to districts on a per-pupil basis according to a district’s Average Daily Membership (ADM), and includes the same levels of per pupil Opportunity Grant funding as the executive budget, which increases funding from $5,800 per pupil in FY15 to $5,900 in FY16, and to $6,000 in FY17.

In addition to per pupil funding, school districts will receive component funding for economically disadvantaged students, limited English proficiency students, special education students, gifted students, and funding for K-3 literacy. Increases in state funding are also included for K-3 literacy, special education, and career-technical education.

Changes are also made in the way the state determines school district capacity to raise local tax revenue and the school district’s local contribution to the state’s school funding formula. A Local Contribution Measure (LCM) would be used to determine what a district can raise in property tax from 20 mills. The LCM would then be adjusted for all districts on a prorated basis according to the district’s median income, directing more resources to those districts that have relatively low median incomes.

Transitional aid, also known as the guarantee, would be provided so that no district loses state formula aid compared to FY15 funding levels.

And, the House bill begins again the phase-out of Tangible Personal Property Tax (TPP) and Public Utility Tangible Property (PUTP) reimbursements. The substitute bill combines TPP and PUTP calculations, and bases the payments on the capacity of the district and its reliance on the reimbursement. Districts with greater capacity would see reimbursements reduced by up to 2 percent, while districts with lower capacity would see reimbursements reduced by up to one percent.

Targeted assistance is also provided to districts based on the district’s ability to raise revenue from a mill of local property tax. Districts would be ranked low to high on their capacity to generate local revenue compared to that of the median revenue district. Additional state aid would be allocated to districts that fall below the median revenue raising capacity.

The maximum growth in state aid a school district would receive in each fiscal year would be capped at 7.5 percent over the previous fiscal year.

In addition to the funding formula changes the House version of the bill deletes the following provisions from the Governor’s executive budget:

-Deletes most charter school reforms and the provisions about charter school early childhood education programs. The charter school reforms are included in SB148 and HB156, which also include HB2 (Dovilla/Roegner) provisions.

-Deletes provisions related to teacher evaluations and measuring student academic growth.

-Deletes provisions related to student counselors, including the requirement that the State Board develop standards for student counselors.

-Deletes provisions related to the fall administration of the third-grade English language arts assessment and provisions related to limits on testing.

The House substitute bill also added the following policy provisions:

•Exemptions for High Performing School Districts: Retains most of the provisions in the executive budget regarding “high performing school districts.”

-Exempts high performing school districts from the teacher credential qualification requirements for third grade students who require intensive remediation under the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee and the requirement for minimum or maximum class size.

-Permits high-performing school districts to hire nonlicensed individuals to teach classes for not more than 40 hours a week.

-Permits the Superintendent of Public Instruction to waive additional requirements upon application from high performing school districts.

-Deletes the exemption from the requirement to have a service agreement with an educational service center for schools with an average daily membership of 16,000 or less and the requirement to consult with an educational service center to provide services to children with disabilities.

• Ed Choice Scholarship Eligibility: Deletes some provisions that revise eligibility provisions for the Ed Choice Scholarship, but retains an increase in the amount of a scholarship for a high school student from $5,000 to $5,700.

• State Achievement Assessments: Sections 3301.078 and 263.283, 283.570, and 263.90. The House bill prohibits GRF appropriations from being used to purchase assessments developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) for use as the state elementary and secondary achievement assessments, and reduces the appropriation of GRF line item 200437, Student Assessment, by $33.5 million in each fiscal year.

Furthermore, the substitute bill prohibits funds from the federal Race to the Top program to be used for any purpose related to state elementary and secondary achievement assessments.

The House bill also deletes provisions that authorize the transfer of unexpended and unencumbered GRF appropriations within ODE and lottery profit line items to pay for assessments.

•Report Cards: Section 3302.03. Changes from 2015-2016 as under current law, to 2016-2017, the school year in which overall letter grades on the state report card must be issued.

•Joint Education Oversight Committee: Creates a Joint Education Oversight Committee. According to House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, this committee will enable House and Senate leaders to have ongoing and deliberate discussions about education policies, instead of trying to make decisions while debating the budget.

•School District Property: Prohibits community schools and college-preparatory boarding schools that have purchased unused school district real property, under the current provision requiring a district to offer such property to those schools, from selling that property for 5 years, unless the property is sold to another community school or college-preparatory boarding school located in the district.

• Educational Service Centers: Earmarks $37.7 million in FY16, but increases the earmark in FY17 to $40 million for state reimbursements to Educational Service Centers.

-Increases the per pupil state payment amount for ESCs to $35 per pupil in FY17 for ESCs that reduce client school district expenditures in FY16 through efficiencies for coordinating and consolidating services, and requires the State Board to adopt rules by October 31, 2015, governing the distribution of state funds to ESCs for FY17.

•Transportation: Section: 263.560. Creates the School Transportation Joint Task Force consisting of members appointed equally by the Speaker of the House and by the President of the Senate, and requires the task force to study the transportation funding formula and relationship, duties, and responsibilities between school districts, community schools, and nonpublic schools regarding student transportation, and submit a report to the General Assembly by February 1, 2016.

Additional education amendments adopted in committee on April 20, which became part of the bill as approved by the committee (21-11) and reported to the full House for a vote were:

· HC2460 – Ensures that all school districts are held harmless as a result of the TPP and KWH reimbursement phase-out.

· HC1751 – Establishes the Joint Education Oversight Commission to provide analysis to the General Assembly on education issues.

· HC1901 – Extends the safe harbor provisions related to state testing results accepted in the substitute bill for teachers and districts to children as well.

· HC1775-1 – Increases 200-597, Education Program Support, by $1.5 million per year and earmarks that money for Teach for America.

· HC1840 – Requires the Ohio Department of Education to complete a study on the feasibility of creating three gifted schools in different ESC regions.

· HC2082 – Increases the cap from $360 to $420 per pupil a chartered nonpublic school is reimbursed for clerical and administrative expenses, if appropriations are sufficient. This does not include new money.

· HC2279 – Reinstates the exemption for chartered nonpublic schools accredited through the Independent Schools Association of the Central States from the high school graduation assessment requirements and the requirement to take the high school end-of-course exams, as well as current exemptions for nonpublic schools and scholarship students.

· HC2469 – Strikes language prohibiting the Auditor from public records audits.

· HC1957 – Allows the Auditor to receive funds from recoveries from investigations they have participated in have achieved.

· HC1959 – Permits the Auditor to elevate a situation from financial watch to emergency to financial emergency even if they have received a financial recovery plan. Also lowers the timeframe for a local government to create a financial plan from 120 days to 90 days.

There was an amendment offered by Representative Phillips that would have restored the original “5 of 8” ESP rule language, it was tabled by the committee.

A full House vote is expected on April 21 or 22.

The Senate Finance Education subcommittee has already begun hearings on the budget provisions and they will continue throughout the month of May. The full Senate Finance has hearings scheduled through the beginning of June with a possible Senate vote on the budget expected on June 16 or 17. The budget must be passed by June 30, 2015.

