State board of education reverses effort to quash educator voices
The state board of education this month reversed its attempt to remove members from the Educator Standards Board (ESB) for expressing their opinion that they could not create a valid and fair "consistently high performing teacher" definition. Some state board members tried to suppress the educator voice by removing ESB members who refused to craft a definition. The reversal resulted in retaining OFT member Jim Wagner of Cleveland and two OEA members on the ESB.
The state board of education met Oct. 17-18. Here are some items of interest:
Corrective Action for ESB Nominations
During its September meeting, the Appointments Committee met to approve nominations to the Educator Standards Board (ESB). A very unusual thing occurred in which there were state board members who took issue with advice the ESB provided around the definition of "consistently high performing teacher." The legislature had directed the state board to provide a definition of "consistently high performing teacher" for the purpose of providing a waiver from professional development for license renewal. The state board of education wanted the advice of the ESB so referred it to them to help give some direction. The process of trying to provide the definition evolved over several ESB meetings. The final offshoot was that the ESB members did not feel they could provide such a definition for two reasons: first, it is too difficult to define the term with any validity, reliability, or fairness; and second, given the role of the ESB, it is against their principles to encourage a teacher at any stage of his or her career to waive professional development.
The ESB sent their advice to the state board of education in the form of a resolution saying they could not define the term and recommended the state board of education also not define the term, but go back to the legislature for a legislative fix. A few state board of education members took issue with this advice as encouraging it to break the law by not defining the term. As a result, any nominees for reappointment to the ESB who voted for the resolution were rejected. This affected Jim Wagner of Cleveland who OFT supported for reappointment. It also affected two OEA nominees. When the recommendations for appointments came to the full board for approval, a very lengthy and heated discussion ensued. The appointments were tabled until the October meeting.
This gave OFT time in the intervening month to work individual board members to give them the background as to why this was so offensive. In the days of supporting teacher voice, to shut down the voices of the ESB members because the advice they were asked to give was not acceptable to state board of education members, indicates that the voice of educators is not valued. After many conversations and negotiations, the board reversed its decision this month by a 17-0 vote, re-appointed those members who had previously been rejected because of their vote.
Honors diplomas rules and criteria continue to be reviewed
Currently there are 3 existing honors diplomas: Academic Honors, International Baccalaureate (IB) Honors and Career Technical Center (CTC). There is a proposal to add STEM, Arts, and Social Science and Civic Engagement. They are proposing to add two new criteria – field experience and student portfolios.
A point of contention for the CTC honors diploma revolved around the World Language (WL) requirement. Originally, the requirement was to have three years of WL. There will be a requirement in the CTC diploma for two years of WL given that after reviewing patterns of coursework, most CTC student do take two years of WL.
Business and industry leaders liked the idea of the field experience requirement as it promotes problem solving and real world experience. In September they looked at the number of students getting honors diplomas, what their course taking patterns in world language were, and what other states do. In October they looked at the course taking patterns in all subjects and are collecting information on where honors diplomas are attained based on district typology. It is not a surprise that the majority of honors diplomas around the state are earned in suburban low poverty schools.
Discussion on Third Grade Guarantee
Third Grade Guarantee (TGG) Promotion Score: SB316 has a provision that the state board must set a level of achievement to use for TGG promotion that rises until it is equal to the proficiency level. Because of the new test and having to create an equivalency, the scores from the old test had to be changed to determine what score on the new test is equivalent to what would have been 396 on the OAA. That number is 44 for the reading portion of the ELA assessment. Last year the equivalent of the 394 was 42 and 87 percent met that number. The recommendation for this year is 44 and 81.3 percent are projected to meet that level based on last year’s results.
The discussion was held in a way to determine if the score needs to be changed so rapidly or can it slow down given there is a new test that is more difficult. The interpretation of the law is that the score must rise annually even though the actual language of the law simply says it must raise over time until it is reaches the proficiency level. Most of the discussion was around whether or not they actually had to set a different score or could it stay the same for a year in deference to the new tests and scaling of the scores. In the end, the vote was 9-8 to set the score at 44.