Ohio Alliance for Arts Education

Arts on Line Education Update

February 11, 2013

Joan Platz

1) 130th Ohio General Assembly

•Executive Budget Introduced -- Legislation Expected Next Week:  Governor Kasich held a news conference on February 4, 2013 to introduce his administrationʻs FY14-15 state operating budget. The Office of Budget and Management, Tim Keen director, also released the “Blue Books,” which provide more details about the total spending levels for state departments and agencies; program spending levels; revenue assumptions used to prepare the spending projections; and some information about the policy changes that are proposed in the budget. The Blue Books are available at http://obm.ohio.gov/. 

Although the Blue Books provide more details about the Executive Budget, policy changes will become clearer once the budget bill is available and the Legislative Services Commission publishes another set of documents known as the Red Books. New information about the Executive Budget found in the Blue Books is included in #2 below.

•House Reviews More Budgets:  The budgets for the Ohio Department of Transportation (HB35-McGregor); the Bureau of Workersʻ Compensation (HB34-Hackett); and the Industrial Commission (HB33-Hackett) were also introduced last week. 

The House Finance and Appropriations Committee, chaired by Representative Amstutz, removed Governor Kasichʻs plan regarding the Ohio Turnpike from the FY14-15 Transportation Budget (HB35 - McGregor), and moved it to a separate bill, HB38 (McGregor). Both bills go next to the Transportation Subcommittee, chaired by Representative McGregor, for consideration.  Chairman Amstutz has stated his intent to move these bills quickly through the House.

•Personnel Changes: 

-Jim Petro, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, retired last week marking thirty years of public service. Governor Kasich has selected Stephanie Davidson as interim chancellor.

-Dr. Susan Tave Zelman, former Superintendent of Public Instruction, will return to the Ohio Department of Education as an executive director.  According to a press release, she will provide oversight over the school funding formula and resources for schools.

•Auditor to Release Report:  State Auditor David Yost will release a statewide audit of school attendance data on Monday, February 11, 2013 at 2:00 PM, at the Auditor of Stateʻs Office, 88 E. Broad Street, 13th Floor.

2)  Recap -- Executive Budget

The Finance and Appropriations Committee, chaired by Representative Amstutz, received testimony on February 5, 2013 from Tim Keen, Director of the Office of Budget and Management, and Mark Flanders, Director of the Legislative Services Commission. Director Keen led the committee through 58 pages of testimony that provided additional information about the main components of the Executive Budget, focusing on the major reform initiatives: Education Funding and Reform, Transforming Higher Education, Medicaid Transformation, Tax Cuts and Reform, Ohio Jobs and the Transportation Plan, and Continuing Review and Reform of State Government.

Governor Kasich is proposing a total budget of $63.3 billion for the biennium, which starts on July 1, 2013. The budget also includes a variety of policy changes, and a huge revenue surplus of over $1.7 billion for FY12-13 biennium. 

The following is a summary of some of the provisions of the proposed budget. Please note: This summary was prepared from the documents provided by the Office of Budget and Management and the testimony of Tim Keen, Director of the Office of Budget and Management. More details will be available once the Executive Budget bill is introduced: 

Proposed State Budget

Total GRF FY12 & 13 $55.7 billion (appropriated)

Total GRF FY14 - $30.6 billion (10.5 percent increase over est. FY13)

Total GRF FY15 - $32.7 billion (6.8 percent increase over FY14)

Total GRF FY14 & 15 $63.3 billion

An increase of $7.5 billion over FY12-13 levels!!!

Total All Funds FY12 & 13 $112.2 billion (appropriated)

Total All Funds FY14 - $63.7 billion (6.1 percent increase over FY13)

Total All Funds FY15 - $66.8 billion (4.8 percent increase over FY14)

Total All Funds FY14 & 15 $130.5 billion

Budget Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund)

-Projects a GRF ending balance of $1.707 billion in June 2013.

-Transfers $978.7 million into the Budget Stabilization Fund.

-Transfers $415.9 million into the Income Tax Reduction Fund.  This added money will provide a 4 percent reduction in income taxes in calendar year 2013.

-Establishes a $146.1 million carry-over fund.

-Sets aside $167 million for year-end transfers, and paying interest on the balance of the unemployment compensation funds borrowed from the federal government.

Medicaid

-Establishes Medicaid as a stand-alone cabinet agency. Spending for Medicaid is the largest program in the state budget.

-Expands Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act. Legislation will include a provision that will allow the state to withdraw from the program if the federal government does not cover the cost of the expansion of the program. Estimates are that about 275,000 individuals could be added to Medicaid. Total Medicaid GRF spending in the budget is projected to grow to $15.052 billion in FY14 and to $16.769 billion in FY15. The federal share of the program is about 64 percent.

-Merges the Ohio Department of Mental Health and the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug and Addiction Services.

Tax Plan

-Provides $1.4 billion in tax cuts over three years and shifts the tax burden from the income tax to the sales tax, which will become the largest source of revenue for the state. 

-Phases in over three years a 20 percent reduction in personal income tax rates in all nine brackets.  This includes a 7.5 percent cut in FY13; an additional cut of 7.5 percent in FY14, and an additional 5 percent cut in FY15.

-Reduces the state sale tax rate from 5.5 percent to 5 percent.

-Broadens the sales tax base to cover all services except those related to health care, education, and housing.

-Adjusts the sales tax receipts for local governments to cap the amount of additional revenue that will be raised with the expanded tax base.

-Increases the severance tax on natural gas to 1 percent and 4 percent for oil and liquids. This would raise $45 million in FY14 and $155 million in FY15. Revenue from this tax is expected to increase in future biennia to as much as $415 million in FY17.

-Provides a deduction of 50 percent in annual pass-through income up to $750,000 for small businesses paying the income tax. The deduction is capped at $375,000.

-Increases GRF sales tax revenue by $1.322 billion in FY14 and $1.799 billion in FY15. 

-Increases local sales tax revenue by an estimated $50 million in FY14 and $70 million in FY15.

Turnpike Bonds

-Authorizes the sale of $1.5 billion in turnpike toll-backed bonds to fund a variety of transportation projects. This provision was removed from the Transportation Budget, HB35 McGregor), and will be debated in HB38 (McGregor).

Primary and Secondary Education

-Provides a total of $7.734 billion in FY14 (6.9 percent increase) and $8.066 billion in FY15 (4.3 percent increase) in General Revenue and Lottery Profit funds for primary and secondary education. The sum of the increases represents $1.328 billion in “new” funding for education.  The General Revenue portion is $6.893 billion in FY14 and $7.091 billion in FY15. The Lottery Profits portion is $841.0 million in FY14 and $974.5 million in FY15.

All funds total $10.4 billion in FY14 (6 percent above FY13 levels) and $10.7 billion in FY15 (2.7 percent above FY14 levels). 

This total includes property tax replacement (Revenue Distribution), which adds $510 million in FY14 and $510 million in FY15.  Another $1.13 billion in FY14 and $1.18 billion in FY15 in property tax relief is included in the budget of the Ohio Department of Taxation.

-State Lottery Profits:  Includes $841.0 million in FY14 and $974.5 million in FY15 in Lottery Profits.  In addition to funding general education programs Lottery Profits will be used to fund the Straight A Fund ($100 million in FY14 and $200 million in FY15), and to fund a pilot expansion of the Educational Choice Scholarship Program for students ($8.5 million in FY14 and $17 million in FY15).  This is the first time that Lottery Profits will be used to fund programs for nonpublic schools.

-Core Opportunity Aid: Implements a new state aid school funding formula, for local, exempted village, and city school districts. The formula would provide enough state aid to make 20 mills equivalent to what can be raised with a per pupil tax base of $250,000. 

Average Core Opportunity Aid is $5,000 per student, close to the state aid amount per pupil of $5,058 in 2004.  (Recent Trends in K-12 Education Funding in Ohio by Howard Fleeter, Driscoll & Fleeter, Consultant to the Education Tax Policy Institute, December 2008.)

The governorʻs plan also limits increases in state aid to the lesser of 25 percent of the prior year’s aid or 10 percent of the district’s total resources. 

Total GRF allocation:  $3.835 billion in FY14 and $3.879 billion in FY15.

-Targeted Resources: Provides additional state aid to some school districts to equalize from 5-15 mills, in addition to the 20 mills, based on school district property and income wealth for school districts at or below the 80th percentile. (This provision is being compared to parity aid.) 

Total allocation:  $602.8 million in FY14 and $702.9 million in FY15.

-Pupil Transportation:  More details are needed, but includes an overall amount of $442.1 million in FY14 and $442.1 million in FY15 to subsidize school districts for transporting students. The Governorʻs Office of 21st Century Schools is waiting for the Ohio Department of Education to provide certain information before it can release the amount of transportation funds per school district.

-Students with Disabilities:  More details are needed about how the allocations were determined and how they will be distributed.  The Executive Budget funds the special education categories identified by the Ohio Coalition for Students with Disabilities at 100 percent. The proposed budget provides a total of $1.3 billion in FY14 and $1.38 billion in FY15.  This total includes funds to support Special Education Enhancements; support for special education through Foundation Funding; the new Exceptional Cost Reimbursement Fund ($111.5 million in FY14 and $119.5 million in FY15); and federal funds for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ($443 million in FY14 and $443 million in FY15.) 

The new Exceptional Cost Reimbursement Fund will reimburse schools/districts for students with exceptionally high special education/services costs. Schools serving special needs students will be required to contribute a portion of their special education allocation under the foundation formula to create this fund, and must request reimbursements from the Ohio Department of Education. 

-English Language Learners:  More details are needed about this provision, which would provide an additional $1,500 per pupil for English language learners in their first year of school; 75 percent of that amount in the second year; and 50 percent of that amount in the third year. However, some resources would still be allocated for students whose parents do not speak English. GRF allocation through the Foundation Program is $21 million in FY14 and $22 million in FY15. Another $9.7 million in FY14 and $9.7 million in FY15 are included through the English Language Acquisition line item.

-Economically Disadvantaged Students:  More details are needed about this provision, which provides between $20 - $1000 per pupil to school districts based on their concentration of poverty as reported on the Local Report Cards.  

GRF Foundation Funding for at-risk students totals $579.1 million in FY14 and $579.1 million in FY15, a 3.3 percent decrease from the FY13 level, and includes foundation funding for districts with limited availability to early childhood access. Federal funding is also provided through ESEA Title 1A. Schools/districts would receive $560 million in FY14 and $560 million in FY15.

-Gifted Education:  Again, more details are needed, but the governorʻs plan provides $50 per student for identification and services for gifted students.  Total allocation: $85.19 million in FY14 and $85.19 million in FY15 through Foundation Funding (GRF 200-550). There are questions about how services for gifted students would be provided if changes are made in funding for Education Service Centers, and how accountable schools/districts would be for using the funds to provide services for gifted students. 

-Early Childhood Education: The Executive Budget provides $23.2 million in FY14 and $25.2 million in FY15 for Early Childhood Education.  The proposed budget also replaces the unit funding model for special education preschool with a formula based on the specific disabilities of the child, and the wealth of the district, and increases GRF support for Special Education Enhancements by 22 percent in FY14 to $103 million in FY14 and $104 million in FY15.

Support is also provided for Child Care Licensing, and $7 million in FY14 and $7 million in FY15 are provided from the federal Early Learning Challenge Grant.

The budget includes an additional $2 million in early learning funds in the second year of the biennium to increase the number of preschool students served by Ohioʻs highest performing preschools. 

The total amount of funding for this area is $148 million in FY14 and $151.9 million in FY15. Support for early learning programs is also included in the budget of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services.