B) Charter school reform bills update: New Charter School Bills Introduced

Senators Peggy Lehner and Tom Sawyer introduced SB148, a bipartisan bill to increase oversight of charter schools at a press conference on April 15, 2015. Representatives Kristina Roegner and John Patterson joined the press conference to announce the introduction of a companion bill in the House, HB156 Charter School Oversight.

The long-awaited Senate bill was developed with the help of a committee that Senator Lehner called together over a year ago. The committee included Alex Fisher and Stephen Lyons, Columbus Partnership; Barb Mattei-Smith, Cincinnati Public Schools; Bill Hiller; Bradley Ingraham and Jessica Voltolini, ODE; Chad Aldis and Kathryn Mullen-Upton, Thomas B. Fordham Institute; Claire Linkhart, David Cordonnier, and Liz Connolly, Ohio Senate; Darlene Chambers, Ohio Alliance of Public Charter Schools; Dan Keenan, Martha Holden Jennings Foundation; Holly Cantrell, LSC; Lisa Gray, Philanthropy Ohio; Mark Real, Kids Ohio; Marnie Carlisle and Robert Cupp, Ohio Auditor; Steve Dackin, Community Partnership at Columbus State Community College; and Susan Bodary, Education First.

According to Senator Lehner, the bill is based on model policies of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and incorporates the recommendations of two studies sponsored by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and an investigative report of charter school attendance conducted in October 2014 by State Auditor David Yost. The studies, “Charter School Performance in Ohio”, CREDO Stanford University, December 9, 2014 and “The Road to Redemption: Ten Policy Recommendations for Ohio’s Charter School Sector”, Bellwether Education Partners, December 2014, identified a number of problems plaguing Ohio’s charter school industry, including conflicts of interest, misappropriation of funds, poor accounting practices, unrecoverable funds, closed schools reopening, and an unprecedented number of school closures.

Auditor Yost’s report focused on student attendance irregularities and ways to increase transparency for reporting how public funds are spent.

SB148 includes most provisions already included in HB2 (Dovilla-Roegner), which has already been passed by the House, and HB64 (Smith) as introduced. However, Sub. HB64, accepted by the House Finance Committee on April 14, 2015, deletes some of those charter school provisions.

The Senate Finance Education Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Cliff Hite, is holding hearings this week on both SB148 and HB2. The new provisions for charter school oversight in SB148, and not included in HB2 or HB64, are listed below:

Miscellaneous
- Creates a committee to make recommendations regarding the definition of “quality” for drop out recovery schools, and how these programs should be funded based on performance.

School Districts
-Requires a school district that has filed a complaint in the courts against a student for a determination of truancy, to proceed with the complaint until the court has reached a determination. Specifies that a determination of truancy follows the child to any charter school in which the child enrolls.

Facilities
-Permits a school district to offer for lease as part of an agreement to share facilities, part of any parcel of real property to the governing authority of a high-performing charter schools for up to $10 per square foot, and requires the ODE to pay the lesser district an amount equal to 20 percent of the formula funding for each student at the charter school.

-Establishes a charter school classroom facilities assistance program, whereby the school facilities commission must provide 50 percent of the basic project cost to eligible charter schools, and establishes parameters for participation in the program. The charter school would be required to raise the other 50 percent of funds for a project.

Finances
-Requires the fiscal officer of a charter school to execute a bond in an amount and with surety to be approved by the governing authority of the charter school, and permits the sponsoring entity to compel delivery of all financial and enrollment records and seek recovery of funds.

-Makes an appropriation for hearing officers of charter schools to be used to pay the fees associated with independent hearing officers appointed when performing a final audit in the event that a charter school closes.

Sponsors
-Requires all new and renewed agreements between the ODE and a sponsor to contain specific language addressing the parameters under which the ODE can intervene and revoke sponsorship authority, and permits modification of the agreement under circumstances of poor fiscal management and lack of academic progress.

-Specifies that the sponsor is the party responsible for communicating and meeting with the auditor regarding any audit of the charter school or the condition of financial and enrollment record of the school, regardless of whether the sponsor has entered into an agreement with another entity to perform all or part of the sponsor’s oversight duties.

-Restricts the use of the three percent of funding that sponsors receive from charter schools to “monitoring, oversight and technical assistance” activities, and defines these terms.

-Requires each sponsor to annually verify that a finding for recovery has not been issued by the auditor against any member of the governing authority.

-Limits the terms of any directly authorized sponsorship agreements of the ODE to two years with no renewal option.

-States that a sponsor may exercise its option not to review a contract for any reason.

-Prohibits a sponsor of a charter school from selling any goods or services to a school that it sponsors.

Governing Boards
-Prohibits a person who has engaged in an act that would otherwise result in refusal, limitation, or revocation of a license to teach, from serving on the governing authority of a charter school.

-Prohibits a person from serving on the governing authority or engaging in the financial management of the charter school unless that person has submitted to a criminal records check.

-Limits the compensation per meeting of a charter school governing board member to $125 (as opposed to $425), but permits each member to be paid compensation for attendance at an approved training program in the same manner as school district board members.

-Requires charter schools to follow the same attendance standards as school districts.

-Requires the governing board to adopt an annual budget by October 31st and specifies what information must be included, such as administrative costs, instructional services, etc. States that the adoption of the annual budget can not be delegated to another entity.

-Requires reporting of each circumstance in which a student who is enrolled in a charter school is being educated in a facility in which eleven or more children are given non-secure care and supervisions twenty-four hours a day.

Management Companies
-Requires a management company that receives more than 20 percent of the annual gross revenues of a charter school to provide a detailed accounting, including the nature and costs of the goods and services it provides to the school using the accounting principles and standards set forth in all applicable pronouncements of the governmental accounting standards board.

-Eliminates the appeals process in cases in which the governing authority has notified the management company of its intent to terminate or not renew the operator’s contract.

Ohio Department of Education
-Requires the ODE to annually publish the criteria and requirements used to approve or deny an application and a directory of the names and identifying information of all management companies.

-Requires the ODE to annually obtain a copy of each contract between a governing authority and its management company.

-Requires the ODE to create a historical document showing every charter schools that has closed, applications to sponsor schools, and whether or not the application was approved or denied, among other things, and requires the ODE to update the document annually.

E-Schools
-Permits an internet or computer based charter school to provide students with a location within a fifty-mile radius of the student’s residence at which the student may receive counseling, instructional coaching, and testing assistance.

-Requires e-schools to keep an accurate record of and report the number of hours each individual student is actively participating in learning opportunities in each period of 24 consecutive hours.

-Requires e-schools to conduct a student orientation course, and conditions enrollment on participation in the course.

-Requires that if the academic performance of a student at an e-school declines, the student’s parents, teachers, and principal must confer to evaluate the student’s continued enrollment.

