The Education Gadfly Weekly

The Dayton Public Schools has decided on one way to handle the problem of low test scores and declining enrollment.

They've hired a flack.

That's right, faced with its annual inability to get it right in the classroom, the Dayton school board will begin paying $6,000 a month to Burges & Burges Strategists, a Cleveland public relations firm, to burnish the district's image and perform other types of PR work (see here).

Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic, quoted in the Dayton Daily News, said the district needs to explain to the public how it is spending money from the passage of last year's school levy.

That's funny since Burges worked for the Dayton schools to get the levy approved.

Burges didn't have to bid on the contract and perhaps that's fair given its monumental challenge. The firm's assignment is to work on "image and brand enhancement," according to the Dayton Daily News' Anthony Gottschlich. Good luck. The Dayton schools are mired in academic watch (a D on the state report card), and the district has lost a quarter of its students in the last eight years.

Not every board member thinks hiring the firm is a good idea. "It doesn't look good," Joe Lacey said. "We're acting like a 30,000-student district and we're not....We're last place in the state in performance and I don't think the answer to that is to get a slogan with more punch to it."

In Cincinnati, the school board is taking a different approach. Teachers and administrators not getting the job done are being removed (see here). Plans are now underway to replace the entire staffs of three schools: Mount Airy School, Rothenberg Preparatory Academy, and South Avondale School. These three schools have repeatedly failed to help students improve on standardized test scores, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer's Ben Fischer.

The schools will be redesigned. New leadership and teachers will use new education methods and curricula to try and improve student performance. Teachers, principals, and other workers removed can reapply for their old jobs, or else take other positions in the district.

Last year, the Cincinnati schools removed every employee, but for three cafeteria workers, at Taft Elementary School. Reassigning teachers and administrators doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, only that the particular mix or synergy in a school isn't working, according to the district.

What makes a great high school? In a new feature from Greatschools.net (see here) parents can find out what other parents of children in high schools are saying makes a high school great and study the schools for themselves. The list represents the diversity of Ohio's school sector-there are two district schools on the list, one charter school that serves drop-outs, an online virtual school, and a private school. Greatschools.net is an independent, nonprofit organization that rates schools across the country and it has the mission of improving schools by getting parents involved. The Top Five Ohio high school feature gives ratings for the following:

• Top Performing - Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati (see here)
• Top Performing Low Income - Wadsworth High School in Wadsworth (see here)
• Most Improved - Life Skills Center of Southeast Ohio in Columbus (see here)
• Parents' Choice Public School - Ohio Virtual Academy High, a statewide cyberschool (see here)
• Parents' Choice Private School - Heartland Christian High School in Columbiana (see here)

Congratulations to these schools and others that are meeting the diverse needs of their students.

When Gov. Ted Strickland gives his State of the State address next Wednesday and unveils his much-anticipated education-reform and school-funding plan in early February, which governor will show up?

Will it be the governor whose first biennial budget proposal in 2007 would have effectively snuffed out the charter sector in Ohio, or the one who now observes "I don't think all charters are bad; I think there are good charters" (see here)? Will it be the Strickland who, in July 2007, said that then-Superintendent Susan Zelman "has the skills to be a superb leader of elementary and secondary education in Ohio" or the one who, eight months later, struck out at Zelman, telling the Cincinnati Enquirer editorial board that "she's not a leader, she's not an advocate, she's not a good manager. She's an academician, a psychometrician, a statistician" (see here). Will it be the governor who launched a statewide tour to listen to the public on the topic of education, or the one who used his power to appoint State Board of Education members to seat two union-endorsed candidates who were recently rejected by their local voters (see here)?

In any case, we're certain to see a man who is hanging his gubernatorial success on his education plan, so even at this late hour, people continue to offer him their advice and hopes.

Ohio's philanthropic community weighed in this week with Beyond Tinkering: Creating Real Opportunities for Today's Learners and for Generations of Ohioans to Come (see here). Fordham's own Terry Ryan offered advice in a Columbus Dispatch op-ed earlier this month (see here). Strickland has expressed concern that some charter school sponsors are exempt from state oversight. Sharing this concern, and echoing a recommendation from a 2006 report by the Fordham Institute, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (see here), Ryan recommended a compromise-that Strickland and the General Assembly give the State Board of Education authority over all charter school sponsors in return for holding the board and the Ohio Department of Education accountable through the appointment of a charter school advisory council. He wrote the op-ed before Strickland announced his education board appointees, so it's fair to say Ryan may come to regret seeking compromise.

As for Strickland's board appointees, they participated in their first meeting last week (see here). Ten of the board's 19 members are new; but unlike the Ohio House of Representatives (where one-third of the members are new), the State Board of Education doesn't start its work afresh every two years. Instead, the new members pick up right where the old ones left things in December. So, while House members are spending January getting their bearings in Columbus, figuring out committee assignments, and receiving two days of training in "how to call for votes and follow proper parliamentary procedure" (see here), new members on the education board found themselves considering changes to administrative rules and the revocation of teachers' licenses on their first day on the job.

Catch Ohio angles on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Flypaper blog (see here). Last week Mike Lafferty commented on U.S. Sen. George Voinovich's decision to retire on Jan. 12; Emmy Partin blogged about the Ohio Board of Regents plan to streamline computer software and technology services to save money on Jan. 13; Terry Ryan commented on peace feelers between the traditional education sector and the charter school world on Jan. 14; and Mike Lafferty commented on what strings the feds should attach to education bailout money on Jan. 16.

The Dayton Public Schools has decided on one way to handle the problem of low test scores and declining enrollment.

They've hired a flack.

That's right, faced with its annual inability to get it right in the classroom, the Dayton school board will begin paying $6,000 a month to Burges & Burges Strategists, a Cleveland public relations firm, to burnish the district's image and perform other types of PR work (see here).

Interim Superintendent Kurt Stanic, quoted in the Dayton Daily News, said the district needs to explain to the public how it is spending money from the passage of last year's school levy.

That's funny since Burges worked for the Dayton schools to get the levy approved.

Burges didn't have to bid on the contract and perhaps that's fair given its monumental challenge. The firm's assignment is to work on "image and brand enhancement," according to the Dayton Daily News' Anthony Gottschlich. Good luck. The Dayton schools are mired in academic watch (a D on the state report card), and the district has lost a quarter of its students in the last eight years.

Not every board member thinks hiring the firm is a good idea. "It doesn't look good," Joe Lacey said. "We're acting like a 30,000-student district and we're not....We're last place in the state in performance and I don't think the answer to that is to get a slogan with more punch to it."

In Cincinnati, the school board is taking a different approach. Teachers and administrators not getting the job done are being removed (see here). Plans are now underway to replace the entire staffs of three schools: Mount Airy School, Rothenberg Preparatory Academy, and South Avondale School. These three schools have repeatedly failed to help students improve on standardized test scores, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer's Ben Fischer.

The schools will be redesigned. New leadership and teachers will use new education methods and curricula to try and improve student performance. Teachers, principals, and other workers removed can reapply for their old jobs, or else take other positions in the district.

Last year, the Cincinnati schools removed every employee, but for three cafeteria workers, at Taft Elementary School. Reassigning teachers and administrators doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, only that the particular mix or synergy in a school isn't working, according to the district.