-Career Technical Education: According to the Executive Budget proposal, a new funding formula would be implemented for joint vocational school districts, with supplemental funds for students who participate in career-technical education programs. These funds, provided to Career-Technical Planning Districts, direct additional funding to those career fields that are in high demand or require additional resources for instruction. Funding is also provided for Career-Technical Planning Districts offering the GED test to individuals to reimburse students for some of the cost of taking the GED, and for providing career planning and guidance. 

This provision also maintains funding for the match required for federal Perkins administrative funding.

Total funding for the Career-Technical Education line item is $176.4 million in FY14 and $176.4 million in FY15.

-Transitional State Aid Guarantees: According to Governor Kasich, the guarantee is reluctantly continued in this budget to avoid the “chaos” which might occur if 397 school districts in FY14 and 382 school districts in FY15 lost over $800 million in state aid.  However, the Governor urges educators and policy makers to find some way to eliminate the guarantee in future budgets. 

Total allocation: $464.3 million in FY14 and $416.1 million in FY15.

-Non-Public Schools: Increases state support for non public schools to $193.2 million (5.5 percent increase) in FY14 and to $199.1 million (3 percent increase) in FY15.  These funds support secular services and materials, and reimburse chartered non public schools for mandated administrative and clerical costs.

-Community School Facility Funding:  Few details were provided about funding for community schools.  It is assumed that community schools would continue to be funded as a deduct from school district state aid.  Presumably community schools would receive $5000 per student and additional state based on the student's residential school district.  

Governor Kasich is also recommending that community schools receive $100 per pupil for community schools to support facilities.  This provision totals $7.5 million in FY14 and $7.5 million in FY15. This money would not be deducted from school district state aid. More information is needed about whether or not eschools would be eligible for the funds (since the students work from home), and whether or not for-profit charter school managers, that own their own school buildings, would be able to access this fund.  

Other Categories of Funding for Primary and Secondary Education 

-Creates the new Straight A Fund:  The Executive Budget includes $100 million in FY14 and $200 million in FY15 to support a competitive grant program called the Straight A Fund.  This fund would provide one-time grants for innovative programs that support student achievement, identify opportunities for cost savings, and help more resources flow to the classroom. The fund would be supported through the Lottery Profits Fund.

-Early College Credit:  Supports a standard funding model for all dual enrollment in Ohio. Postsecondary and secondary entities receiving funds through their respective state funding formulas would be required to share the tuition fee based on the average college tuition for each of the regional campuses, community colleges, and four-year universities. 

-Technology Infrastructure: Appropriates in FY14 a one-time investment of $10 million in technology infrastructure to connect information technology centers to the state broadband network and provide other connectivity upgrades to support on-line assessments, blended learning, and mobile computing initiatives in schools. The funding is included in Line Item 200-426, Ohio Education Computer Network.

-New Assessments/New Report Cards:  Supports new assessments and a new report card and continues teacher value added reports. 

Provides a total of $55.8 million in FY14 and $75.8 million in FY15 in GRF to support the new assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards being developed through Ohio’s participation in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career Consortium (PARCC). 

Funding for the Local Report Cards is $3.5 million in FY14 and $3.75 million in FY15.

Higher Education

-Provides a total GRF appropriations of $2.3 billion in FY14 (.6 percent) and $2.4 billion in FY15 (2.3 percent).  

-Increases the State Share of Instruction (SSI) by $33 million in FY14 and $34 million in FY15. Fifty percent of the total university funding within the State Share of Instruction will be determined by the number of students who actually complete a degree at the institution.

-Increases line items for The War Orphans Scholarship, National Guard Scholarship, Choose Ohio First Scholarship, and Ohio College Opportunity Grant.

-Caps undergraduate tuition and general fee increases to no more than the greater of 2 percent over what the institution charged in the previous academic year, or 2 percent of the statewide average cost, by sector.

3)  This Week at the Statehouse

The House and Senate will hold hearings and sessions this week.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

•The House Finance and Appropriations Committee, chaired by Representative Amstutz, will meet on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM in room 313. The committee will receive testimony on the tax provisions included in the Executive Budget.

•The Joint Senate School Safety Committee will meet on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, at 7:00 PM in the Senate Finance Hearing Room.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

•The House Finance and Appropriations Committee, chaired by Representative Amstutz, will meet on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 at 9:00 AM in room 313. The committee will receive testimony from the Administration on the education provisions included in the Executive Budget. 

•The House Education Committee, chaired by Representative Stebelton, will meet on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 at 5:00 PM in hearing room 313.  The committee will receive a presentation from State Auditor David Yost on the school attendance data investigation.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

•The Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission will meet on Thursday, February 14, 2013.  An education and orientation program will be held from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM at the Riffe Center, 31st Floor and the Commission will meet at 2:00 PM. 

4)  District State Aid Estimates Analyzed  

•State Aid Estimates:  The Office of Budget and Management, Tim Keen director, released on February 6, 2013 the preliminary state aid estimates for school districts for FY14 and FY15 based on the new school funding formula proposed by Governor Kasich last week. 

The preliminary estimates do not include state allocations for transportation and career technical education, but do incorporate the “cap” on increases above the Core Opportunity component. The cap limits increases in state aid to no greater than 25 percent of FY13 levels or 10 percent of district total revenue. 

The document includes FY13 state aid; estimated student count; three-year average valuation per pupil; Core Opportunity Aid; Targeted Aid; state funding to support students with disabilities, English language learner, students from disadvantaged backgrounds, early childhood education, students identified as gifted and talented; guaranteed funds; and total state aid for FY14 and FY15.

The document also does not show the funds that school districts would lose when students transfer to attend charter schools and private schools through Ohioʻs several voucher programs. There are over 100,000 students now attending charter schools, and over 22,000 students currently using vouchers. There is a concern that the amount of state aid transferred out of some school districts to support choice students might be more than the increases in state aid.

According to the document, out of 612 school districts, 397 school districts (64 percent) would not receive increases in state aid in FY14, and 382 would not receive increases state aid in FY15, because these districts are on the guarantee.   

And, according to the document, while some suburban higher wealth schools districts, such as Dublin, Lordstown, Twinsburg, and Olentangy, are receiving increases in state aid, some of the school districts with the lowest average valuations per pupil (below $75,000 per pupil) are not. These include Dawson-Bryant Local, Crooksville Exempted Village, Trimble Local, Minford, etc. In fact, these low-wealth school districts are on the guarantee so that they do not lose state aid.  Governor Kasich has suggested that policy makers think about ways to eliminate the guarantee, which would mean that in the future these lower wealth districts could lose even more state aid.

The school funding documents are available at 

http://obm.ohio.gov/.

•State Aid by Typologies:  Dr. Howard Fleeter, a consultant with the Education Tax Policy Institute (ETPI), released last week an analysis about how the new state aid formula proposed by Governor Kasich would affect school districts in FY14 according to their typology.

The Ohio Department of Education organizes school districts into seven typologies in order to provide a rational basis for making comparisons and examining equity among school districts.  The typologies are based on variables such as total student enrollment, number of employees, geography, median income level, population density, educational attainment, percent of poverty, and percent of minority population.

The following typologies are used by the ODE:

Type 1: Rural/agricultural — high-poverty, low-median income: 97 school districts, approximate total average daily membership (ADM) = 160,000 students.

Type 2: Rural/agricultural — small student population, low poverty, low-to-moderate median income:  161 school districts, approximate total ADM = 220,000 students.

Type 3: Rural/small town — moderate-to-high median income: 81 school districts, approximate total ADM = 130,000 students.

Type 4: Urban — low median income, high poverty: 102 school districts, approximate total ADM = 290,000 students.

Type 5: Major urban — very high poverty: 15 school districts, approximate total ADM = 360,000 students.

Type 6: Urban/suburban — high median income: 107 school districts, approximate total ADM = 420,000 students.

Type 7: Type 7: Urban/suburban — very high median income, very low poverty: 46 school districts, approximate total ADM = 240,000 students.

School districts in typologies with lower property wealth, lower median income, and high levels of poverty would be expected to receive higher levels of state aid to improve equity among high and low-wealth school districts, based on the school funding formula proposed by Governor Kasich.

According to Dr. Fleeterʻs analysis, however, over 80 percent of lower wealth school districts in Types 1, 2, and 3 (rural, agricultural, small town) would not receive additional state aid through Governor Kasichʻs proposed state budget.  On the other hand, about half of school districts in Types 6 and 7, suburban/wealthy, would receive increases in state aid.

Typology Analysis: The Number of Districts on the Guarantee by Typology Group.

Type 1. Poor Rural:  Total number of school districts 97. 79 would be on the guarantee (81.4%).

Type 2. Rural: Total number of school districts 161. 137 would be on the guarantee (85.1%),

Type 3. Rural small town:  Total number of school districts 81. 71 would be on the guarantee (87.7%).

Type 4. Urban:  Total number of school districts 102. 27 would be on the guarantee (26.5%).

Type 5. Major Urban:  Total number of school districts 15.  Four would be on the guarantee. (26.7%).

Type 6. Suburban:  Total number of school districts 107.  53 would be on the guarantee (49.5%).

Type 7. Wealthy Suburban:  Total number of school districts 46. 22 would be on the guarantee. (47.8%)

5)  Policy Brief Focuses on Tax Reforms:  Policy Matters Ohio released on February 7, 2013 a policy brief about the tax reform proposals included in Governor Kasichʻs Executive Budget for FY14 and 15.  (“Kasich tax proposal would further tilt tax system in favor of Ohioʻs affluent.  Tax cuts would average more than $10,000 a year for top one percent.” Policy Matters Ohio, February 2013.) 

The analysis of the tax provisions in the Executive Budget were conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy for Policy Matters Ohio.  The analysis does not include the governorʻs severance tax plan.

According to the brief, the combination of reductions in the income tax and broadening the sales tax base would affect Ohioans differently according to their income levels. Low and middle income Ohioans would be affected more by the changes in the sales tax, which could increase inequity in Ohio.  The authors write, “The proposal would provide a $10,369 annual tax cut on average to taxpayers in the top 1 percent of the income spectrum, who made more than $335,000 in 2012. The bottom fifth of taxpayers, making less than $18,000 a year, would see an average increase of $63. Those in the middle fifth, making between $33,000 and $51,000 in 2012, would come out about even, averaging an annual tax increase of $8.” 

The researchers also report that Ohioans would be paying more in federal income taxes, because currently Ohioans can deduct state income taxes from their federal taxes. And, extending the sales tax to additional services will hit lower-income Ohioans more, “...because they spend a greater share of their income.”

The policy brief recommends that if the sales tax is broadened, its impact should be offset for low and moderate income Ohioans through a refundable state Earned Income Tax Credit, sales tax credits, which are used in Hawaii and New Mexico, or excluding certain services from the tax. The authors conclude, however, that overall it would be better to “maintain and bolster” the stateʻs progressive income tax than “counteract” the effects of a broader sales tax on those who are least able to afford it.

The policy brief is available at 

http://www.policymattersohio.org/  

6)  State Board of Education Meeting:  The State Board of Education, Debe Terhar president, will meet on February 11 and 12, 2013 at the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio Board of Regents, 25 South Front Street in Columbus.

The State Board agreed last month to hold their monthly meetings in the renovated ODE building beginning in March, but decided to move the February meeting to the Conference Center anyway. Those who plan to attend the State Board meetings should factor in additional time to clear ODE security.