C) Bills and Activity related to Revising State Testing Requirements

HB 74 action: The House Education Committee, chaired by Representative Hayes, met on April 14, 2015 and accepted an omnibus amendment for HB74 (Brenner) Primary and Secondary Assessments. The bill reduces the administrative time for state assessments and the number and type of state assessments; makes changes in Ohio’s accountability system; and makes changes in teacher evaluations. The omnibus amendment makes the following changes in the bill:

Report Card
-Requires that the ODE include on the report card the percentage and grade letter assigned for report card performance measures so that progress can be demonstrated.

-Changes the deadlines for adoption of rules governing report cards for the 2014-15 school year (December 31, 2015); 2015-16 (July 1, 2016) and 2016-17 (July 1, 2017).

-Permits, rather than requires, the SBE to development a value-added measures for high school end of course exams, and delays the date of adding a graded measure for high school value added progress to the report card until 2016-17.

Assessments
-Requires the State Board by March 31, 2016 to identify equivalent score levels for substitute and equivalent end of course exams.

-Requires the ODE by July 1, 2015 to make available a literacy assessment to use in lieu of the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA). The literacy assessment would be similar to the KRAL. Permits school districts to use either assessment.

-States that state assessments administered starting in 2015-16 shall be an end of year summative assessments only, and that the administration time for assessments shall not exceed three hours per assessment.

-Requires the ODE to consider at least ease of administration, content, format, overall quality, performance benchmarks, cost, and whether or not a test is nationally normed when developing a request for proposal process for soliciting assessments. Makes the Partnership for the Assessment of College and Career Readiness and the Smarter Balanced Consortia ineligible for the RFP process.

-Clarifies the assessment used to identify students gifted in math.

-Requires by December 31, 2015 that the ODE complete a study comparing certain kinds of assessments. The study shall include the overall quality, ease of administration, performance levels, cost, and types of data available to districts and schools.

Teacher Evaluations
-Requires the State Board to provide guidance, rather than prescribe measures, for student progress to be utilized for the evaluation of teachers who teach non-core subjects in grades 4-12, kindergarten teachers, and teachers in grades 1-3 who do not teach math and English language arts.

-Requires the State Board to submit recommendations for revision of teacher evaluation framework to the governor, chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate education committees no later than July 1, 2016.

-Establishes a deadline of 90 days after the effective date of legislation by which the ODE shall determine which components of the resident educator program may be used as part of the teacher evaluation framework.

Career Tech
-Exempts students in career tech program who have taken a credentialing exam from further examinations.

-Requires the State Board to consult with individuals with a background in career technical education when selecting a job skills assessment.

State Standards
-Requires the State Board and the ODE to develop a procedure that includes consulting with educators and soliciting public input when adopting policies or standards required by statute.

-Requires the existing State Standards Review Committee to review the state standards and submit their review and recommendations to the State Board and the ODE no later than September 30, 2015, and requires the State Board no later than November 1, 2015 to make a recommendation regarding the safe harbor provisions for an additional year.

Ohio Senate Advisory Committee on Testing Activity:

The Ohio Senate Advisory Committee on Testing has held three meetings and will likely meet a few more times this spring for the purpose of making recommendations regarding the PARCC and the AIR state assessments. Representatives from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), Pearson, and American Institutes of Research presented to the committee on April 15, 2015 to discuss state assessments and the problems that have arisen this year as Ohio implements new state assessments aligned to new state standards, including the Common Core.

The presenters answered questions from the committee members and the PARCC and Pearson representatives indicated they are currently working on ways to both shorten the tests as well as combining the testing windows into one window.

In answer to the question by one committee member regarding whether the testing companies, if required by Ohio legislative changes, could come up with an alternative version of the PARCC assessments- fine tuned for Ohio, the representatives answered they would need the specifics of that proposal now in order to accomplish that for the next school year. The AIR representatives indicated they could revise their tests with a quick turn around time once they are given specific requests.

Senator Lehner, the chair, asked the advisory committee to focus solely on recommendations to improve the PARCC and AIR assessments and to make these recommendations by mid- May. The larger issues addressing what type of assessments are best for students, and the proper use of state assessment data, she indicated will be studied by the committee at a future time.

For more information and to submit comments:
http://sact.ohiosenate.gov/

D) School based Medicaid bill

HB 89 is being considered in the House Health and Aging Committee it provides for the following (from LSC analysis):

• Provides for the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) to receive at least 3.5% of the federal matching funds the state receives for the Medicaid School Program (MSP).

• Requires an MSP school provider to submit to ODE an annual report showing the number of its students that received special education and related services in the most recent previous October.

• Requires the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) and ODE to jointly prepare procedural guidelines for, and other informational materials about, the MSP that give school providers clear instructions for participating in the MSP.

• Eliminates a requirement that an MSP service be provided in a school.

• Specifies conditions under which an MSP claim is to be rejected.

• Requires an MSP claim to be a clean claim in order for ODM to seek federal funds for it.

• Requires ODM to disburse federal funds received for a clean claim not later than nine months after the date ODM receives the claim.

• Requires that the MSP cover delegated nursing services provided by an unlicensed adult employed by or under contract with an MSP school provider.

• Requires the MSP to cover personal care services under certain circumstances.

• Permits a Medicaid recipient to receive specialized medical transportation services under the MSP if certain conditions are met.

With respect to provider claims the bill requires the following:

Provider claims
Under current law, a qualified school provider must have provided a service in a school to be able to submit an MSP claim to ODM for federal matching funds. The bill eliminates this requirement.5

The bill requires that a qualified school provider's claim for a service be rejected
if any of the following apply:

(1) Unless the service is an initial assessment or evaluation performed in the
development of a Medicaid recipient's individualized education program (IEP), the service is not included in the recipient's IEP.

(2) The Medicaid recipient who receives the service fails to show progress in
meeting the goals included in the recipient's IEP over two consecutive three-month periods unless (a) there is documentation that a method or technique of the service has been modified to help the recipient meet a such a goal or (b) it is not the purpose of the service to help the recipient show progress in meeting such a goal. (An ODM rule requires a claim to be rejected if it is for services for which an eligible child fails to show progress toward goals identified in an IEP over two consecutive three-month periods and there is no documentation that the methods or techniques applied have been modified to improve progress.)6

(3) Another reason for rejection specified in rules governing the MSP applies to
the claim.7

Current law requires ODM to seek federal funds for each claim a qualified school
provider properly submits to ODM. The bill stipulates that the claim must be a clean claim in order for ODM to seek federal funds.8 Clean claim is a term used in federal Medicaid regulations that means a claim that can be processed without obtaining additional information from the provider or from a third party. It includes a claim with errors originating in a state's claims system. It does not include a claim from a provider who is under investigation for fraud or abuse or a claim under review for medical necessity.9
ODM is required by the bill to disburse federal funds received for such a clean
claim not later than nine months after the date ODM receives the claim. The date of receipt is to be indicated by a date stamp ODM is to put on the claim the day that ODM receives it.10

Services covered by the MSP
The services that the MSP covers are currently specified in rules rather than
statute. The bill expressly requires the MSP to cover certain nursing services, personal care services, and specialized medical transportation services and continues to authorize the Medicaid Director to adopt rules specifying other services the MSP is to cover.11

