Educators push for Ohio changes under new federal law

Close to 200 educators, politicians and parents joined new state superintendent Paolo DeMaria on Thursday night to discuss how Ohio can best react to the passage of new federal education law — the Every Student Succeeds Act.

“This is all about giving you a voice in the process of the state putting its plan together to meet the requirements of this new federal law,” DeMaria told the participants at Dayton’s Stivers School for the Arts.

“It’s a law that finally gives us a little bit of flexibility to make our education system our own.”

After a brief presentation, attendees broke into groups to discuss important issues facing schools and students, and DeMaria encouraged people to speak “the unvarnished truth.”

At one table, administrators from Mad River, Centerville and Jefferson Twp. schools discussed complaints about state testing. Centerville assistant superintendent Bob Yux questioned the validity of the state’s year-over-year progress measure, given that students have taken different tests the past three years.

Mad River superintendent Chad Wyen described the current testing paradigm as educational malpractice, because the second half of the year is more focused on testing than education.

“As much as you tell teachers not to focus on the tests, they do, and that’s understandable (given the high stakes),” Wyen said.

At another table, a broad group of educators, legislators and union officials discussed what the new “non-academic measure” should be on the state report card.

State Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miami Twp., suggested some measure of “soft skills” — things like communication, people skills and work ethic. Northmont officials talked about the pros and cons of using student attendance, and also suggested extracurricular participation as a possibility.

ESSA was signed into law in December, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act. Thursday’s event was the third of 10 meetings across the state designed to gather feedback as Ohio prepares its state plan for submission to the federal government in 2017.

Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, suggested Ohio should be bold, calling ESSA a chance to “reshape what is it we want to accomplish for our children — what kind of education system do we want, and then how do we make that work within the ESSA framework?”

But that’s a challenge given fatigue in Ohio’s education industry over the amount of change in the past few years.

“I’ve been a big champion for stability,” DeMaria said. “I think a lot of other people can rally behind that. If somebody said, ‘Let’s wholesale throw out a big chunk of the assessments and start over,’ I think we need to be careful. But at the same time, if we think that’s the right path to go down, let’s have the deliberate conversation. We’re balancing these interests.”

Antani called for a five-year moratorium on testing and teacher evaluation changes so the state could gather and analyze data, and act based on that information.

He also worried that he heard too much talk about impact on schools and teachers, and not enough talk about students.

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