This month the State Board will discuss a draft agenda for the new meeting structure, Social Media, receive a presentation on the recommendations of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee Workgroup, receive a presentation regarding the FY14-15 Executive Budget, receive the report of the Acting Superintendent of Public Instruction, Michael Sawyers, and receive the report on the school attendance audit presented by Auditor of State David Yost.  On Monday the Achievement, Capacity, and Urban committees will meet in the morning, and the Accountability Committee will meet in the afternoon.   

The Achievement Committee, chaired by C. Todd Jones, will be discussing proposed changes for Operating Standards for Children with Disabilities, appropriate uses of Early Child Education Screening and Assessment Information, Career Connections, and Restraint and Seclusion guidance and components of training.  

The Capacity Committee, chaired by Tim Gunlock, will discuss community school sponsorship rules, new rules to approve applicants of new internet or computer-based community schools, rules to measure sponsor compliance with applicable laws and rules, student growth measures, the SEED School of Cincinnati, and states with inadequate licensing standards.

The Urban Education Committee, chaired by Angela Thi Bennett, will discuss efforts to support low performing schools relative to HB555.

The Legislative and Budget Committee, chaired by Bryan Williams, will discuss the State Boardʻs recommendations for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Public participation on non agenda items is scheduled for Monday, February 11, 2013 at 9:00 AM.  Public participation on agenda items is scheduled after 11:30 AM on Tuesday, February 12, 2013.  

The State Board will take action on the following items at their February 2013 meeting:

#8 Approve a Resolution of Intent to Adopt Rule 3301-102-09 of the Administrative Code Entitled Approving Applications for New Internet - or Computer-Based Community Schools.

#9 Approve a Resolution to Approve the Recommendation of the Hearing Officer and to deny the Transfer of School District Territory for the Coventry Local School District, Summit County, to the Barberton City School District, Summit County, Pursuant to Section 3311.24 of the Ohio Revised Code.

#17  Approve a Resolution of Appointment to the Educator Standards Board.

#18  Approve a Motion Regarding 2013-14 State Board Meeting Dates.

#19  Approve a Resolution to Approve Proposed Legislative Recommendations Regarding Ohioʻs Policies on Literacy Education of Individuals from Birth through Third Grade, and to Delegate Authority to the State Board of Education Members on the Third Grade Reading Guarantee Workgroup to Finalize the Recommendations.

FYI ARTS

ARTS EDUCATION ADVOCATES TAKE ACTION

Governor Kasich introduced last week his FY14-15 Executive Budget to the Ohio General Assembly, and this week the 1000 page plus budget bill is expected to be introduced. 

The Ohio House Finance and Appropriations Committee chaired by Representative Ron Amstutz, is currently receiving testimony from Governor Kasich's Administration on various components of the budget, but soon the Finance Committee Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education, chaired by Representative Hayes, will debate the education provisions of the budget bill, and the Finance Committee Subcommittee on Higher Education, chaired by Representative Cliff Rosenberger, will review the budget for the Ohio Arts Council (OAC).    

After the budget has been considered by the House, with its changes having been made, the budget will move to the Senate, probably sometime in April, and go through a similar process. In the Senate, the Finance Committee is chaired by Senator Scott Oelslager and the Education Subcommittee is chaired by Senator Randy Gardner.

Arts education advocates will have many opportunities to influence the legislative process over the next months.  Please contact your representatives in the Ohio House and Senate and urge them to consider the legislative recommendations of the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education (OAAE) and Ohio Citizens for the Arts (OCA). If implemented these recommendations would increase student access to, and the quality of, arts education programs, and would increase state support for artists and community-based arts institutions and organizations that bring the arts to life for everyone.

For information about contacting members of the Ohio House and Senate please visit

http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/

Budget Recommendation of Ohio Citizens for the Arts

Ohio Citizens for the Arts is recommending that the budget of the Ohio Arts Council be increased to $22.4 million in FY14-15. 

Governor Kasichʻs Executive Budget recommends that funding for the OAC increase to $19,198,408 for FY14-15, which is an increase of 11.5 percent over the current biennium. The Governor recommends that the appropriation for subsidies (grants to arts organizations throughout Ohio) be increased by $2 million. In the current biennium (FY12-13) that category totaled $14 million for the two years. In the newly introduced Executive Budget recommendation, the total for subsidies is $16 million for the two years beginning July 1, 2013.

In December, 2012 at the Annual Meeting of Ohio Citizens for the Arts (OCA), through a unanimous vote of the membership, the OCA set a GOAL FOR THE OHIO ARTS COUNCIL BUDGET AT $22.4 MILLION. This would return the OAC to the most recent budget levels before a series of cuts were made starting in 2008. 

The OCA appreciates Governor Kasich’s confidence in the arts. His proposed increase in the OAC’s budget recognizes the importance of the arts for Ohio’s economic recovery, and advantageously positions arts advocates to request additional funding for the OAC to expand even more arts programming and support for artists in Ohio.

OAAE's Legislative Changes Focuses on Students

The Ohio Alliance for Arts Education and its arts education partners have approved the following arts-education related legislative recommendations for the 130th Ohio General Assembly:

1) School Funding:  The State of Ohio’s system for funding schools should provide sufficient funds so that all students have access to a high quality education, which includes the arts, pursuant to §3301.07 (2) and §3313.60 ORC. The arts are defined as dance, drama/theater, media arts, music, and visual art. 

Background:  Not all students in Ohio have access to the arts as part of a complete curriculum.  Many school districts are struggling to balance their budgets and are eliminating courses in the arts, eliminating instruction in the arts at certain grade levels, and seeking waivers from laws and rules requiring instruction in the arts. 

A report issued by Policy Matters Ohio in December 2011 found that two-thirds of school districts expected a budget shortfall in 2011-12, and twelve percent reported that they have or were anticipating cutting arts education programs to balance their budgets. (The State Budget and Ohio’s Schools: Big cuts, hard choices, local impacts by Wendy Patton, Piet van Lier and Elizabeth Ginther, 2011-2012.)

Ohio’s school funding system should ensure sufficient funds for public schools so that all students, no matter where they live, have access to sequential, standards-based learning opportunities in the arts in grades preK-12.  

All Ohio students should be prepared with the knowledge and skills to pursue careers in the arts and/or higher education in the arts, if that is their choice, but also participate in the arts throughout their lives.   Sufficient funds must be available for schools so that all students,

-experience the fine arts, including dance, drama/theater, media arts, music, and visual art

-study at least one art form in depth, and

-graduate with at least one high school credit in the arts.

2) Requirements for the Study of the Fine Arts and Music:  Oppose laws and rules that weaken the requirement that school districts provide for the study of the fine arts and music. 

Background:  Boards of education are permitted in current law and rule to request from the Superintendent of Public Instruction a waiver from statute or rule of certain provisions in law, including the provision requiring the study of the fine arts and music. (Ohio Revised Code 3301.07 (O) and Ohio Administrative Code 3301-35-11(D)). 

Although the OAAE is not aware of any school district that has been granted a waiver to eliminate or limit instruction in the arts, there is a concern that as school districts experience more financial problems, there will be more requests for waivers of laws and rules to eliminate programs, including those in the arts, to reduce district costs.  

The State Board of Education is also reviewing operating standards (Standards for Ohio’s Schools and School Districts, Ohio Administrative Code 3301-35-01 to 3301-35-07 and 3301-35-12 to 3301-35-14) to see how schools/districts can be given more “flexibility” to free dollars and seat-time requirements. 

Operating standards have been updated three times since the State Board of Education adopted them in 1983.  (2001, 2007, small changes in 2010.)  The 2001 update was a major revision, which aligned the standards to the Baldrige Model for high performing education systems, and that model is still evident in the July 2010 version of operating standards in use today. 

Ohio, unlike other states, does not have specific laws or rules about what constitutes a quality preK-12 arts education program, and so operating standards have become a general guide by default. The current operating standards ensure that students have 1) access to the study of the fine arts and music taught by a credentialed teacher and aligned to standards; 2) access to sequential learning in the arts based on a school district’s courses of study in the arts; and 3) sufficient opportunity to learn the course of study objectives in the arts and earn credits for graduation.

There is a concern that any changes in Operating Standards made through this review could compromise the best practices for effective education systems currently outlined in operating standards.

3) Community Schools:  Amend §3313.60(A) ORC to require community schools to provide for the study of the fine arts and music.   

Background:  According to an analysis of EMIS data for 2009-2010 conducted by the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Ohio Department of Education, 39 percent of community schools did not report enrollment of at least one student in one arts course. (Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, Status of Arts Education in Ohio’s Schools, 2011.)

The Ohio Constitution requires the state to provide for a “system of common schools”, yet traditional school districts are required to provide for the study of the fine arts and music, while community schools are not.  

All Ohio students should have access to the arts as part of a complete curriculum.  All Ohio students should be prepared with the knowledge and skills to pursue careers in the arts and/or higher education in the arts, if that is their choice, and participate in the arts throughout their lives.  Students attending community schools should have access to the same curricular opportunities as students in traditional public schools.

4) Gifted Education:  

•Amend §3324.03 ORC to require all boards of education and governing authorities of community schools to identify students who are gifted and talented and serve students identified as gifted and talented.  

•Ohio’s system for funding schools should provide sufficient funds so that school districts and community schools can identify students who are gifted and serve them. 

Background:  Traditional public school districts are required by law to identify students who are gifted in grades K-12 based on specific criteria in law (§3324.03 ORC), and report annually the number of students screened, assessed, and identified as gifted. 

However, a survey conducted by the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Ohio Department of Education for the 2009-2010 school year found that only 42 percent of schools reported that they identified students gifted and talented in the arts.  (Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, Status of Arts Education in Ohio’s Schools, 2011.)

Ohio law does not require traditional public school districts to serve students who have been identified as gifted, and does not require community schools to even identify or serve students gifted in the arts.  While the ODE reported that 19,771 students in 2009-2010 were identified as gifted in the visual and performing arts, only 1,048 of those students were served.

According to national studies, many gifted students “do not make it on their own” and need guidance and instructional support to maximize their abilities and talents, including those in the arts.  The lack of a state mandate to identify and serve all gifted students means that many Ohio students are not receiving important information about their learning potential, and are missing instructional opportunities that could help them achieve at even higher levels.  

5) Graduation Requirements: Amend §3313.603 ORC and require all students, without exceptions, to graduate with a minimum of one credit in the fine arts (120 hours of instruction or the equivalent) in grades 9-12, rather than two semesters in any grades 7-12. Students should be able to meet this graduation requirement in a variety of ways, such as through a demonstration of competency or mastery, end of course exams, project-based or performance-based assessment, etc. under the supervision of a licensed teacher in the arts.

Background:  Current Ohio law sets a low graduation requirement for students in the arts and does not require all students to comply with it.  Most students in traditional public schools are required to complete two semesters or the equivalent in the arts in any grades 7-12. Students who graduate from community schools, career-technical education programs, and dropout prevention programs are exempted from even this minimum requirement.

The two-semester requirement means that students can graduate without studying a more rigorous high school level curriculum in the arts or earn a high school credit in the arts in some cases. 

There is also a concern that once some students meet the minimum requirement in 7th or 8th grades they might decide not to take additional arts courses in high school.  This could decrease enrollment in the arts at the high school level and diminish the quality of arts education classes, such as band, choir, and orchestra, in which a minimum level of student participants is needed to present a quality performance.  The impact of decreased enrollment in arts courses could ultimately affect the quality of the entire arts education program and opportunities available in the arts for all students.

All Ohio students should be required to complete a graduation requirement in the arts at the high school level so that they are prepared with the knowledge and skills to pursue careers in the arts and/or higher education in the arts, if that is their choice, and participate in the arts throughout their lives.  

