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
May 2007
Dayton’s school crisis a national story
Why has the DDN been writing so much about the financial crisis in Dayton Public Schools? Because it’s a big story. So big, in fact, that today it leads the National Report in the best and most important newspaper in the country — the New York Times.
The Times story focuses on the Dayton Early College Academy and the possibility that this successful experimental high school could be irreparably damaged by the district’s $30 million budget cut.
The most interesting new information in the story is a quote from Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, who said he would be willing to write a law that would allow DECA — run by the city school district in partnership with the University of Dayton — to easily convert to a charter school.
In theory, that would exempt the school from Dayton’s collective bargaining agreement, allowing it to rehire the same teachers it had last year and avoiding layoffs that occurred Wednesday. In practice, this seems difficult to pull off. It’s not as if DECA were an independent school that affiliated with the district. It was an idea born of the district and it was created with a lot of DPS sweat equity. It would be pretty hard to untangle the district from the workings of the school.
But what really struck me about Husted’s comments was this — why stop there? Could they expand this theoretical law to include Stivers School for the Arts, another district gem? Stivers faces a 75 percent cut in its adjunct arts faculty. This will devastate about half its arts magnet programs and severely damage the rest of the school.
Isn’t Stivers just as worth saving as DECA?
Maybe we should keep going. There”s also the academic magnet program at Colonel White High School that’s had some success. And the boys’ and girls’ schools, which both are popular experiments with waiting lists. And there are the Montessori elementary schools that have a dedicated following. What about the World of Wonder school? It’s a well-respected former charter school now under the district umbrella. Does it get a free pass too? Husted is an ex-college athlete. Maybe we could even cut a deal to keep the sports programs going?
Is it practical for the state to create laws to protect one good program in a financially ruined school district? Would state lawmakers attach money to the theoretical legislation? It would probably just take a few million to save everything I just listed.
What do you think of the idea of spinning off DECA or other winning programs?
Permalink | Comments (50) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Sponsor may close school or fire board
By Scott Elliott
Staf Writer
City Day Community School will either close or its governing board will be fired by the end of next week, its sponsor said Wednesday.
After repeated problems with standardized testing and concerns about management of the charter school, the Cincinnati-based sponsor — Education Resource Consultants of Ohio — gave City Day’s governing board until this past Tuesday to fire Superintendent Roseda Goff.
But at a meeting Tuesday, the board refused. Board member Tom Clark said Goff was not to blame for what ERCO officials said was an effort to “compromise the results” of the Ohio Achievement Test given this month. Board member Yolanda Toney resigned when the board said Goff would stay.
In a May 21 letter, ERCO placed City Day on probation and ordered the governing board to fire Goff or it would exercise its power to close or take over the school. ERCO Assistant Director Aaron Kinnebrew said the sponsor would make good on that promise.
“We will be making a decision before June 6 on the fate of the school,” he said.
Clark said testing this month was monitored by ERCO, not Goff, and that teachers received training in test administration. Instead of firing Goff, the teacher who failed to follow procedures will be fired, he said.
“ERCO agreed to take responsibility for the test,” Clark said. “They had the test administered. Mrs. Goff was not even in the building.”
Dayton attorney Daniel Brown, who advised board members, said he told them City Day had a right to appeal any action by the sponsor.
The school, at 318 S. Main St., has been under scrutiny since February, when the Dayton Daily News reported that 44 questions on practice tests taken by City Day students just prior to the March 2006 state tests were identical or nearly 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
Allen, Edison schools to close
I just confirmed with Mack that the scenario below is what will occur:
—Allen and Edison will close.
—The Edison program will move intact to Fairview Middle School.
—Fairview Middle School will be phased out. No seventh grade will be added next year. The current seventh grade will attend the school in a separate part of the building from the Edison kids.
—Mack said there will be no other building closures, but some schools could still change buildings, if such a change could save money by relocating the school to a more efficient building. He said any further building changes will be announced by the end of the week.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Waiting for more on DPS cuts
No official word yet from Dayton Public Schools about which schools will close, but one commenter here says Allen Elementary School staff was told their building would close.
I’ve also reliably heard that Edison Elementary School will close, but in that case the students and staff actually will move intact to Fairview Middle School.
I’m told the middle school grades at Fairview will be phased out — no seventh grade will be added next year. This year’s seventh grade will return as eighth graders and occupy a section of the building away from the Edison elementary kids. After next year, the middle school will be gone and the building will operate as an elementary school.
Supposedly there will be other moves/consolidations like this. I should hear more this afternoon.
Also, I got a few questions today about whether the board is cutting any administrative jobs.