Nursing services
An ODM rule provides for the MSP to cover nursing services provided by
registered nurses and licensed practical nurses.12 The bill codifies that rule and requires that the MSP also cover nursing services provided by a school health aide or any other individual who is not licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized by a board or other agency of the state to provide a health care service, but only if (1) the individual is at least 18 years of age, (2) a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse has delegated the nursing services to the individual in accordance with the Board of Nursing's rules, and (3) the individual and the registered nurse or licensed practical nurse who delegated the nursing services to the individual are employed by or under contract with the qualified school provider that submits the claim to ODM for federal funds for providing the nursing services.13 An ODM rule currently excludes services provided by a nonlicensed person from coverage under the MSP.14

Personal care services

ODM's rules do not provide for the MSP to cover personal care services. The bill
requires the MSP to cover personal care services when both of the following
requirements are met: (1) The services (a) are provided to a Medicaid recipient who is eligible for the MSP, needs the services because the recipient either cannot perform one or more activities of daily living or instrumental activities of daily living or has a limitation in performing one or more such activities due to a functional, cognitive, or behavioral impairment and (b) help the recipient benefit from special education and related services.
(2) The services are provided by an individual who (a) is at least 18 years of age,
(b) is trained to provide the services to the Medicaid recipient who receives the services, and (c) provides the services under the direct supervision of a health care professional who is licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized by a board or other agency of the state to provide a health care service and is employed by or under contract with the qualified school provider that submits the claim to ODM for the services.15

The bill provides that "personal care services" has the same meaning as in a
federal Medicaid regulation.16 The federal regulation defines the term as services
furnished to an individual who is not an inpatient or resident of a hospital, nursing
facility, intermediate care facility for individuals with intellectual disabilities, or
institution for mental disease that are (1) authorized for the individual by a physician in accordance with a plan of treatment or (at the option of the state) otherwise authorized for the individual in accordance with a service plan approved by the state, (2) provided by an individual who is qualified to provide such services and who is not a member of the individual's family, and (3) furnished in a home, and at the state's option, in another location.17

Specialized medical transportation services

An ODM rule provides for the MSP to cover specialized medical transportation
services.18 The bill permits a Medicaid recipient eligible for the MSP to receive
specialized medical transportation covered by the MSP if both of the following
requirements are met:
(1) Either school bus transportation to the school in which the Medicaid recipient
is enrolled is not provided to the school's students who reside in the same area as the resident or the school bus used to transport such students does not have adaptations that the recipient needs to be able to be transported in the school bus.
(2) On the same day that the Medicaid recipient receives the specialized medical
transportation services, the recipient also receives at least one other service covered by the MSP. The other service may be personal care services provided to the recipient while receiving the specialized medical transportation services.19
The bill requires that the specialized medical transportation services covered by
the MSP be provided in a specially adapted vehicle that has been physically modified in a manner that enables the Medicaid recipient receiving the services to be transported in the vehicle. The bill specifies that the modifications may include the addition of a wheelchair lift, seatbelts, harnesses, child protective seats, air conditioning, and similar modifications. The use of a school bus monitor or other personnel who accompany students on a school bus does not qualify as a modification.20

An ODM rule provides that the MSP does not cover transportation provided
from an individual's home to school or from an individual's school to home.21 The bill negates this rule by permitting a Medicaid recipient eligible to receive specialized medical transportation services covered by the MSP to receive the services for any of the following one-way trips:
(1) From the recipient's residence to the recipient's school;
(2) From the recipient's school to the recipient's residence;
(3) From the recipient's residence or school to a location to receive a service
covered by the MSP from a health care provider under contract with the qualified
school provider;
(4) From such a location to the recipient's residence or school;
(5) From the recipient's school to another school operated by a qualified school
provider;
(6) From another school operated by a qualified school provider to the recipient's
school.22

The bill requires that a claim for specialized medical transportation services
show a separate charge for each one-way trip a Medicaid recipient receives.23

Submitted by Ann Brennan on April 20, 2015
Some parts excerpted from the OAAE Update (Ohio Alliance for Arts Education) and from HB 89 LSC analysis

 

From: Ann Brennan

FYI: Important update on SB 3 ( passed the Senate) and HB 2 (passed the House).

The legislature has recessed for spring break - will be back in session on April 16.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joan Platz <joan.platz@gmail.com>
To: Joan Platz <joan.platz@gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 29, 2015 9:59 pm
Subject: Arts on Line Education Update March 30, 2015

Ohio Alliance for Arts Education

Arts on Line Education Update

Joan Platz

March 30, 2015

1)  Ohio News

•131st Ohio General Assembly:  The Ohio House and Senate are on spring break until April 14, 2015. Committee meetings will begin again on April 16th.

•Update on the House Finance Committee:  The House Finance Committee, chaired by Representative Smith, completed public hearings last week on HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget for FY16-17.  The chairman expects to use the next two weeks to consider amendments and develop a substitute bill, which is expected to be introduced the week of April 14, 2015.  House Finance committee members have discussed changing Governor Kasich’s school funding proposal to adjust for the way the Current Agricultural Use Valuations (CAUVs) affect the school funding formula for lower wealth rural school districts.  Lawmakers are also expected to make changes in proposed tax cuts and increases in the sales tax, CAT tax, and severance tax on oil and gas production.

•Senate Advisory Committee on Testing:  Hannah News reports that the Senate Advisory Committee on Testing, chaired by Senator Lehner, met on March 25, 2015 to review the results of a survey of educators, principals, and superintendents about testing in Ohio.  According to Matt Williams, who is facilitating the work of the committee, over 17,000 surveys have already been returned completed.  Most of the respondents reported having some problems with testing this year.  The committee is also discussing the purpose of testing, and will develop questions to present to representatives of PARCC, Pearson and AIR at an April 15, 2015 meeting.  The committee has created a web site to collect public feedback about testing at http://sact.ohiosenate.gov. 

•ODE Issues Guidance on 2014-15 Safe Harbor Provisions:  The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released on March 24, 2015 information about the impact of changes in recent laws regarding accountability and consequences for the 2014-15 school year. 

 Some of the changes provide a “safe harbor” as Ohio’s schools transition to new assessments based on the Common Core State Standards.  These provisions, approved in 130-HB487 (Brenner) and 131-HB7 (Buchy), waive some of the accountability measures, such as issuing an overall composite letter grade and component grades on the state report cards for schools, and certain consequences for schools, students, and teachers.  

See http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Data/News/Department-issues-guidance-on-Safe-Harbor-for-2014.

2)  National News

•House and Senate Approve Budgets:  Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate adopted 2016 budgets last week along party lines, setting the stage for the Republican majority in both houses to negotiate a final spending plan by an April 15, 2015 deadline.  The final budget would be used to guide the development of appropriations measures for government agencies and departments for FY2016, which starts on October 1, 2015, including allocations for the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

With Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, most of the budget negotiations focused last week on how much to cut entitlement programs and how much to boost defense spending without raising taxes and exceeding the strict spending caps (sequestration) approved in 2011.  Both the House and Senate budgets total over $3 trillion, and eliminate government deficits in 10 years by cutting domestic programs, but provide few details about how to accomplish that. The Senate budget would cut $236 billion and the House budget $759 billion from nondefense agencies.    