6) Assessment and accountability:  Amend §3302 to include the arts in Ohio’s assessment and accountability system for schools. 

-Require the State Board of Education, working with stakeholders, to develop or identify rigorous student assessments in the arts at designated grade levels or at the end of a course.  Consider multiple ways to assess student achievement, including performance-based assessments, project-based assessments, end of course exams, portfolios, demonstration of competency or mastery, etc. 

-Use the results of student assessments in the arts to develop standards of achievement in the arts  

-Develop indicators for quality arts education programs for the Local Report Card based on the standards for student achievement in the arts or other measures of quality of school arts education programs.

Background:  Ohio’s schools currently do not have a standardized way to assess student progress in the arts.  A survey of schools and districts for the 2009-2010 school year found that 88 percent of schools reported using teacher-developed assessments in the arts to track student progress, but six percent of schools reported using no assessments in the arts.  (Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, Status of Arts Education in Ohio’s Schools, 2011.)

Ohio law also requires that all teachers and principals be evaluated based on a framework that includes student academic progress as a criteria. The law allows teachers in areas without a standardized assessment of student achievement to use student-learning objectives (SLOs) to determine student progress.  Arts educators in Ohio’s school districts are now developing SLOs to include in their evaluations, but the student progress component of the evaluation could be facilitated greatly if the state adopted standardized assessments in the arts.

The results of assessing students in the arts could provide important information for students, parents, arts educators, schools/districts, and the community about the following:

                -Student achievement in the arts 

                -The quality of the arts education programs 

                -How arts education programs align with higher education requirements for the arts        

                -Strategies to improve instruction 

                -The types of professional development that should be made available for arts teachers                

                -The quality of teacher preparation programs in the arts

                -The effectiveness and efficiency of arts education programs.

7) Count student grades in arts courses the same as other courses in which students earn credits for graduation:  Establish a uniform state policy in law or rule to require schools to count student grades in arts courses, that meet for 120 hours of instruction, the same as grades in other courses when calculating student grade point averages for honor roll, class ranking, etc.

Background:  According to a survey of schools and districts for the 2009-2010 school year, 16 percent of high schools reported that student grades in arts courses were not counted equally with other courses when calculating the grade point average of students.  In some cases, for example, students did not receive 4 points for earning a “ A” grade in an arts course, even though the course met for 120 hours of instruction. The 16 percent of high schools represented approximately 14,000 students. (Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, Status of Arts Education in Ohio’s Schools, 2011.)

Counting student grades in arts courses differently than student grades in other courses creates inconsistent and unfair grading practices within and among schools. Such policies place students who take courses in the arts at a disadvantage when determining class rankings, college admissions, and competition for scholarships, and can harm students who excel in the arts, are pursuing higher education and careers in the arts, or are just interested in taking courses in the arts.

Counting grades in arts courses differently than other courses could also decrease enrollment in the arts and diminish the quality of arts courses in which a minimum level of student participants is needed to present a quality performance.  The impact of decreased enrollment in arts courses could ultimately affect the quality of the entire arts education program and opportunities available in the arts for all students.

Ohio Alliance for Arts Education

Education Update

January 28, 2013

Joan Platz

Special Request:  The Ohio Department of Education is seeking K-12 educators in dance, drama/theatre, music, and visual art to participate in the development of a model curriculum based on Ohio’s new Fine Arts Learning Standards. The deadline to apply is February 15, 2013. 

To apply please visit  

http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=1700&ContentID=138876&Content=138878

1)  Ohio News

•Superintendents to Preview New School Funding System:  Governor Kasich’s office has invited school district superintendents and representatives from charter schools to attend a meeting on January 31, 2013 to preview a proposed new school funding system for Ohio’s schools/districts.  The new system is expected to be included in Governor Kasich's proposed FY14-15 education budget. Representatives of other statewide education organizations were not invited to this meeting, but Governor Kasich has stated that his office will also hold public meetings about the new funding system. Stay tuned!!

•130th Ohio General Assembly:  The Ohio House and Senate are scheduled to meet this week and several committees are scheduled to hold organizational meetings, including the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee, which will meet on January 29, 2013 at 2:00 PM in hearing room 115.  

•House Committee Members Named: House Speaker William Batchelder announced last week the membership of the House’s 17 committees and six subcommittees.  The membership of the House Education, Finance and Appropriations, and Ways and Means committees, and the membership of the Higher Education, and Primary and Secondary Education subcommittees of the House Finance and Appropriations Committee are included below:

-House Education Committee:  Representative Gerald Stebelton (R), chair; Representative Andrew Brenner (R). vice chair; Representative Teresa Fedor (D), ranking minority member; and Representatives Antonio (D); Becker (R), Bishoff (D), Derickson (R), Driehaus (D), Hayes (R), Heard (D), Henne (R), Huffman (R), Kunze (R), Patterson (D), Strahorn (D), Roegner (R), Slaby (R), Smith (R), and Thompson (R).

-House Finance and Appropriations Committee:  Representative Ron Amstutz (R), chair; Representative Jeff McClain (R), vice chair; Representative Vernon Sykes (D), ranking minority member; and Representatives Antonio (D), R. Adams (R), Anielski (R), Ashford (D), Beck (R), Carney (D), Clyde (D), Derickson (R), Dovilla (R), Driehaus (D), Duffey (R), Foley (D), Gonzales (R), Grossman (R), Hall (R), Hayes (R), Lundy (D), Maag (R), McGregor (R), Phillips (D), Ramos (D), Reece (D), Rosenberger (R), Sears (R), Smith (R), Sprague (R), Stautberg (R), Stebelton (R).

-House Finance and Appropriations Committee, Higher Education Subcommittee:  Representative Rosenberger (R), chair; Representative Ramos (D), ranking minority member; and Representatives Dovilla (R), Clyde (D), and Duffey (R).

-House Finance and Appropriations Committee, Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee:  Representative Hayes, chair; Representative Matt Lundy, ranking minority member; and Representatives Maag (R), Phillips (D), and Stebelton (R). 

-House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee: Representative Dovilla (R), chair; Representative Buchy (R), vice chair; Representative Ron Gerberry (D), ranking minority member; and Representatives J. Adams (R), Blessing, III (R), Brenner (R), Cera (D), Clyde (D), Curtin (D), Fedor (D), Huffman (R), Pelanda (R), and Perales (R).

-House Ways and Means Committee:  Representative Peter Beck (R), chair; Representative Terry Boose (R), vice chair; Representative Tom Letson (D), ranking minority member; and Representatives Amstutz (R), Barnes (D), Baker (R),  Becker (R), Blair (R), Foley (D), Green (R),  McClain (R), Patmon (D), Rogers (D), Slesnick (D), Scherer (R), Schuring (R), Sprague (R), Terhar (R). and Winburn (D).

2) National News

•Recap of Education Laws Due for Reauthorization:  The list of education-related federal laws due for reauthorization will increase during the 113th Congress, but, education advocates are not sure if lawmakers will be able to overcome the philosophical and economic differences to revise any of them. 

Even without reauthorization Congress is expected to continue to appropriate funds for these laws.  But, there is a danger that most are becoming ineffective, because needed revisions and updates have not been approved in years. Also, as Congress and the President debate the next round of budget cuts, which were postponed until March 2013, there is a concern that funding for some of the education programs included in these laws will be reduced or eliminated.  

The following is a recap of some of the laws that are due/overdue for reauthorization:

-Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) also known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Reauthorized in 2002. Both the U.S. House and Senate have worked on revisions of the law during the 112th Congress. The U.S. Department of Education, Arne Duncan Secretary, has also proposed a variety of changes in the law. Until the law is revised the Obama administration has implemented a controversial waiver process, so that states can avoid some of the consequences for not meeting the federal mandates in NCLB. Ohio has received one of these waivers in exchange for meeting other accountability requirements and meeting other provisions established by the U.S. Department of Education.

-Education Sciences Reform Act: Reauthorized in 2002. This law supports federal education research, statistics, and evaluation, and the Institute of Education Sciences (created in the act). 

-Child Care and Development Block Grant Act. This law supports early-child-care programs; promotes parental choice for working parents; encourages states to provide consumer information; and supports state health, safety, licensing, and registering standards for early child care programs.  Reauthorized in 1996. 

-Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Reauthorized in 2006. This law supports vocational education programs.  The last time it was reauthorized it increased focus on the academic achievement of career and technical education students, strengthened the connections between secondary and postsecondary education, and improved state and local accountability for career tech programs. 

-Head Start Act: Reauthorized in 2007.  This law supports early childhood education programs for low-income families so that children are ready for school.  

-Higher Education Act: Reauthorized in 2008.  This law supports teacher education programs, student financial aid, and college-access programs, including GEAR-UP and TRIO.

-Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Reauthorized in 2004.  This law supports programs for students with disabilities. 

-Workforce Investment Act: Reauthorized in 1998.  This law supports job training programs. 

•Charter School Update:  The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released on January 15, 2013 some estimates about the number of charter schools and enrollment in charter schools for the 2012-13 school year. 

According to the press release there are estimated to be over 6,000 charter schools enrolling more than 2.3 million students in the U.S. The states with the highest number of new charter schools added this year are California, Florida, Texas, New York, and Michigan. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics the total enrollment of public school students in the U.S. in 2010-11 was 49.5 million. Charter school enrollment is about 4.6 percent of public school enrollment. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_enl.asp.  

The new data for charter schools is available on the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ data dashboard: http://dashboard.publiccharters.org/dashboard/home.

3) Report Rates State Teacher Preparation Policies: The National Council on Teacher Quality released on January 25, 2013 its sixth annual year book entitled, Improving Teacher Preparation, NCTQ’s 2012 State Teacher Policy Yearbook.

The report focuses this year on the state laws, rules, and regulations that guide teacher preparation programs and licensing requirements to ensure that new teachers are classroom-ready. 

The laws, rules, and regulations that were reviewed for this report include those regarding standards and admission criteria for candidates entering teacher preparation programs; the subject content knowledge required for teacher candidates; clinical experiences for teacher candidates; the accountability of teacher education programs for the quality of their graduates; and alternative certification requirements for qualified teacher candidates.  NCTQ rates state teacher preparation policies as being “on track”, “needs improvement”, or “off track”. 

According to the report, although states are developing more effective teacher and principal evaluations and providing assistance to ineffective teachers, “...most states are neglecting opportunities to get it right from the start by setting rigorous standards and high expectations for what teachers should know and should be able to do before they are licensed to become teachers.” 

The average rating of  teacher preparation policies for all states and the District of Columbia increased from a “D” last year to a “D+” in 2012. The states identified with the most consistent state policies for teacher preparation and licensing were Alabama, Florida, Indiana, and Tennessee.   

Ohio was one of fourteen states that received a higher rating this year than last year for its teacher preparation policies.  Ohio’s policies were rated 20th among the states and the District of Columbia, and Ohio’s overall rating improved from a D+ last year to a C- this year. Ohio’s teacher preparation policies were rated “off track” in the areas of admission requirements; elementary teacher preparation; special education teacher preparation; and student teaching.  Ohio received an “on track” grade for its middle school teacher preparation policy.  Ohio received a “needs improvement grade” for its policies for secondary teacher preparation and teacher preparation program accountability.

The report also includes the following recommendations to improve teacher preparation policies: 

-Raise admission requirements to ensure teacher preparation programs admit candidates with strong academic records.

-Align teacher preparation with the Common Core State Standards.

-Improve clinical preparation.

-Raise licensing standards.

-Don’t lower the bar for special education teachers.

-Hold teacher preparation programs accountable.

