Division I regional track finals
Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > May > 21
Monday, May 21, 2007
ERCO to City Day: Fire Goff or else
By Scott Elliott
Staff Writer
DAYTON — If City Day Community School does not remove Superintendent Roseda Goff it could be shut down by its sponsor at the school year’s end.
Legal counsel Phyllis Brown, speaking for sponsor Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, said the school was placed back on probation Monday after it cancelled a governing board meeting last week. Board members were expected to address Goff’s future at that meeting.
City Day, located at 318 S. Main St, has been under scrutiny since February when the Dayton Daily News cited strong similarities between questions on practice tests given to students at the charter school last year and questions on the actual state exams later administered.
The school was placed on probation by Cincinnati-based ERCO in March but the sanction was lifted when the school submitted a plan to ratchet up test security this year by inviting ERCO officials to proctor state exams.
Those proctors reported to the state that they observed more testing irregularities by school staff earlier this month that Brown said could have “lead to questions about the accuracy of the results.” ERCO then strongly urged City Day’s board to dismiss Goff.
Under Ohio law, Brown said, City Day cannot end the school year on probation. If it does not remove Goff, she said, ERCO will have two options — suspend the school’s operations or replace the governing board with new board members.
“They are back on probation as of today and this relates specifically to the replacement of the superintendent,” Brown said Monday. “They have until next Tuesday to take that action.”
City Day’s school year ends June 6. So far, last week’s board meeting has not been rescheduled, according to the school. Goff and members of the governing board could not be reached for comment.
The Dayton Daily News reported that 44 questions on practice tests taken by City Day students just days prior to the 2006 state tests that were identical or substantially the same as questions that appeared on the actual state exam.
The school, with about 170 students, jumped up two steps on the state’s rating scale from the lowest category of “academic emergency” to”continuous improvement” after huge gains in the percentage of students who passed the test.
Permalink | | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, City Day Investigation, Testing
What are they teaching your kids about sex?
In Sunday’s paper, my colleague Laura Bischoff wrote an interesting package about sex education instruction in Montgomery County.
What are your kids learning about sex? It depends on where you live. Who is teaching them? Well, it could be an interest group, like the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood or Elizabeth’s New Life Center, a pro-life crisis pregnancy intervention group.
Last month Gov. Ted Strickland announced Ohio would no longer seek federal funds to pay for abstinence-only sex education, a favorite program of the Bush administration. Strickland said at the time he did not believe abstinence only program worked to prevent unwanted pregnancy and disease.
To follow up, Bischoff wanted to get some perspective. What exactly are they teaching our kids about sex at school? She came up with the idea of surveying a sample of school districts about their sex ed practices. We decided to call all the school districts in Montgomery County (I helped make some of these calls to collect the data).
The chart of what is taught, when and by whom is at the top of this page (a larger one can be found here).
There is a lot of variability. Part of the problem is that Ohio does not have standards for what should be taught. An effort to establish them collapsed under the weight of partisan battles.
Some argue that sticking only to abstinence is the equivalent of teaching a religious message in schools, and many of the pro-abstinence groups are affiliated with churches. On the other hand, many religious people are offended by the pro-abortion message of groups like Planned Parenthood.
Meanwhile there is some evidence that comprehensive sex education programs can make a real difference for kids by giving them useful information. But abstinence-only instructional programs can be intentionally vague or guide instructors to sidestep specific questions from students. Some critics say federal support for these programs has been a step backwards.
Did you look up your child’s district on our list? What did you think of what we learned about how they teach sex education?
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Sex Education
