So, the debate raged today in Columbus about whether or not the Ohio School Board should adjust the graduation requirement so that the statewide graduation rate doesn't drop to 70%. As an educator, I believe that this is the only option. Unfortunately, others disagree, as I discovered when reading an account of the proceedings in the Plain Dealer this afternoon.
I decided not to spend the energy responding to the ass backward sensibilities of Board President Tom Gunlock and Board Member C. Todd Jones who still seem to believe that standardized tests can improve education despite years of data to the contrary. Their comments display a fairly typical far-right wing hatred of teachers and factual information, as well as a love of the warm embrace of privatization (again, no facts allowed).
I was, however, terribly disappointed by comments made by Senate Education Committee Chair Peggy Lehner and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DiMaria. I believe the Superintendent has purposefully, politically miscalculated the impact of the Paths to Graduation in the aforementioned article. I decided to correct him. My hopefully diplomatic and researched response is at the bottom of this post.
Senator Lehner, on the other hand, has historically positioned herself as a reasonable defender of pragmatic education policy. Because of her political affiliation I have always been at least cautious of her motivation, but today she attacked me personally. What follows is my message to Senator Lehner. It includes her comments from the PD article.
The following is from an article in the Plain Dealer regarding today's discussion about the graduation requirement...
"State Sen. Peggy Lehner of Dayton told the school board that she was hearing from people across the state that something needs to be done. She said that if schools have failed students so much that they cannot score high enough, it is unfair to penalize them now."
As an American History teacher at Elyria High School who works terribly hard to assure student success, academic and otherwise, I resent your suggestion that this mess associated with graduation is my fault. While I am continually improving as a teacher, this situation is not on me. When the standards changed we adopted them. We changed the nature of our courses and taught to the standards. When the ODE released very little information about the new assessment system over 5 years, we made educated guesses and continued to teach. Our students graduated and went on to successful college careers and gainful employment. When the state botched the rollout of PARCC and AIR, we kept teaching and told our students we were fighting for them. When the state moved to AIR and borrowed test questions from Utah and Nevada, claiming the tests were valid, we taught. When the state school board set arbitrary cut scores based somehow on the idea of the NAEP, we taught, and our kids learned.
Senator Lehner, with all due respect, I have spent the better part of the last 20 years teaching students to be successful, and they have done just that. It is your 3 Paths to Graduation and the corresponding assessment and points system that is failing students. It is time for you and your fellow legislators, as well as the bulk of the state school board to finally admit that you messed up. The school board can act next month to save this year's juniors, and then the legislature can act in the interest of minimizing standardized tests and their high stakes according to ESSA.
Superintendent DiMaria,
You were referenced in a Plain Dealer article this afternoon as having suggested that the 29% of juniors not on pace to graduate is a high number because it doesn't factor in those pursuing the WorkKeys and ACT path. I fear you are mistaken. The very students scoring well in the testing system are the same students who might graduate by following the other paths. In other words, a current junior who has earned 8 or 10 points on the state assessments is NOT going to earn a remediation free score on the ACT, nor a high enough score toward an industry recognized credential.
Please stop using the 3 paths to graduation as a defense of the current system. It is a false argument. According to the Ohio Economic Policy Institute in analysis of state data, even in districts with only 10% economically disadvantaged students, only 69% were able to earn a remediation free score on the ACT. In districts with 90% economically disadvantaged students the number is 15.1%. As for the WorkKeys path, a study by the Fordham Institute in 2014 said that only one in four students in Ohio's Career and Technical Planning Districts earned an industry credential. As of 2016, of the students attending Lorain County JVS, the vocational school in my area, only 8.9% earned the credential. These are not viable paths to graduation for most students, and neither is the assessment system.
Please look at the research prior to making very public suggestions to the contrary. I realize that you are in a position that forces you to defend an awful system created by the state legislature and the Ohio School Board, then shaped by an ODE not under your leadership. However, this is no reason to sell out a generation of Ohio's children for the sake of politics.
More than a decade of standardized testing has not improved education in Ohio or the United States. Contrary to what you may hear from Mr. Gunlock and Mr. Jones about the objectivity and usefulness of these assessments, no gaps have been closed, NAEP scores have not increased, and Education has not become more rigorous, nor has it improved. Programs improve education. Teachers with time to teach improve education. Counselors with adequate time, unencumbered from being test administrators, improve education.
I hope you'll consider that 29% not on pace to graduate might be about right, or as a matter of fact a conservative estimate depending on your formula. I hope that you will advocate for a "band-aid" for this abysmal system, and then a dramatic downsizing of standardized tests as the ESSA input has recommended, so that we can move forward with some policies that actually improve education.
Thank you for your time, and work on behalf of Ohio's kids. Please contact me if you have any questions that I might be able to address.
Matt Jablonski
American History Teacher
Elyria High School
You were referenced in a Plain Dealer article this afternoon as having suggested that the 29% of juniors not on pace to graduate is a high number because it doesn't factor in those pursuing the WorkKeys and ACT path. I fear you are mistaken. The very students scoring well in the testing system are the same students who might graduate by following the other paths. In other words, a current junior who has earned 8 or 10 points on the state assessments is NOT going to earn a remediation free score on the ACT, nor a high enough score toward an industry recognized credential.
Please stop using the 3 paths to graduation as a defense of the current system. It is a false argument. According to the Ohio Economic Policy Institute in analysis of state data, even in districts with only 10% economically disadvantaged students, only 69% were able to earn a remediation free score on the ACT. In districts with 90% economically disadvantaged students the number is 15.1%. As for the WorkKeys path, a study by the Fordham Institute in 2014 said that only one in four students in Ohio's Career and Technical Planning Districts earned an industry credential. As of 2016, of the students attending Lorain County JVS, the vocational school in my area, only 8.9% earned the credential. These are not viable paths to graduation for most students, and neither is the assessment system.
Please look at the research prior to making very public suggestions to the contrary. I realize that you are in a position that forces you to defend an awful system created by the state legislature and the Ohio School Board, then shaped by an ODE not under your leadership. However, this is no reason to sell out a generation of Ohio's children for the sake of politics.
More than a decade of standardized testing has not improved education in Ohio or the United States. Contrary to what you may hear from Mr. Gunlock and Mr. Jones about the objectivity and usefulness of these assessments, no gaps have been closed, NAEP scores have not increased, and Education has not become more rigorous, nor has it improved. Programs improve education. Teachers with time to teach improve education. Counselors with adequate time, unencumbered from being test administrators, improve education.
I hope you'll consider that 29% not on pace to graduate might be about right, or as a matter of fact a conservative estimate depending on your formula. I hope that you will advocate for a "band-aid" for this abysmal system, and then a dramatic downsizing of standardized tests as the ESSA input has recommended, so that we can move forward with some policies that actually improve education.
Thank you for your time, and work on behalf of Ohio's kids. Please contact me if you have any questions that I might be able to address.
Matt Jablonski
American History Teacher
Elyria High School
Thank you, Matt! Everyone seems to be accountable except those in the position with the highest authority in the state. Those with the least control of our circumstances are being flogged by the overseers, as it were. Hope the students and their parents will rise up. As an early elementary teacher, we are told our 4-8 year olds must be college and career ready. What idiot expects a kindergartner to prep. for a job? We know the answer: an educational privatizing policy maker. I will be leaving this profession sooner than expected - just can't deal with the abusiveness of our education policy on teachers and students.
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