The report is available at http://www.nctq.org/stpy11/reports/stpy12_national_report.pdf.

4) States Face More School Funding Lawsuits:  According to an article in Education Week by Andrew Ujifusa, the recent economic crisis has exacerbated the funding disparities among school districts in several states, and as a result, more states are facing school funding lawsuits and even multiple lawsuits. (“State Finance Lawsuits Roil K-12 Funding Landscape:  Rulings complicate policymakers’ choices by Andrew Ujifusa Education Week, January 22, 2013.) 

The author notes that school funding lawsuits are decided in state courts as a result of the 1973 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Texas lawsuit, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. School funding lawsuits have been filed in 45 states since the early 1970s. The most recent lawsuits are being considered by the courts in Texas, Kansas, and Washington state.

In Texas four separate lawsuits are being combined.  The state cut $5.4 billion in state aid for school districts in 2011, and as a result, school districts must now depend more on locally raised revenue, which is based on property values. The lawsuits allege that the structure of the current system creates inequities between property wealthy and property poor school districts.

A decision in a lawsuit filed in Kansas, Gannon v. State of Kansas, was announced on January 11, 2013.  The court prohibited the state from making further cuts to its per pupil funding level, which was set in another decision, Montoy v. State of Kansas.  Now some Kansas lawmakers are threatening to support a constitutional amendment that would give lawmakers complete authority to set school funding levels.

The Washington Supreme Court is overseeing implementation of a school funding decision, McCleary v. State of Washington, which gave lawmakers until 2018 to adequately fund public schools. The Washington Supreme Court recently ordered the state to file a detailed five year plan outlining how it intends to implement the ruling, because the Court was not satisfied with the progress that was being made by the state so far. Policy makers estimate that schools would need another $1.4 billion to meet the Court’s mandate. 

The article is available at 

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/23/18finance.h32.html?tkn=YTCF1%2Bep%2F%2FTnb9jpDhq5K2ytUV1I8OeN6cwx&cmp=clp-sb-ascd 

FYI ARTS

1) Framework for National Standards Released:  The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) released on January 18, 2013 The National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning.  This is  “...a narrative framework document that details the rationale, goals, and strategy of the new National Standards for Arts Education.”   

The NCCAS is a coalition of nine arts and education organizations and has been working for almost three years to develop voluntary, research-based arts education standards based upon the 1994 national standards for the arts and the 2005 Standards for Learning and Teaching Dance in the Arts. The standards are being developed to guide arts education curriculum, instruction, and assessment in America’s schools.

The standards are being written by five writing teams representing dance, drama/theater, media arts, music, and visual art. The writing teams are developing the standards according to a process established in Understanding by Design (UbD) by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins.  The writing teams are first identifying important outcomes for students to learn in the arts; determining acceptable evidence that students have achieved the outcomes; and designing the best path for students to achieve the outcomes.

According to a timeline released by NCCAS, the standards are expected to be available for public review in June 2012. The standards will be delivered through a web-based platform, which will enable teachers to sort and organize the standards in a variety of ways according their needs. The platform will allow examples of student work to be linked directly to each standard, which in time can be used as examples of student work “near, at, or above the standard”. The web-based standards will be updated over time as assessment of student work is refined.

At a meeting on January 18-20, 2013, the NCCAS presented the conceptual framework of the standards and discussed its development and the progress that has been made in writing the standards, which are not included in the framework at this time.  A video presentation of this meeting and the power point presentation are available at http://nccas.wikispaces.com/.

According to the presentation the framework “...outlines the grounding philosophy, primary goals, dynamic processes, structures, and outcomes that shape student learning and achievement in the arts”.  The framework is divided into the following sections:

•Forward:  Understanding and Using the Core Arts Standards.  

This section includes information about the context for arts education in the U.S.; arts standards in the U.S.; international arts standards; and explains the process-oriented nature of the arts and arts learning.

•Section 1:  The National Core Arts Standards Matrix.  

This section provides a unifying view of the standards presented through a matrix. The matrix includes the philosophical foundations and lifelong goals; artistic processes for each arts discipline; enduring understandings and essential questions; the standards and benchmarks; and model cornerstone assessments for grades preK-12. The matrix will include sample cornerstone assessments that illustrate how student learning can be assessed through performance tasks with clearly identified criteria.

-Philosophical Foundation:  The philosophical foundation and lifelong goals for arts education establish the basis for the standards and illustrate artistic literacy and represent the common values and expectations for learning in the arts across the five arts disciplines. The goals include, The Arts as Communication; The Arts as Creative Personal Realization; The Arts as Culture, History, and Connections; Arts as a Means to Wellbeing; and The Arts as Community Engagement.   

-Artistic Processes:  The artistic processes are the cognitive and physical actions by which arts learning and making are realized. They include Creating; Performing/Producing/Presenting; Responding; and Connecting. The artistic processes will vary across the arts disciplines.  

-Enduring Understandings:  “Enduring understandings are statements summarizing important ideas and core processes that are central to a discipline and have lasting value beyond the classroom.” The understandings will vary across the arts disciplines.

-Essential Questions:  Essential questions stimulate thought, provoke inquiry, and guide students as they discover enduring understandings.  The essential questions will vary across the arts disciplines.

-Cornerstone Assessments:  These are curriculum-embedded assessments that anchor the curriculum to the most important performances that students should be able to do with acquired knowledge and skills in authentic and relevant contexts.

According to the framework, “These assessments also provide the basis for collecting the benchmark student work that illustrates the nature and quality of student achievement envisioned in the standards. This paradigm shift in measuring student learning in the arts will offer relevant and reliable evidence of what students truly understand and know how to do, for it is only when students are able to apply their learning thoughtfully and flexibly to a new situation that true understanding of the content is demonstrated.”

•Section II:  Establishing Principles and Informing the Work.  

This section discusses the foundations for artistic literacy and arts success and achievement through the creative practices; contextual awareness in arts learning; 21st Century Skills aligned to the arts; college-level expectations in the arts; and the alignment of the arts with the Common Core State Standards. 

Artistic literacy is defined as “....the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Fluency in the language(s) of the arts is the ability to create, perform/produce/present, respond, and connect through symbolic and metaphoric forms that are unique to the arts. It is embodied in specific philosophical foundations and lifelong goals that enable an artistically literate person to transfer arts knowledge, skills, and capacities to other subjects, settings, and contexts.”

Success and achievement in the arts means “....engagement in the four fundamental creative practices of imagination, investigation, construction, and reflection in multiple contexts. These meta-cognitive activities nurture the effective work habits of curiosity, creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, and collaboration, each of which transfer to all aspects of learning and life in the 21st century.” 

According to research conducted by the College Board, the creative practices of investigation and reflection are connected to all ten of the anchor standards for reading in the Common Core State Standards (CCSC).  All four skills, imagination, investigation, construction, and reflection, are strongly represented in the anchor standards for the CCSC for writing, and all four creative practices are aligned with each of the CCSC for mathematical practice. 

•Section III: Research based discoveries.

This section describes research that has influenced the development of the conceptual framework for the standards, and also includes some research studies conducted by the College Board on behalf of the NCCAS. The studies include:

-International Arts Education Standards: A Survey of the Arts Education Standards and Practices of Fifteen Countries and Regions

http://nccas.wikispaces.com/file/view/College%20Board%20International%20Standards%20Report.pdf

-Arts Education Standards and 21st Century Skills

http://nccas.wikispaces.com/21st+Century+

Ohio Alliance for Arts Education

Education Update

January 21, 2013

Joan Platz

Expression of Sympathy:  The Ohio Alliance for Arts Education expresses sympathy to the family of George Gund III, who passed away on January 15, 2013. He will be remembered for his service as a trustee of the George Gund Foundation for 44 years, and his enthusiastic support for the arts, including the founding of the Cleveland Cinemateque, and as a trustee of the Cleveland International Film Festival, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Orchestra.  He also will be remembered for his support for the creation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. 

1) Ohio News

•130th Ohio General Assembly: The Ohio House is scheduled to meet on January 23, 2013 at 1:00 PM.

•Senate Democrats Present Priorities: Senate Democratic Leader Eric Kearney presented his caucus’ legislative goals and a preview of the legislation that Senate Democrats will introduce this session at a news conference on January 15, 2013.  Topping the Democrats’ goals is job creation, which Democrats expect to accomplish by expanding small business opportunities, revitalizing communities, cleaning up blighted properties, and creating pathways to employment.

Also on the list are initiatives to support families; promote public safety; and provide educational opportunities for all Ohioans.  

Senate Democrats will introduce legislation this session to address gun violence; election reform to increase voter access to the polls; summer nutrition programs for students; and family stability.

Under education the Democrats want to reform Ohio’s unconstitutional school funding system by reducing the reliance on local property taxes.  Senator Tom Sawyer is expected to introduce a bill that will address the distribution of state funds for schools through a constitutional amendment that would require the State to identify the components of a thorough and efficient education program.

The priorities are available at http://www.ohiosenate.gov/democrats/press/senate-democrats-outline-legislative-priorities-for-130th-general-assembly

•Senate Committees on a Rotating Schedule:  The Senate released a new rotating committee schedule for this session.  The Finance Committee will meet at 2:30 PM the first and third Tuesdays of the month (Schedule A), while the Education Committee will meet at 10:15 AM the second and forth Wednesdays of the month. (Schedule B). The rotating schedule will reduce conflicts and provide Senators more opportunities to attend committee meetings. For information about the schedules of other Senate committees please visit http://www.ohiosenate.gov/senate/index

•Update on the Attendance Investigation:  According to Gongwer News Service - Ohio, the Ohio Auditor of State’s office will release by the end of January 2013 a report about its investigation of school district attendance report irregularities. Two preliminary reports that included a review of the attendance records of approximately 181 schools were released in October 2012 and November 2012. This next report will include a review of over 100 schools that have been identified through a statistical model developed by The Ohio State University. The model looks at certain data, such as attendance and trends in test results, to identify possible instances in which students were removed from a school district’s attendance data without lawful reason. The story is available at http://www.gongwer-oh.com/programming/news.cfm?newsedition_id=8201002

•EdChoice Eligibility: The Ohio Department of Education released last week a preliminary list of 213 schools that have been identified as “persistently low performing”, which is defined as rated in academic emergency or academic watch for at least two of the last three school years.  The schools are located in 28 out of 612 school districts.  Students attending these schools are eligible for the EdChoice scholarship program, which provides students with a voucher to attend eligible private schools. The EdChoice Scholarship program was expanded through 129-HB153 to allow up to 60,000 students to participate each year, but last year 17,000 students applied for the program. To participate in the program, eligible students must be accepted by the private school. The vouchers range from $4,250 per year for students in grades K-8 and up to $5,000 for high school students. The list of persistently low performing schools is available at

http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=667&ContentID=46154&Content=138766

•Casino Revenue Won’t Solve School Funding:  The Ohio School Boards Association, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, and the Ohio Association of School Business Officials released on January 18, 2013 the results of a survey of 364 school district treasurers.  According to the survey, 77.5 percent of treasurers reported that casino revenue payments will make-up less than one percent of their budgets in 2013. The survey also found that 28 percent of school districts in FY12 and 30.5 percent in FY13 lost between $501,000 - $1 million in state revenue over the last biennium.  Most school districts in FY12 (48.4 percent) and FY13 (47 percent) reported losing $0-$500,000 in state revenue.

