In the world of American politics, controversy dominated 2017. In the world of Ohio education policy, things were a bit quieter—but still eventful. As we say goodbye (or good riddance) to 2017, here’s a look at the seven biggest education stories of the year.
7) State budget
You know it’s a slow year when the budget bill barely makes the list of top education stories. On June 30, Governor Kasich signed Ohio’s biennial state budget. The bill largely maintained the current school funding formula, with nominal increases to base foundation aid to schools (including charters). Three out of four districts will see a funding increase across the biennium. With legislators concentrating on ways to fill a nearly $1 billion revenue shortfall, several important funding reform ideas failed to get the time and attention they deserved—including solutions to the decades-long problem of caps and guarantees and an emerging idea to directly fund school choice programs. As for the latter, charters continue to be supported inequitably and based on an archaic payment system that subtracts dollars from districts instead of paying charter schools directly, leaving both charters and districts frustrated.
6) School choice
During his campaign, President Trump promised a greater focus on school choice at the federal level. His nomination of Betsy DeVos for education secretary, a school choice supporter with a long history of advocating for vouchers, led many to believe that the new administration would champion not just public charter schools, but private school choice as well. Yet in the end, these efforts mostly fizzled out.
In Ohio, legislation to modernize the state’s voucher programs was introduced and has had multiple committee hearings, but hasn’t crossed the finish line either.
This summer, we released a report highlighting Ohio districts’ open enrollment policies. In Ohio, most districts allow open enrollment, but many suburban districts continue to hold out. As a way to offer more options to families and break the link between students’ zip code and school of attendance, we encouraged all districts to consider allowing non-resident students to open enroll in their schools.
As for charters, there was a lot of talk about needed revisions to the sponsorship evaluation system—but very few legislative changes. Evaluation scores came out in November and showed overall improvement. Ohio also saw a record-low number of new charter schools open this fall for a third year in a row along with twenty-two schools shut down at the end of the 2016-17 school year.
5) Academic Distress Commissions
Academic Distress Commissions (ADCs) were also a big story, at least in Lorain and Youngstown. Although neither of the current ADCs were created in 2017, both organizations continue to implement their state mandates. In Youngstown, CEO Krish Mohip is still doing battle with the local school board. In May, he added the local teacher’s union to his list of roadblocks when they rejected his offer of a pay raise. He upped the ante even more when he proposed a shared attribution model for new teacher evaluations in November—a model that has significant problems. The Lorain commission, meanwhile, hired David Hardy in July as the new district CEO. While his turnaround plan for the district was accepted by the Lorain ADC in November, he is still dealing with a litany of non-academic issues of district culture as 2017 comes to a close.
4) Ohio submits its ESSA plan
Though it was a big story early in the year, news around Ohio’s ESSA plan lost steam as the year went on. In March, State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria announced that ODE would delay submitting its plan for the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) until September rather than take advantage of the earlier submission window that closed on April 3. DeMaria explained that the delay would “allow more time to ensure that feedback received on the draft template can be considered carefully.” Several stakeholders and groups, most notably the Ohio Federation of Teachers, praised the decision, and ODE set to work gathering more feedback.
On September 15, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) officially submitted its ESSA plan to the U.S. Department of Education. Despite the delay and ODE’s feedback-gathering efforts, the final federal plan didn’t end up making significant changes to state policies and practices. That’s generally a good thing, given the overall strength of Ohio’s existing accountability framework.
3) Report cards
Earning a bronze medal this year (3rd place for you non-sports fans) were Ohio’s state report cards. When the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released this year’s set, they received more backlash than usual. One state lawmaker even went so far as to call them “bogus.” In the Plain Dealer, Patrick O’Donnell summed up the kerfuffle by noting that “educators and experts don’t agree on either the purpose behind school and district report cards or their value.” Although accountability advocates have repeatedly pointed out the value of transparent, objective test data, others have argued that the report cards “profile districts on a very limited set of metrics.” (Shameless plug alert: In an effort to address concerns with the state’s report card system, we recently released a report with three key recommendations for how to streamline the system. Be sure to check it out!)
2) Graduation requirements
This year’s runner up was the debate over Ohio’s graduation requirements. In the spring, the State Board of Education recommended that an additional graduation option be created for the class of 2018. The new pathway permits students to graduate without passing end of course (EOC) exams, attaining college-ready targets on the SAT or ACT, or meeting career and technical requirements. Instead, seniors will only need to meet two of nine alternative conditions, a list that includes such rudimentary achievements as 93 percent attendance or 120 hours of work/community service during their senior year. The legislature and the governor went along with the board and enshrined the recommendations into law.
At the time, legislators and state board members claimed that these alternatives were just a temporary fix to allay concerns students who might have difficulties passing the relatively new EOC assessments. At Fordham, we were skeptical of the “temporary” claims—and it seems we were right to be. The November state board meeting was dominated by a discussion of whether to extend the graduation options to the class of 2019 and beyond. As we head into the new year, look for this debate to continue to draw significant attention.
1) E-schools
There can only be one winner, and based on newspaper column inches alone, the heavyweight battle between the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) and ODE is the top story of 2017. The scuffle originally started thanks to a student attendance audit in which the school was unable to substantiate the attendance of thousands of its pupils. This in turn has led the state to seek repayment of millions from the school.
Not surprisingly, ECOT has fought back against the state’s actions in court. Thus far, ECOT has not been successful. Meanwhile, in August, ECOT applied to become a dropout prevention and recovery school, a group of schools that receive alternative school report cards. The move was met with immediate condemnation from many education stakeholders, and directed greater attention toward Ohio's dropout-recovery school standards. The battle between the online school and the state appears as though it will continue to rage into 2018.
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