If the Republican majority in both chambers can work-out a budget compromise by the April deadline, it will be the first time that Congress has adopted a budget since 2006.  It would also set-up a parliamentary process called “reconciliation” which would enable the Senate to approve legislation without worrying about a Democratic filibuster.  Senate Republicans want to use this procedure to repeal the Affordable Care Act and enact tax reform legislation, but to do so Republicans would also have to overcome a presidential veto threat.

See “House Republicans Propose Budget with Deep Cuts” by Jonathan Weisman, New York Times, March 17, 2015 at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/politics/house-republican-budget-overhauls-medicare-and-repeals-the-health-law.html?_r=0

See “Senate passes budget as negotiations with House loom ahead” by Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade, Politico, March 27, 2015 at http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/senate-budget-vote-gop-116419.html#ixzz3VmgVr7NZ

•Update on Student Privacy Bill:  Politico’s Morning Education reported on March 23, 2015 that student privacy experts are already questioning a bipartisan bill entitled the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015 introduced in the U.S. House last week, and its ability to protect students from educational technology companies and online data mining. 

The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Representatives Luke Messer (R) and Jared Polis (D), and has been developed in collaboration with the White House. The bill aims to tighten-up the data industry’s ability to collect and sell to vendors personal information about students when they use online textbooks, tutorials, games, quizzes, or conduct research at school and at home.  The information collected is not part of a student’s “official record”, and therefore not protected under the 1974 Student Privacy Act.  According to the article, the educational technology industry earned nearly $8 billion last year by collecting and selling this “unofficial” data.

The bill is an effort to fulfill President Obama’s commitment to hold the educational technology companies to standards that would guarantee that data collected about students would be used only for educational purposes. But the article says, “The bill lets education technology companies continue to collect huge amounts of intimate information on students, compile it into profiles of their aptitudes and attitudes — and then mine that data for commercial gain. It permits the companies to sell personal information about students to colleges and employers, and potentially to military recruiters as well.”

Opponents of the draft bill include the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. They want parents to have the right to “opt” their children out of any type of commercial data collection.

See “Privacy bill wouldn’t stop data mining of kids” by Stephanie Simon, Politico, March 23, 2015 at http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/privacy-bill-wouldnt-stop-data-mining-of-kids-116299.html

3)  Update on Senate Bill 3:  The Ohio Senate approved SB3 (Hite/Faber) mainly on party lines on March 25, 2015.  The bill includes a mixture of provisions about limiting testing, deregulation for high performing school districts, and teacher evaluations.  

Most Democrats opposed two provisions that permit boards of education of certain high performing school districts to employ individuals who do not meet state teacher licensing standards, although one of the provisions was amended to say that teachers must be licensed to teach in the subject area, but not necessarily for a particular grade level.  The Senate Education Committee also removed the term “high performing” from the bill, but maintained the criteria.

The following is a summary of SB3 as passed by the Senate.  New provisions added to the bill as “introduced” are labeled with a “*” .

Senate Bill 3 As Passed by the Senate

•Section 3301.079 (D)(3) Diagnostic assessments:  Requires schools to continue to administer reading, writing, and math diagnostic assessments to kindergarten students, and reading assessments to students in grades one through three, but beginning with the 2015-2016 school year, eliminates the requirement that school districts administer the diagnostic assessments for grades one or two in writing and mathematics, or for grade three in writing.

•Section 3301.0711(B)(1)(a)(b) Reading assessments:  Removes the requirement that school districts administer the English language arts assessment to students in the third grade twice a year starting in the 2015-16 school year.

•NEW Section 3301.0728 Limits on Testing:  Requires that beginning with the 2015-2016 school year, school districts, community schools, STEM schools, and college preparatory board schools limit the cumulative amount of time spent on the administration of state assessments to 2 percent of the school year. The state assessments included in this limit are achievement assessments administered to students in grades three through eight, the end-of-course examinations required in high school under the College and Work Ready Assessment System, and any assessment required by the district or school to be administered district-wide or school-wide to all students in a specified area or grade level.

-Limits the cumulative amount of time used for taking practice or diagnostic assessments used to prepare for the state assessments described above to 1 percent of the school year.

*States that the time limitations do not apply to the following: administration of assessments to students with disabilities; any related diagnostic assessment for students who fail to attain a passing score on the third-grade English language arts achievement assessment; additional assessments administered to identify a student as gifted; the administration of substitute examinations for end-of- course examinations in American history, American government, and science;  Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate examinations.

-Authorizes a school district or school to exceed its prescribed assessment time limitations through the adoption of a resolution, but requires the district board or school governing authority to conduct at least one public hearing on the proposed resolution.

•Section 3302.02 Third Grade Reading: Prohibits the superintendent from establishing any performance indicator for passage of the third or fourth grade English language arts assessment given in the fall beginning in the 2015-16 school year. (Conforming language.)

•Section 3302.03 (b) Third Grade Reading:  Requires the cumulative totals from both the fall and spring administrations of the third grade English language arts achievement tests for the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school year.

*Section 3302.034 Extra curricular activities. Eliminates the requirement that the state board of education report extra curricular services on the report card.

•Section 3302.13 Third Grade Reading:  Aligns this provision with changes in the administration of the third grade guarantee, including the development of an improvement plan for reading.

NEW Section 3302.16 (A) Exemptions for School Districts:  Allows school districts that qualify to be exempt from the following:

-The teacher qualification requirements under the third-grade reading guarantee. This exemption does not relieve a teacher from holding a valid Ohio license in a subject area and grade level determined appropriate by the board of education of that district. (License means the same as section 3319.31 of the Revised Code.)

-The mentoring component of the Ohio teacher residency program, so long as the district utilizes a local approach to train and support new teachers.

-Any provision of the Revised Code or rule or standard of the state board of education prescribing a minimum or maximum class size.

*Any provision of the Revised Code or rule or standard of the state board requiring teachers to be licensed specifically in the grade level in which they are teaching, except unless otherwise prescribed by federal law. This exemption does not relieve a teacher from holding a valid Ohio license in the subject area in which that teacher is teaching, and at least some grade level determined appropriate by the district board.

-Allows the superintendent of a school district that qualifies under division (D) of this section to employ an individual who is not licensed as required by sections 3319.22 to 3319.30 of the Revised Code, but who is otherwise qualified based on experience, to teach classes in the district. Requires the board of education of the school district to approve the individual’s employment and provide mentoring and professional development opportunities to that individual, as determined necessary by the board. As a condition of employment under this section, an individual shall be subject to a criminal records check and will be subject to Chapter 3307 of the Revised Code, which is the State Teachers Retirement System.

*Section 3302.16 (D) Criteria for Exemptions:  Requires a city, local, or exempted village school district to meet all of the following benchmarks on the most recent report card issued for that district under section 3302.03 of the Revised Code to qualify for an exemption from certain laws and rules: 

-At least eighty-five percent of the total possible points for the performance index score 

-A grade of an “A” for performance indicators met  

-A four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate of at least ninety-three percent

-A five-year adjusted cohort graduation rate of at least ninety-five percent.