The press release is available at 

http://www.ohioschoolboards.org/sites/default/files/CasinoRevenueRelease1-18-13.pdf

The survey results are available at 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=0IOzTflqxh9WLbDLv1_2fPt_2bJxwQfmzwM9sZp_2fFDze9AI_3d

2)  National News

•Florida Teachers Challenge Merit-Pay in the Courts:  The SunSentinel reports on January 17, 2013 that the Florida Education Association presented arguments before the Leon County Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality of a 2011 Florida law that bases teacher evaluations and pay on student test scores in Brandt Robinson, et. al. vs. Gerard Robinson, as Florida Commissioner of Education, et. al. ("Teachers go after merit-pay law in court" by Kathleen Haughney, SunSentinel, January 17, 2013.) 

According to the teachers union, the new law violates the Florida Constitution, because it requires boards of education to unilaterally set-up a new salary schedule that ignores collective bargaining. The new schedule bases teacher salary increases and employment decisions on teacher evaluations, which include student test scores results. The lawsuit was filed in September 2011.  The article is available at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/about/tribune-search/fl-merit-pay-court-20130116,0,4120838.story

•Education Grants:  GetEdFunding is a new website that provides a searchable database of available education-funding opportunities for education technology and curriculum programs. The site, which is updated daily, offers information about 750 active grants and awards.

The site is available at 

http://www.getedfunding.com/

3)  Failure is Not an Option Reviewed:  The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) released on January 15, 2013 a review of the report Failure is Not an Option: How Principals, Teachers, Students, and Parents From Ohio’s High-Achieving, High-Poverty Schools Explain their Success by Carolin Hagelskamp and Christopher DiStasi, and published by Public Agenda in December 2012. The NEPC review was prepared by Professor Mark Paige, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and UMASS Law.

Failure is Not An Option profiles nine Ohio schools with sustained student success in spite of high poverty rates, and identifies 11 attributes and practices that the authors believe are factors in the success of the schools. The report also offers six recommendations to help other schools achieve and sustain similar success. The conclusions of the study of the nine schools is based mostly on interviews and focus groups with principals, teachers, parents, and students.

In his review of Failure is Not an Option, Professor Paige raises questions about the standards of research used; the “generic nature” of the recommendations; the internal inconsistencies which undercut the report’s recommendations; the failure of the authors to connect the results of the report to previous research about best practices; and the validity of the study’s findings.

According to the review, “...the study’s central claim—that the “key attributes” appear with “remarkable consistency” across the featured schools—is not substantiated. The report appears to randomly and inconsistently choose quotations from its profiled schools.”

The report also “sends conflicting messages with respect to the transferability of its recommendations.”  In one section of the report the authors assert that they have identified the most important attributes that will lead to success, yet in another section they say that the recommendations are not “necessarily generalizable”, and that there are many paths to school success.

Professor Paige’s review also observes that the criteria used to select the schools profiled in the report are not clear.  The authors  selected six schools identified by the Ohio Department of Education as “Schools of Promise” for two years and one additional year as a criteria for being included in the study.  But, Professor Paige notes that there were actually 30 schools that met the criteria.  In addition, three school not identified as “Schools of Promise” were included in the study, because they showed “remarkable improvements in student performance.” And, although “high poverty” was a criteria, four of the nine schools selected for the study had poverty rates near the state average of 45.1 percent.

The validity of the report is also challenged, because it does not address the “outside factors” that could contribute to student success. Professor Paige offers the research of David Berliner, who has identified six “out-of-school” factors that play a powerful role in closing achievement gaps. The report does confirm that in some schools the staff purchased clothes, shoes, etc. to meet the basic needs of students, but the authors do not pursue these outside school factors and how they could contribute to student achievement.  

According to Professor Paige, “Addressing out-of-school factors is primary and fundamental to resolving, education inequality.”

“By embracing “no excuses” (“Failure is not an option”) rhetoric and approaches, this report misleads policy makers and the public into thinking that a set of generic recommendations and attributes will overcome deeply-rooted social problems of poverty and inequality.”  

Mark Paige’s review is available at 

http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-failure-not-option

Failure is Not an Option by Carolin Hagelskamp and Christopher DiStasi is available at 

http://www.publicagenda.org/files/pdf/FailureIsNotAnOption_PublicAgenda_2012.pdf.

4)  Are Graduation Rates Rising?:  Richard Murnane, Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, recently published a working paper that describes several patterns of U.S. graduation rates over the period 1970 - 2010. The patterns include a period of stagnation over the last three decades of the twentieth century; significant race-, income-, and gender-based gaps; and significant increases in graduation rates over the first decade of the twenty-first century, especially among African Americans and Hispanics. 

The author proposes that even though a high school diploma means higher wages, increases in academic standards and the increasing availability of the GED credential might explain a period when the rate of high school graduation was stagnant during the 1990s.  

Even though high school graduation rates have increased recently, the report states that “there are several hypotheses, but to date, very little evidence to explain the increases in high school graduation rates over the first decade of the twenty-first century.”

An abstract of the paper entitled U.S. High School Graduation Rates, Patterns and Explanations. National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2013, is available at

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w18701.

5) What will the New CCSS Assessments Measure? UCLA’s National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) released last week a report examining the extent to which assessments developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) to assess student learning of the Common Core State Standards will likely measure and support goals for deeper learning. (On the Road to Assessing Deeper Learning: The Status of Smarter Balanced and PARCC Assessment Consortia by Joan Herman & Robert Linn, January, 2013 CRESST/University of California, Los Angeles.) 

The report summarizes the assessment development process used by Smarter Balanced and PARCC and their plans for system development and validation; provides an initial evaluation of the status of deeper learning represented in both consortia’s plans; and describes the similarities and differences in how the consortia are making decisions.  

According to this report, summative assessments developed by PARCC and Smarter Balanced are likely to “...represent important goals for deeper learning, particularly those related to mastering and being able to apply core academic content and cognitive strategies related to complex thinking, communication, and problem solving. At the same time, the report points to the technical, fiscal, and political challenges that the consortia face in bringing their plans to fruition.”

The following technical, fiscal, and political challenges were identified:

•Using several days to assess student performance tasks. Some of the Chief State School Officers in the Smarter Balanced Governing States questioned Smarter Balanced’s initial plans to assess performance tasks over several days, because of time demands and the cost burdens of scoring. Smarter Balanced now plans to reduce the time requirements for its summative assessments.

•Tight budgets.  Some states in both consortia might opt to cut or omit the performance tasks to save money.

•Comparability of scores.  Offering extended performance tasks will challenge the comparability of scores from one year to the next, and compromise the ability of states to monitor trends and evaluate performance. “Responding to the challenge may well require innovation in performance task design, scoring, and equating methods.”

•Technical challenges.  Both consortia are estimating summative testing costs at $20 per student for both subject areas. “In the absence of promised breakthroughs, the costs will escalate, there will be enormous demands on teachers and/or others for human scoring, and the feasibility of timely assessment results may be compromised.”

•Turnaround. Both consortia have promised end-of-year results.  Meeting these expectations will require innovation in scoring services.

•Assessing students with special needs.  Both consortia are working to make the assessments accessible to students with disabilities and English language learners through technological accommodations. But, accommodations raise questions about the validity and comparability of the accommodated and non accommodated versions of the test.

•Technological barriers.  There is a concern that technologically manipulated assessments might add barriers for some students, particularly those with less facility with technology or English language learners.

•Increased intellectual rigor (DOK level).  The initial results of the new assessments might “shock” the public. The public will need to be prepared for some drop in school accountability ratings as a result of the more rigorous exams.  

•Resources for transition.  Teachers will need support to change instructional practices to implement the new Common Core State Standards. The resources available for transition “...will make a tremendous difference in how well the new assessments are accepted and/or whether there is additional pushback to them.”

•Focus on the major learning goals. Teachers must focus on the broad competencies that students need for college and career readiness rather than the assessment targets for each grade.

•Transparency and validation.  The computer adaptive testing used by the Smarter Balanced consortium essentially individualizes test items for every student, making it difficult to see how well deeper learning is represented for every student overall. A more complete analysis of PARCC is not possible until its plans are made public.

The report is available at 

http://www.cse.ucla.edu/products/reports/R823.pdf  

6) State Board of Education:  The State Board of Education, Debe Terhar president, met on January 14 & 15, 2013 at the Ohio School for the Deaf, 500 Morse Road, Columbus, OH.

On Monday, January 14, 2013 newly elected, re-elected, and appointed members of the State Board of Education participated in a swearing-in ceremony conducted by Justice Sharon Kennedy, Ohio Supreme Court. 

The State Board includes eleven members who are elected through nonpartisan races, and eight members appointed by the governor with the consent of the Ohio Senate.  

The State Board for 2013-14 includes five incumbents and two new members elected on November 6, 2012; two members re-appointed and two members newly appointed by Governor Kasich; and seven members who are continuing their terms on the board.  Governor Kasich must also make another appointment to fill an open seat, formerly held by Stanley Jackson.

2013-14 State Board of Education

Elected Members

District 1:  Ann Jacobs (Lima) RE-ELECTED

District 2:  Kathleen A. McGervey (Avon) Term ends December 31, 2014

District 3:  Jeffrey Mims (Dayton) Term ends December 31, 2014

District 4:  Debe Terhar (Cincinnati) Term ends December 31, 2014

District 5:  Bryan Williams (Fairlawn) RE-ELECTED. 

District 6:  Michael Collins (Westerville) RE-ELECTED. 

District 7:  Sarah Fowler (Rock Creek) NEWLY ELECTED

District 8:  Deborah Cain (Uniontown) Term ends December 31, 2014

District 9:  Stephanie Dodd (Hebron) NEWLY ELECTED

District 10: Jeff Hardin (Milford) RE-ELECTED

District 11: Mary Rose Oakar (Cleveland) RE-ELECTED

Appointed At-Large Members

Angel Thi Bennett (East Cleveland) - RE-APPOINTED

Tess Elshoff (New Knoxville) Term ends on December 31, 2014

Joe Farmer (Baltimore) Term ends on December 31, 2014

Tom Gunlock (Centerville) Term ends on December 31, 2014  

C. Todd Jones (New Albany) - RE-APPOINTED 

Darryl D. Mehaffie - NEWLY APPOINTED

Dr. Mark A. Smith - NEWLY APPOINTED

During the State Board’s biennial reorganization meeting members re-elected Debe Terhar president and Tom Gunlock vice president. President Terhar announced some changes in committee assignments, and the creation of an Accountability Committee, chaired by Tom Gunlock and Bryan Williams, to oversee the implementation of provisions included in HB555 (Stebelton/Butler) regarding Ohio’s new school report card system. The following are the new committee assignments:

Accountability Committee 

Tom Gunlock (chair)

Bryan Williams (chair)

Debe Terhar 

Michael Collins 

Stephanie Dodd  

Mark A. Smith 

The Appointments Committee 

Joe Farmer (chair)

Deborah Cain (vice-chair) 

Tess Elshoff 

Sarah Fowler

Ann Jacobs 

Darryl Mehaffie 

The Achievement Committee 

C. Todd Jones (chair) 

Joe Farmer (vice-chair) 

Tess Elshoff 

Sarah Fowler 

Jeff Hardin 

Ann Jacobs 

The Capacity Committee 

Tom Gunlock (chair) 

Bryan Williams (vice-chair) 

Stephanie Dodd 

Kathleen McGervey 

Darryl Mehaffie 

The Executive Committee 

Debe Terhar (chair) 

Tom Gunlock (vice-chair) 

Joe Farmer 

C. Todd Jones 

Angela Thi-Bennett 

Bryan Williams 

The Legislative & Budget Committee 

Bryan Williams (chair) 

C. Todd Jones (vice-chair) 

Mike Collins 

Joe Farmer 

Ann Jacobs 

Darryl Mehaffie 

Kathleen McGervey 

Rose Mary Oakar 

The Urban Education Committee 

Angel-Thi Bennett (chair) 

Collins (vice-chair) 

Deborah Cain 

Jeff Mims 

Rose Mary Oakar

Mark A. Smith 

President Debe Terhar also announced that the State Board would hold future meetings starting in March 2013 at the renovated joint offices of the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Board of Regents at 25 South Front Street in Columbus. The Ohio Board of Regents has completed its move into the ODE building, and as a result of renovations connected with the move, there is now a conference center in the basement to hold State Board meetings.  The Executive Committee also adopted a calendar of meeting dates for 2013, and moved the annual retreat from June to July.

Committee Reports 

•The Achievement Committee, chaired by C. Todd Jones, adopted an amended Resolution to approve an ODE Policy on Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports, and Restraint and Seclusion and a Resolution of Intent to Enact Rule 3301-35-15 of the Administrative Code Entitled Standards Concerning the Implementation of Positive Behavior Intervention Supports and the Use of Restraint and Seclusion. The State Board will adopt the resolution regarding the rule in April 2013. During the discussion about the rule and policy, some Board members expressed the concern that community schools are not required to comply with this policy or rule.  

The committee also received an update about the Ohio Performance Assessment Pilot Project.  This program, funded through Race to the Top, is piloting performance-based assessments in elementary and high schools, and defining the nature and implementation of the tasks to be used as a statewide test instrument. 

•The Capacity Committee, chaired by Tom Gunlock, had four items on their agenda:

-Rules 3301-102-01 to -07, Community School Sponsorship Rules

The Committee discussed some additional changes to the rules, which will be presented to the committee again in February.  The Community School Sponsorship rules are being reviewed as part of the five-year rule review process.  The rules describe the application process and approval procedures for parties interested in becoming sponsors of new start-up community schools; sponsorship agreements between the Department and an approved sponsor; sponsorship obligations of all sponsors of conversion and new start-up community schools; the Department’s oversight of all sponsors; revocation of sponsors; and payment processes for community schools. The revisions have been available for public comment and have been reviewed by the Lt. Governor’s Common Sense Initiative (CSI) office. 

-Rules 3301-24-19 to -22, Alternative Resident Educator License Rules

The Committee voted to recommend to the full State Board the approval of the proposed rules as presented. Several changes have been made to the alternative resident educator licenses to align the rules with HB 153 (ORC 3319.26). Those changes include increasing from grades 4-12 to grades K-12 the grade bands for the designated subjects alternative license; adding the option to complete a summer training institute approved by the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents to meet the pre-service teacher training requirement for the alternative licensure, instead of the existing Intensive Pedagogical Training Institute; adding the option to complete a professional development program approved by the Chancellor in lieu of 12 additional semester hours of professional education college coursework in the principles and practices of teaching; and removing the requirement for applicants for alternative licensure to have completed a major in the subject area to be taught. The committee included the recommendations of the Educator Standards Board to add a 3 semester hour reading coursework requirement to alternative licenses for grades K-12 designated subjects and for grades P-12 world languages.

-SEED School of Cincinnati

Jessica Voltolini, ODE Assistant Legal Counsel, provided an update on the current status of issues related to the SEED School of Cincinnati.  Department legal staff is scheduled to meet with SEED representatives next week to discuss SEED’s proposed revisions to the Operator Contract.

-Teacher Evaluation Framework for State Agencies

A standards-based framework for evaluating teachers employed in state agencies will be presented to the State Board in April 2013. The Educator Standards Board is currently working on the framework. The State Board must adopt this framework on or before June 30, 2013.  State agencies that employ teachers are required to adopt an education policy aligned to the framework at the expiration of any collective bargaining agreement. The existing collective bargaining agreement covering state agency employed teachers is due to expire on June 30, 2015. 

•The Committee on Urban Education, chaired by Angela Thi-Bennett, received two presentations. Dr. Christopher Woodlard, ODE Director from the Office of Policy and Research, and Dr. Matthew Cohen, ODE Chief Research Officer, presented information about value added data, and Dr. Stephanie Siddens, Director from the Office of Early Learning & School Readiness, and Barbara Weinberg, Assistant Director of the Office of Early Learning and School Readiness, presented information about early childhood education.  

•The Legislative and Budget Committee, chaired by Bryan Williams, received a year-end legislative update and discussed a proposal for the State Board to adopt a federal platform for the reauthorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). 

Kelly Weir, Executive Director of Legislative Services and Budgetary Planning, and Jennifer Hogue, State Legislative Liaison for the Ohio Department of Education, reviewed legislation affecting education and approved during the lame duck session of the 129th General Assembly. 

One of the provisions of HB 280 (Dovilla/Bera) provided $3.2 million from lottery profits in additional funding for some school districts on the guarantee to reimburse them for students who had never attended a public school, but were now participating in the Jon Peterson Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities. Students participating in the program are counted for funding purposes in their resident school districts’ enrollment, and then funds are transferred for those students from the school district of residence to entities educating the student. Board members asked how the additional $3.2 million will be distributed.  Ms. Weir stated that discussions about allocating the funds were just starting, and that she would update the Board in the future.

Jeremy Marks, Federal Legislative Liaison for the Ohio Department of Education, Susan Zake, Director Office of Exceptional Children, and Tom Lather, Assistant Director, Office of Exceptional Children, reviewed the purpose of developing a platform to make recommendations for the reauthorization of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  IDEA was last reauthorized in 2004. The platform will include Ohio specific and State Board endorsed recommendations for the reauthorization of IDEA, and will be shared with Ohio’s Congressional delegation and stakeholder organizations. 

Report of the Acting Superintendent of Public Instruction

Michael Sawyers, Acting Superintendent of Public Instruction, provided the Board an update about the following items:

-New ODE Staff:  Acting Superintendent Sawyers announced that Tina Thomas Manning had joined the Ohio Department of Education as an Associate Superintendent for the Division of Accountability and Quality Schools; Jason Rafeld as chief of staff; and John Richard would be joining the ODE in February 2013 as Senior Executive Director in the Center for Accountability and Continuous Improvement.

-Safety Plans:  The Ohio Department of Education and the Attorney General’s Office are working together to inform schools about the resources available to improve safety. Acting Superintendent Sawyers emphasized the role that the community should play in helping schools become better prepared to avert the recent school tragedies that have taken place in Ohio and Connecticut.  There are less than 40 schools, mostly community schools, that have not submitted a required school safety plan to the ODE. 

-Cross Agency Teams:  The Ohio Board of Regents has completed its move into the ODE building at 25 South Front Street, Columbus.  Cross Agency Teams have been developed to better coordinate and communicate educational policies for the preK-20 education system.  Cross agency teams have been formed to examine teacher quality, transitioning from the Praxis to the Pearson teacher licensure exams, and college and career readiness.    

The teacher quality team, for example, is looking at ways to improve the standards for students entering teacher preparation programs.  There is significant variance in the requirements for students entering Ohio’s 51 teacher preparation programs, and the ODE and BOR are working to align the requirements among the programs. 

The cross agency team for college and career readiness is developing a request for proposals to develop an nationally standardized college and career readiness assessment, which will be administered to 10th grade students in 2014, although the ODE would like to administer the assessment in the fall of 2013.  The team is also looking at online and blended learning.

-Third Grade Reading Guarantee Grants.  Over 200 schools applied for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee Grants. The General Assembly put aside $13 million from the lottery profit fund for schools to implement the program through a competitive grant process.  The applications are being reviewed now, and the awards will be available in April 2013.

HB555 Overview  

Kelly Weir, Executive Director of Legislative Services and Budgetary Planning, presented to the State Board information about HB555 (Stebelton-Butler), which was passed by the General Assembly and signed into law on December 20, 2012. The law becomes effective on March 22, 2013.

According to the presentation, there are three primary components of the law: the A-F report card for schools/districts; a separate report card for dropout recovery schools; and a rating system for community school sponsors. 

The law also makes changes in the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, teacher evaluations, and more.  For example, by August 31, 2013, the State Board must submit to General Assembly recommendations for a comprehensive statewide plan to intervene directly in and improve the performance of persistently poor performing schools and school districts. 

The following are some highlights of the main provisions of the law:

•Dropout Recovery Report Card:  This report card will be issued in lieu of the A-F report card for the 75 or so community schools in which the majority of students are in dropout recovery programs.  

The report card for dropout recovery schools will include three ratings: exceeds standards, meets standards, and does not meet standards.  The report cards will include three measures in 2013: graduation rate (4 year cohort up to 8 year cohort phased-in); high school assessment percentage; annual measurable objectives (AMOs); and for the 2015 report card, a nationally norm-referenced assessment for the reading and/or math progress measure. 

The new report card will be implemented over several years.  In August 2013 the report card will be issued without the ratings.  In August 2014 there will ratings for each individual measure except for the reading/math progress measure, and student outcome data will be reported. In August 2015 and annually thereafter, a report card will be issued with individual performance measures rated, and also an overall performance rating for the composite measures. The ODE shall also include student outcome data which shall not be included in the calculation of the overall performance rating.

To implement the law the State Board is required to adopt rules for the graduation rate, the high school assessment passage rate, and the AMOs by June 30, 2013, which means that the rules must be developed by May 2013. By December 31, 2014 the State Board must establish the benchmarks for the reading and math progress measure and, if determined by the State Board, an national standardized assessment. The Ohio Department of Education is also required to gather and analyze data from each dropout prevention and recovery school in consultation with stakeholders, and identify one or more states that have established, or are in the process of establishing, similar academic performance rating systems for dropout prevention and recovery programs, and consult with the departments of education of those states. Colorado has been working on dropout recovery programs for several years, and was suggested as a state to consult.

The ODE is also required to post on its website the ratings and relevant performance data for each community school, and provide a copy of the ratings and data to the governing authorities of community schools.

Community School Sponsor Ratings

The State Board is required to develop a rating system for community school sponsors, which will go into effect after January 1, 2015, based on three measures:  academic performance of students on state assessments; quality practices developed by a national association of community school organizations; and compliance with state and federal laws and rules.  

Community school sponsors will be rated exemplary, effective, ineffective, or emerging (applicable to sponsors within the first two years of sponsorship). Currently community school sponsors rated at the bottom 20 percent of sponsors on the ranking scale are not allowed to sponsor additional community schools.

To implement this part of the HB555, ODE must prescribe quality practices for community school sponsors and develop an instrument to measure these practices by March 31, 2013.  The State Board must also adopt the “compliance with standards” rules by July 1, 2013. 

Third Grade Reading Guarantee

HB555 includes more options for teachers to demonstrate their ability to provide reading instruction when a student is identified reading below grade level, and aligns the strategies that teachers must provide students who are retained and those who are on reading improvement monitoring plans (RIMPS). Currently, there are two sets of teacher credentials required based on the types of students served.  

Teacher Evaluation

Changes have also been made to the teacher evaluation process.  HB555 provides that certain statutory deadlines regarding teacher evaluations and timelines for non renewal notices prevail over any conflicting provisions of a collective bargaining agreement entered into on or after the effective date of the bill; exempts instructors of adult education from performance evaluation requirements for public school teachers; and exempts substitute teachers and instructors of adult education from teacher evaluations conducted by state agencies that employ teachers.  

The most significant change in the law regarding teacher evaluations pertains to the way in which the value-added progress dimension for student academic growth must be used to evaluate teachers. Within the current framework adopted by the State Board of Education, up to 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation is based on the student academic growth, and the other 50 percent on teacher performance. HB555 now requires the part of the teacher evaluation framework based on student growth to reflect the proportion of a teacher’s schedule for which value added data is available. The State Board will need to update the teacher evaluation framework to reflect this change.