Section 3313.46 (A)  Threshold for Contracts:  Increases the threshold to fifty thousand dollars regarding certain requirements governing the bidding for contracts by the board of education of any school district, when any such board determines to build, repair, enlarge, improve, or demolish any school building,

*REMOVED:  Section 3313.72 Health Services: Allows the board of education of a city, exempted village, or local school district to enter into a contract with a health district, a hospital, an appropriately licensed health care professional, or an educational service center for the purpose of providing the services of a school physician, dentist, or nurse.

Section 3314.03, 3326.11, and 3328.24 Compliance: Requires community schools, stem schools and college preparatory schools to comply with Section 3301.0728 Limits on Testing.

*Section 3319.02 Principal evaluations:  States that beginning with evaluations conducted for the 2015-2016 school year, if the state board prescribes a framework for the evaluation of principals and assistant principals, student academic growth shall account for not more than thirty-five per cent of each evaluation.

*Section 3319.114 Alternative teacher evaluation:  Makes changes in the alternative teacher evaluation.  States that beginning with the 2015-16 school year the teacher performance measure, will account for fifty percent of each rating rather than 42.5 percent. The student academic growth measure will account for thirty-five per cent of each rating. The remainder of the evaluation can include one, or any combination of student surveys; teacher self-evaluations; peer review evaluations; student portfolios; any other components determined appropriate by the district board or school governing authority.

-States that the ODE shall compile a list of approved instruments that districts and schools may use, beginning with the 2014-2015 school year for teacher evaluations.

*Section 3319.223 Ohio Teacher Residency Program: Changes the requirements for the Ohio Teacher Residency Program.  States that if the state board of education prescribes an assessment for participants in the third or fourth year of the program, each school district or school may either: require each participant to pass the assessment to successfully complete the program; or during the third and fourth years of the program, assess each participant’s progression by using the participant’s annual evaluation.  Each evaluation shall be conducted by qualified individuals.  (Section 3319.111 (D))

*Section 3319.26  Alternative resident educator license:  (C) States that rules adopted under this section shall require applicants for the alternative resident educator license to satisfy certain conditions prior to issuance of the license, but they shall not require applicants to have completed a major or COURSEWORK in the subject area for which application is being made.

Section 5 (A) CFAP:  Requires the School Facilities Commission (SFC), by December 15, 2015, to develop and submit to the General Assembly a proposal regarding the Classroom Facilities Assistance Program (CFAP). The proposal should include legislative provisions under which school districts that have not received assistance under CFAP may, upon becoming eligible for assistance under the program, apply for and receive a portion of the state funds for which they are eligible, to be used for technology, building expansion, and physical alterations to improve school safety or security.

4)  Update on House Bill 2 - Charter School Reform:  The Ohio House approved on March 26, 2015 by a vote of 70-25 HB2 (Dovilla/Roegner), which includes several provisions that will change charter school law and increase accountability requirements for charter schools.  However, during the floor debate several Democrats suggested that the bill did not go far enough to ensure that charter schools operate in the public interest, rather than for profit makers, and are held accountable to tax payers.

The bill adds provisions that further clarify the roles of the ODE, sponsors, governing authorities, and operators.  The ODE will have the authority to oversee all sponsors; sponsors will have more requirements to meet to ensure charter school accountability; governing boards will have more responsibilities and requirements to meet; operators will be evaluated by the ODE; and there are more requirements to close loopholes about charter schools complying with the sunshine and ethics laws.  

Not included in the bill are some provisions recommended by State Auditor David Yost, such as requiring charter schools to follow Governmental Accountability Standards for financial reporting and stricter truancy and student attendance laws, and repealing the authority of the ODE to sponsor charter schools.  The debate also continues between those who want to hold private operators accountable and responsive to the tax payers for spending public funds, verses those who believe that private companies should not be required to “open their books” to the public.  AND, still not included in the bill is a better way to fund charter schools, rather than as a deduction from traditional public school accounts.  

The following is a summary of the bill as passed by the Ohio House.  New provisions that have been added to the bill “as introduced” are labeled with a “*”. 

House Bill 2 (Dovilla/Roegner)

-Sections 3301.52 (O) and Section 4 Preschool Programs: Permits high-performing charter schools to operate a preschool program and permits exemplary sponsors to authorize a new charter school to operate a preschool program.  

(H) (j) Requires that a preschool program operated by a charter school complies with current laws and minimum standards prescribed in rules.  

States that dropout recovery charter schools are prohibited from operating a preschool program. 

States that if the school operates a preschool program that is licensed by the ODE, admission to the school may be open to individuals younger than five years of age, but the school shall not receive funds for those individuals.

A similar provision is included in HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget.  

*Section 3302.03 Report Cards: Requires after July 1, 2015 that the ODE count the academic performance of students attending dropout recover conversion community schools on the sponsor’s school district report card, but states that only the scores of those students who would be assigned to the school district will be included.

*NEW Section 3313.131: States that no person who is a member of the governing authority of a community school established under Chapter 3314 of the Revised Code shall be a member of a board of education.

*Section 3314.011 Governing Authority Fiscal Officer: Requires that the fiscal officer of a charter school be employed by the governing authority, but permits a governing authority to annually waive the requirement by resolution with sponsor approval.  In the bill as introduced the governing authority was required to hire the fiscal officer without the exception. Requires the fiscal officer to meet with the governing authority annually.

*Section 3314.015 ODE oversight of community school sponsors: States that the ODE may add additional years to any renewal agreement, not to exceed a total of twelve years, if, on or after the effective date of this amendment, the sponsor is rated as “exemplary” under section 3314.016 of the Revised Code, and the sponsor continues to meet all the requirements of this chapter.

-Section 3314.016 (D)(1)ODE Rating Sponsors:  Allows the ODE to establish additional incentives  based upon a sponsor’s overall rating, to the incentives included in the bill.  Sponsors with an overall rating of “exemplary” may take advantage of the following incentives:

-The ability to extend the term of the contract between the sponsoring entity and the community school beyond the term described in the written agreement with the department;

-An exemption from the preliminary agreement and contract adoption and execution deadline requirements prescribed in division (D) of section 3314.02.

-An exemption from the automatic contract expiration requirement, should a new community school fail to open by the thirtieth day of September of the calendar year in which the community school contract is executed.

*NEW Section 3314.019 Auditor of State:  States that a community school’s sponsor shall be the party responsible for communicating and meeting with the auditor of state regarding an audit of the school or the condition of financial and enrollment records of the school, regardless of whether the sponsor has entered into an agreement with another entity to perform all or part of the sponsor’s oversight duties.

*Section 3314.02 (E) (5) Governing Authority Membership Requirements:  Removes the provision in the bill as introduced prohibiting a vendor from serving on the governing authority board. The bill now prohibits employees of school districts or educational service centers from serving on a governing board of a charter school sponsored by the district, but would permit a vendor of a school district or educational service center to serve on a charter school governing authority. 

(6) Requires each member of the governing authority of a community school to annually file a disclosure statement with the names of any immediate relatives or business associates employed by any of the following within the previous three years: the sponsor or operator of that community school; a school district or educational service center that has contracted with that community school; a vendor that is currently engaged in business or has previously engaged in business with that community school.

(7) States that no person who is a member of a school district board of education shall serve on the governing authority of any community school.

-Section 3314.02 (E)(8) Sponsor Verify Findings for Recovery:  Requires sponsors to annually verify that a finding for recovery has not been issued by the auditor of state against any member of the governing authority of that community school.

-Section 3314.023  Sponsor Monitoring and Technical Assistance: Requires that when a representative of a sponsor meets monthly with the treasurer or governing authority, that copies of financial and enrollment records be furnished to the community school sponsor, members of the governing authority, and the fiscal officer.

States that if a community school closes or is permanently closed, the designated fiscal officer shall deliver all financial and enrollment records to the school’s sponsor within thirty days of the school’s closure. If the fiscal officer fails to provide the records in a timely manner, the sponsor has the right of action against the fiscal officer to compel delivery of all financial and enrollment records of the school.

-Section 3314.025 (A) Sponsor Expenditures: Requires that each sponsor of a community school shall annually submit a report describing the amount and type of expenditures made to provide oversight and technical assistance to each community school it sponsors. 

Section 3314.025 (B) Requires the state board of education not later than ninety days after the effective date of this section, to establish requirements and a reporting procedure.

-Section 3314.026 Operator Replaces Governing Authority:  Repeals a statute that prescribes an appeal procedure in cases in which the governing authority has notified the operator of its intent to terminate or not renew the operator’s contract. This provision allowed the operator to replace the members of the governing authority in certain cases. Repeal of this provision is also included in HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget.

-Section 3314.029 Office of School Sponsorship: Permits the ODE to establish the format and deadlines for applications to the ODE Office of School Sponsorship.

Permits the state board to establish additional criteria necessary for approval for sponsorship by ODE not later than December 31, 2015. 

Permits an appeal of a denial of an application under divisions (A)(2)(a) and (b).  These provisions are similar to provisions in HB64 (Smith) Biennial Budget.

-Section 3314.029 (A)(5) Transformation Alliance School District:  States that if the ODE receives an application for direct authorization under this section for a school to be located in an alliance municipal school district, the transformation alliance of that district may offer a recommendation regarding that application. The ODE shall notify the transformation alliance of an application within fourteen days after receipt of the application.

-Section 3314.03 ODE Contract Between Sponsor and School (A)(4):  Includes all applicable report card measures as performance standards in the contract with the school.

*REMOVED Approve Financial Plan:   Clarifies that ODE shall approve financial plans of new charter schools, and that the plan shall stand as approved if ODE fails to make a decision within 14 days of submission.

-Section 3314.03 (A)(9) and NEW 3314.032 Contract with Sponsor - Facilities: Requires that the contract between the charter school governing authority and the sponsor include an addendum outlining the facilities to be used and their locations, and include the annual costs associated with leasing that are paid by or on behalf of the school, the annual mortgage principal and interest payments, the name of the lender or landlord and relationship with the operator.

-NEW Section 3314.03 Contract/Preschool Programs (A) (11) (j): States that if the school operates a preschool program that is licensed by the ODE, the school shall comply with sections 3301.50 to 3301.59 of the Revised Code, and the minimum standards for preschool programs prescribed in rules adopted by the state board under section 3301.53 of the Revised Code.

*NEW Section 3314.03 (A) (27) Contract/Records: Requires the school’s attendance and participation policies and records be available for public inspection.

-NEW Section 3314.03 (A) (28) Contract/Blended Learning Model:  States that if a school operates using the blended learning model, the school must supply the following information in the contract: an indication of what blended learning model or models will be used; a description of how student instructional needs will be determined and documented; the method to be used for determining competency, granting credit, and promoting students to a higher grade level; the school’s attendance requirements, including how the school will document participation in learning opportunities; a statement describing how student progress will be monitored; a statement describing how private student data will be protected; a description of the professional development activities that will be offered to teachers.

*Section 3314.03 (A) (29) Contract/Loans:  Requires that all moneys the school’s operator loans to the school, including facilities loans or cash flow assistance, must be accounted for, documented, and bear interest at a fair market rate.

*NEW Section 3314.03 (B) (5) Internal financial controls:  Requires the school to submit copies of all policies and procedures regarding internal financial controls adopted by the governing authority of the school.

-NEW Section 3314.031 (A)  SBE/ODE Records for Operators: Requires beginning December 31, 2015 that the ODE maintain an accurate record of the names and identifying information of all entities that have entered into a contract with the governing authority of a charter school to manage or operate that school. 

-Section 3314.031 (A) (2) Contract:  Requires that the ODE receive from the governing authority of each charter school a copy of the contract between a governing authority and its operator. 

-Section 3314.031 (B) SBE/ODE Performance of Operators: Requires the ODE not later than July 1, 2016, to develop and publish an annual performance report for all operators of charter schools in the state. The report will be made available on the department’s web site.

(C) Requires that the performance of management companies and organizations be reported and included in the annual charter school report required under 3314.015 (A)(4).

• NEW 3314.032 (A) Contract Operator Early Termination - Who Owns Facilities: Requires that on and after the effective date of this section, any new or renewed contract between the governing authority of a community school and an operator shall include the criteria to be used for early termination of the operator contract; requires notification procedures and a time line for early termination or non renewal of the operator contract; and a stipulation of which entity owns all community school facilities and property including, but not limited to, equipment, furniture, fixtures, instructional materials and supplies, computers, printers, and other digital devices purchased by the governing authority or operator.

*NEW 3314.032 (B)  Leases Fair Market Value:  States that the operator with which the governing authority of a community school contracts for services shall not lease any parcel of real property to that community school for an amount that exceeds the fair market rental value of that property by more than five per cent. For each lease of a parcel of real property that is entered into by the operator of a community school on or after the effective date of this section, the sponsor of the school shall verify that the lease does not exceed the fair market rental value of that property by more than five per cent.

*NEW Section 3314.034 ODE Approve Sponsor Contract Low Performing Schools: States that on and after December 31, 2015, any community school that has had more than one sponsor in the previous five years must first receive approval from the ODE before it may enter into a contract with a new sponsor, if the following apply:

(A) The community school has received a grade of “D” or “F” for the performance index score, and an overall grade of “D”or “F” for the value-added progress dimension or another measure of student academic progress if adopted by the state board, on the most recent report card issued for the school pursuant to that section.

(B) The community school is one in which a majority of the students are enrolled in a dropout prevention and recovery program, and it has received a rating of “does not meet standards” for the annual student growth measure and combined graduation rates on the most recent report card.

-Section 3314.035 Governing Authority Membership Posting: Requires the names of charter governing authority members to be posted on the school’s web site; and requires the names and addresses of governing authority members to be provided to sponsors and ODE.