K-12 Report Card

HB555 replaces the current academic performance rating system for school districts, individual buildings of districts, community schools, STEM schools, and college-preparatory boarding schools with a phased-in letter grade system in which districts and schools are assigned grades of “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” based on various performance measures. 

The new accountability system was originally included in the request Ohio submitted to the U.S. Department of Education (U.S. DOE) seeking a waiver from compliance with certain provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind. The waiver was granted by the U.S. DOE contingent upon the development of the A-F accountability system for schools. The waiver request must be re-submitted to the U.S. Department of Education by June 30, 2013.

The new report card measures will be grouped under the following components:  Achievement, Progress, Graduation Rate, K-3 Literacy Progress, Gap Closing (AYP alternative), and Prepared for Success (formerly College-and Career-Ready). 

•Achievement Component:  The Achievement component includes two measures: the Performance Index and the Performance Indicators, which will be graded starting in August 2013. A grade for the overall component will be calculated starting in 2015 and 2016.

The Performance Indicators include all of the tested items on Ohio’s 24 state assessments, while the Performance Index measures how well students do on the assessments, and assigns a weight for students achieving limited, basic, proficient, accelerated, and advanced on state exams. Students who are accelerated or advanced in a grade or subject area will have their test scores adjusted, so that the student gets credit for achieving at a higher level. 

•Progress Component:  The Progress component includes five measures: value-added (overall), value-added for gifted, value-added for students with disabilities, value-added for the lowest performing quintile of students statewide, and High School Progress. With the exception of the high school progress measure, these measures will be graded starting in August 2013, and a grade for the overall component will be calculated, but not graded, on the 2015 and 2016 report card. The high school progress measure will not be graded until August 2016. 

•Graduation Component:  The graduation component includes two measures: a four year cohort and a five year cohort graduation rate.  Both items will be graded starting in 2013. A grade for the overall component will be calculated, but not graded, for the 2015 and 2016 report cards.

•K-3 Literacy Progress:  The K-3 Literacy Progress component includes one measure: the Third Grade Guarantee Progress, which is a percentage of students who are not on track to read by the third grade.  The measure will be graded on the 2014 - 2016 report card.  A grade for the overall component will be calculated, but not graded, in 2015 - 2016.

•Gap Closing:  The Gap Closing (AYP alternative) component includes one measure: annual measurable objectives (AMOs), which will be graded starting in 2013. A grade for the overall component will be calculated, but not graded, in 2015 and 2016.

Annual measurable objectives replace adequate yearly progress (AYP), which measured student proficiency in reading and math, and set as a goal that all students would be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

As this goal became more and more impractical to achieve, Ohio proposed in its ESEA waiver application a new measure, annual measurable objectives.  AMOs measure how well schools/districts are closing the achievement gap among groups of students, such as students with disabilities, students who are learning English, students who are economically disadvantaged in the areas of math, reading, and graduation rate, and all students.

•Prepared for Success:  This component includes seven measures of student participation and/or scores in the following areas: college admission test; honors diplomas; dual enrollment; Advanced Placement; International Baccalaureate; industrial credentials; and college and career ready. 

The measures in this component will not be graded, but just reported, starting in 2014. An overall component grade will be calculated in 2015 and 2016.

The College and Career Ready Assessment measure will be “reported only” starting in August 2014, and could be included in the Prepared for Success component grade starting in 2015, if the State Board makes that determination.

•Safe Harbor Provision:  HB555 also requires the State Board of Education by March 31, 2013 to make recommendations to the General Assembly to create a one-year safe harbor for districts and schools for the first year that the PARCC assessments are administered. The recommendation must include a method to exempt districts, buildings, community schools, STEM schools, and college preparatory boarding schools that have a decline in performance index score from sanctions and penalties based on report card ratings.

Public Participation on Agenda Items

Sarah Clark from the Ohio School Boards Association addressed the State Board during public participation on agenda items regarding the Restraint and Seclusion policy and rules. According to the presentation, OSBA has participated in the development of the policy and rules, and appreciates that changes have been made to address their concerns.  However, OSBA still questions the timeline for implementing the rule, and believes that school districts need more time for adopting a policy and training staff.  OSBA also believes that the policy and rules should apply to all schools, including community schools.

State Board Action

The State Board of Education at the January 2013 meeting took the following actions regarding the Report and Recommendations of the Acting Superintendent of Public Instruction

#3 Approved a Resolution of Intent to Amend Rule 3301-24-08 of the Administrative Code entitled Professional or Associate License Renewal.  

#4 Approved a Resolution of Intent to Amend Rules 3301-24-19 to -22 of the Administrative Code regarding Alternative Resident Educator Licenses.

#5 Approved a Resolution of Intent to Amend Rule 3301-35-15 of the Administrative Code concerning the implementation of Positive Behavior Intervention Supports and the Use of Restraint and Seclusion. 

#6 Approved a Resolution of Intent to Confirm the Tuslaw Local School District’s Determination of Impractical to Transport certain students attending Heritage Christian School, Canton, OH.  

#7 Approved a Resolution to confirm and approve the Recommendation of the Hearing Officer to approve the transfer of school district territory from the Northwestern Local School District, Wayne County, to the Norwayne Local School District, Wayne County, pursuant to Section 3311.24 of the Ohio Revised Code.

#16 Approved a Resolution to Amend Rules 3301-13-01, -02, -05, AND -06 and to Rescind Rule 3301-13-08 of the Administrative Code regarding statewide assessments.

#17 Amended and approved the Resolution to Approve ODE Policy on Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports, and Restraint and Seclusion. The Achievement Committee amended the policy, and then the State Board amended the resolution again to state that the records referred to in the policy are subject to the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). President Terhar referred to the Legislative and Budget Committee for consideration the concerns raised about the fact that the policy does not apply to community schools. 

New Business

C. Todd Jones explained that the State Board will restructure its Board meetings starting in March 2013, and add time to the agenda to conduct a panel discussion on a variety of topics on Monday afternoons.  The first topic that will be considered at the March 2013 meeting is school safety.

FYI ARTS

1)  What is the role of the arts in STEM? Lauren Williams describes in District Administration efforts to add the arts to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) initiatives to create STEAM programs that add opportunities for students to become more creative, expressive, and innovative. (“Should STEM Become STEAM? by Lauren Williams, District Administration, January 14, 2013.)

In 2011 Representative James Langevin, working with the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), introduced U.S. House Resolution 319, which would have added art and design into federal STEM programs. Although the resolution did not pass, advocates for STEAM intend to introduce the resolution again in the 113th Congress. 

However, some STEM advocates believe that the creative processes that are used by successful scientists are similar to those used by artists.  The author notes that Doug Haller, STEM consultant and education blogger, argues that “...while encouraging art and design in STEM is important, it is already represented in well-implemented K12 programs.” 

The author includes in this article the following web sites that support STEAM education:

-STEAM Education, www.steamedu.com

-STEAM-Manifesto, www.steammanifesto.com

-STEAM Through Education, www.steamthrougheducation.com

-STEAM Not STEM, www.steam-notstem.com

-Rhode Island School of Design, STEM to STEAM, www.stemtosteam.org

The article is available at 

http://www.districtadministration.com/article/should-stem-become-steam    

2)  ASCD Conference will Feature a STEAM Session: Linda Nathan, Mark Lonergan, and Ramiro Gonzalez will present a session at the ASCD Conference and Exhibit Show in Chicago on March 18, 2013 entitled “STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) at Boston Arts Academy.”

The presenters recently provided a preview of the session, entitled STEAMing Up Education, and described how adding the arts to STEM education at the Boston Arts Academy (BAA) provided students with “diverse experiences, creative problem-solving skills, teamwork skills, and the ability to communicate all of this to others to succeed in the working world.”

The authors found, for example, that, “The work done in art classes is often much more collaborative. This requires students to struggle together and build upon each other’s strengths and challenges. Persistence, energy, and the willingness to take risks are noticeable in these classrooms, and the focus is always on improvement and collaborating to do one’s best. The role of critique is paramount. Listening and exchanging ideas is also crucial.”

The session will also describe how integrating STEAM in a classroom requires making adjustments in the daily lessons; creating entirely new courses; and creating multiple modes of assessments. STEAM educators, who approach the content as artists, engineers, and designers, focus less on the final answer and give more attention to the process.  They also bring into the classroom outside experts to work with students. The authors note, “This means that we create time in our STEAM courses for students to take risks and think creatively and give them chances to learn from their mistakes.”

The authors write, “With STEAM, we take one step closer to ensuring that our students exit our doors not only with a diploma, but with a set of skills that will help them shape the future.”

The preview is available at 

http://inservice.ascd.org/annual-conference/steaming-up-education/

3)  ASCD Issue Focuses on the Arts:  The January 17, 2013 issue of ASCD Express focuses on the arts as an “essential part of the whole child education”. The issue offers several articles that provide strategies for infusing and preserving arts education during these “tough economic times”, and an article about how the arts intersect with the Common Core State Standards.  

The issue includes the following articles and a video:

Learn from the Experts: Arts-Integration Lesson Plans That Work by Willona M. Sloan

Creating Rigorous Arts Lessons Across the Content Areas:  Tips for Collaboration by Jane Remer

The Arts Make a Difference by Nick Rabkin and Robin Redmond

Arts with the Brain in Mind E-Book

21st Century Skills DVD

Teaching Through the Prism of Arts Integration:  Teach with O’Keefe (video)

Common Core Quick-Start:  How the Arts Intersect with the Common Core State Standards (column) by Kristen Miller

Field Notes:  Turn Your Classroom into an Inquiry-Based Design Studio (column) by Anne Hayden Stevens

Leader Links:  Fair is Not Equal -- A Differentiated Approach for Supporting Behavioral Growth in the Classroom by David Snyder

The issue is available at http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol8/808-toc.aspx?utm_source=ascdexpress&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=express808

4) Internships Available:  The DeVos Institute at the Kennedy Center offers competitive internships for aspiring arts managers to gain critical hands-on experience in many areas of performing arts management.  Applicants must be currently enrolled juniors or seniors in undergraduate programs, Master’s candidates, or have completed a degree within the past two years. The deadline for application to the Summer Program (June 3 - August 9, 2013) is March 15, 2013.

The DeVos Institute interns develop valuable relationships in the industry by training with Kennedy Center Staff within departments aligned with their interests. Interns also gain a broad understanding of the performing arts industry by participating in weekly seminars and activities, attending Kennedy Center performances and events, and connecting with a vast network of DeVos Institute alumni. Alumni have gone on to organizations such as The Atlanta Symphony, The National Endowment for the Humanities, The New York Philharmonic, The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the offices of Renée Fleming, and The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.

The DeVos Institute internships are full-time (40 hours per week) or part-time (20-30 hours per week) unpaid opportunities that are intended to complement a student’s current program of study or other employment. Interns may receive, complimentary tickets to Kennedy Center performances during the internship and/or academic credit for either their college or university upon request. Please note, the Kennedy Center is not an accredited institution; therefore college credit must be granted by the Intern’s current college or university.

The DeVos Institute Summer Internships are offered in the following departments: Advertising, Marketing, Arts Education, Development, DeVos Institute of Arts Management, Institutional Affairs, Information Technology, National Symphony Orchestra Administration, Press, Programming, Production, Volunteer Management, and Washington National Opera.

To apply please visit

http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/artsmanagement/internships/