- Section 3314.036 Governing Authority Independent Council: Requires that a charter school governing authority retain independent counsel for purposes of negotiating the contract with their sponsor and operator.

-Section 3314.037 Governing Authority Training: Requires governing authority members, administrative and supervisory staff of charter schools to receive annual training regarding public records and open meetings.

-Section 3314.038 Student Residence:  Requires each community school to annually submit to the ODE and auditor of state a report of each instance under which a student who is enrolled in the community school resides in a children’s residential center.

*Section 3314.039 Changing Sponsors:  States that beginning on the effective date of this section, no community school shall change sponsors within its first four years of operation, unless the ODE authorizes the school to do so.

Section 3314.06 Admissions procedures for preschools:  States that If the school operates a preschool program that is licensed by the ODE, admission to the school may be open to individuals younger than five years of age, but the school shall not receive funds under this chapter for those individuals.

-Section 3314.07 (3) Sponsor Non-renewal: Requires sponsors to notify schools by December 1, rather than February 1, of non renewal.

-Section 3314.074 (D) Consolidated Charter School Assets:  States that a charter school that engages in a merger or consolidation and becomes a single public benefit corporation will not be required to distribute assets provided that the governing authority of the charter school created by the merger or consolidation enters into a contract for sponsorship with an entity rated as “exemplary” by the ODE.  A similar provision is included in HB 64 (Smith) Biennial Budget.

-Section 3314.08 Funding for Preschool Programs for Community Schools:  Specifies the funding requirements for preschool programs for special education.

-Section 3314.19 (N) Sponsor Examines Blended Learning:  Requires sponsors to examine in detail charter schools that plan to use the blended learning model, and report certain information to the ODE.

•Section 3314.23 (C) Sponsor Monitor Internet or computer based school: Requires that the sponsor of each internet- or computer-based community school be responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance with the online learning standards, and report a school’s failure to comply with these standards to the ODE.

-NEW Section 3314.46  Sponsor selling goods and services: Prohibits a sponsor from selling any goods or services to any charter school it sponsors. States that If the sponsor of a community school entered into a contract prior to the effective date of this section that involves the sale of goods or services to a community school it sponsors, the sponsor shall not be required to comply with this division until the expiration of the contract.

Section 3 Children with Disabilities. Requires the State Board of Education not later than December 31, 2015, to make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding performance standards for community schools in which a majority of the enrolled students are children with disabilities receiving special education, and if it is possible, to remove the exemption from permanent closure.

Section 4. Early Childhood Education:  States that for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, the ODE shall distribute funds appropriated for early childhood education in accordance with this section. 

5)  Bills Introduced:  

•SB 136 (Tavares) School Seclusion:  Prohibits the use of seclusion on students in public schools. Section 3319.46 ORC.

•HB130 (Hagen/Duffey) DataOhio Board:  Creates the DataOhio Board, to specify requirements for posting public records online; requires the Auditor of State to adopt rules regarding a uniform accounting system for public offices;  establishes an online catalog of public data at data.Ohio.gov; establishes the Local Government Information Exchange Grant Program, and makes an appropriation. Sections 149.43 and enacts sections 117.432, 149.60, 149.62, and 149.65 ORC.

•HB136 (Young/Rogers) STEM Pilot:  Funds the Lake County Educational Service Center pilot project to support STEM initiatives for middle school students and makes an appropriation.

FYI ARTS

•Talks Begin on NEA Funding for FY2016:  As the House and Senate negotiate an overall spending plan for our national government, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, chaired by Representative Ken Calvert, held a Public and Outside Witness Hearing on March 18, 2015 on appropriations levels overseen by the subcommittee. 

According to Americans for the Arts three witnesses requested that the subcommittee increase support for the National Endowment for the Arts to $155 million.  This would be $9 million more than the current level of funding.

Testifying on behalf of the arts were Karen Hanan, Executive Director of the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA); Melia Tourangeau, President and CEO of the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera; and Anita Stewart, Executive & Artistic Director of Portland Stage in Portland, ME. 

See http://www.americansforthearts.org/news-room/legislative-news/witnesses-on-capitol-hill-testify-for-nea-funding

•NAMM Foundation Announces Best Communities for Music.

Congratulations to Ohio’s BCME and SMMA Recipients!

The National Association of Music Merchants Foundation (NAMM) and the University of Kansas announced on March 18, 2015 the 388 school districts recognized as among the Best Communities for Music Education (BCME), and the 120 individual schools recognized with the Support Music Merit Award.

This is the 16th year for the NAMM program, which recognizes the efforts by teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community leaders to make music part of the core curriculum. 

The BCME program evaluates schools and districts based on funding, staffing of highly qualified teachers, commitment to standards, and access to music instruction. A comprehensive survey requests information that reveals statistical and factual information about music education and related opportunities for students to learn music. Researchers at the Center for Public Partnerships & Research, Kansas (an affiliate of the University of Kansas) led the data review. 

The BCME designation has helped raise local awareness of quality music programs, and earning the designation has assisted communities in securing funds for music programs threatened by budget cuts. 

According to the press release, “News of past winners being recognized nationally often leads to local media coverage, community recognition and even billboards trumpeting the local school music programs.”

The following school districts in Ohio are recipients of the BCME for 2015:

-Archbold Area Schools, Archbold, OH

-Avon Lake City School District, Avon Lake, OH

-Bay Village City School District, Bay Village, OH

-Beachwood City Schools, Beachwood, OH

-Bera City Schools, Bera, OH

-Boardman Local Schools, Boardman, OH

Clark-Shawnee Local School District, Springfield, OH

-Cuyahoga Heights Local School District, Cuyahoga Heights, OH

-Firelands Local Schools, Oberlin, OH

-Forest Hills School District, Cincinnati, OH

-Indian Hills Exempted Village School District, Cincinnati, OH

-Jackson City Schools, Jackson, OH

-Kettering City Schools, Kettering, OH

-Lebanon City Schools, Lebanon, OH

-Oberlin City Schools, Oberlin, OH

-Olmsted Falls City School District, Olmsted Falls, OH

-Perrysburg Exempted Village Schools, Perrysburg, OH

-Shaker Heights City School District, Shaker Heights, OH

-South Central Local Schools, Greenwich, OH

-Stow-Munroe Falls City School District, Stow, OH

-Strongsville City School District, Strongsville, OH

-Sycamore Community Schools, Cincinnati, OH

-Upper Sandusky Exempted Village School District, Upper Sandusky, OH

-West Branch Local School District, Beloit, OH

-Winton Woods City School District, Cincinnati, OH

-Wyoming City Schools, Cincinnati, OH

The following schools in Ohio are recipients of the 2015 SMME:

-Allen East High School, Harrod, OH

-Athens Middle School, Athens, OH

-Monclova Christian Academy, Monclova, OH

-Saint Albert the Great School, Dayton, OH

-Troy Christian Schools, Troy, OH

See “Where are the Best Community for Music Education?  2015 Best Community Designations” NAMM Press Release, March 18, 2015 at 

http://www.nammfoundation.org/what-we-do/best-communities-music-education

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