It was cut from the story for space reasons, but Mack said 17 of 69 central office administrative jobs would be cut, or a 25 percent reduction in central office administrators who are paid out of the general fund. There also are going to be other cuts in the operations side of the the district (busing, maintenance, etc.). We should have more on this in Thursday’s paper.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Board defies order to fire superintendent
City Day Community School’s governing board Tuesday defied an order from its sponsor to fire Superintendent Roseda Goff, prompting a board member to resign.
“I don’t agree with the recommendation of the board and I officially resign my position effective immediately,” said the board member, Yolanda Toney, who then walked out.
Last week, the charter school’s sponsor, Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, said the school could be closed if the board did not remove Goff. An ERCO representative at the meeting declined comment.
In February, the Dayton Daily News reported students at City Day took practice exams, which included questions similar to those on the actual Ohio Achievement Test days before the March 2006 test was to be administered.
That prompted investigations by ERCO and the Ohio Department of Education. Earlier this month, ERCO proctored the state exam and reported to the state that the school had made further testing missteps.
Board member Tom Clark said Goff was not to blame, but the teacher involved would instead be fired.
“It’s a reach to call for her resignation because of the actions of one of the teachers who did something that was not advised,” he said.
Earlier, the five-member board, which has two open seats, received applications from a mother and daughter seeking to join the board.
However, at board member Toney’s urging, the board held off consideration of new members so it could “deal with the matters on the table.”
City Day cannot legally end the school year on probation. The school year ends June 6. ERCO had promised to suspend the school’s operations or replace the governing board if Goff was not removed.
Permalink | | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, City Day Investigation
Goff stays; schools and teachers go
It was a wild night on the education beat.
First, let me sum up City Day Community School’s board meeting.
We first wrote about City Day in February, when we reported kids at the school had taken practice tests with questions that matched closely to the real state exam. Most recently, we wrote that the school’s sponsor was ordering the school to fire Superintendent Roseda Goff or else they would close the school or fire the governing board.
Well, this was quite a meeting. First, two women told the board they wanted to apply for the two open board seats on the five-member board. They are mother and daughter and one described herself as a close personal friend of Goff’s, saying she would do “anything to help her.”
The board appeared ready to accept the pair before board member Yolanda Toney objected, saying the board should address its business of the day before adding new members.
Then the board went into a closed meeting. When it returned, board member Tom Clark announced Goff would not be fired, but instead a teacher the school blames for problems on the test day earlier this month will be fired.
At that, Toney stood, said she disagreed with the decision and resigned on the spot, walking out of the meeting.
A representative from the sponsor, Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, declined comment at the meeting. I’ll follow up Wednesday to see how ERCO will respond. For all my stories and blog posts on the City Day saga go here.
Then we had the Dayton school board meeting. It was a somber affair as the board voted to empower Superintendent Percy Mack to make deep cuts. Board President Yvonne Isaacs fought back tears while pledging the district would do its best to still provide kids a quality education.
Here are the cuts Mack said were coming:
—School closings and building changes. Two schools will be closed but others may move to more efficient empty buildings. These specifics, he said, will be announced Wednesday.
—Shorter school hours. Dayton will reduce its instructional day to the state minimum. Mack was not certain how much time would be lost, but estimated it would be more than 15 minutes but less than an hour.
—Reduced art, music and physical education. Mack said school leaders resisted the idea of eliminating all music and arts programs at elementary schools. Instead, they are working on a plan to rotate this instruction.
Currently, elementary students routinely take art, music and physical education once per week. Instead, they would likely just be offered one of the three each week, or perhaps even every other week.
—Cuts in athletics. All elementary and middle school athletics will be eliminated. At high school, only five sports will remain — football, boys and girls basketball, girls volleyball and boys and girls track and field.
Mack said he hoped the ticket and concession money generated by these sports will be enough to pay for them entirely. If not, there could be further cuts in sports in 2008-09 unless the district passes a levy or receives other new revenue.
—Specialty programs reduced. All programs, including small niche schools like single gender elementary schools and the Dayton Early College Academy, will face reductions but will not be closed.
Stivers School for the Arts likely will see 75 percent of its adjunct arts staff let go, he said.
—Extracurricular activities cut. Supplemental contracts for teachers who take on extra duties, such as running student clubs, will face a deep cuts. Yearbooks and other services produced by those clubs probably will be eliminated altogether, Mack said.
—Middle School foreign language eliminated. The board had hoped to expand foreign language by adding middle school foreign language teachers as it built new schools for grades K to 8. The goal was to help the students be better prepared for high school. Now those teaching jobs that were added will be cut.
—High School busing dropped. The board will end its contract with RTA that allows the district high school students to ride public transit to school. Mack said he feared leaving kids to find their own way to school could drive up absenteeism and truancy.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, City Day Investigation, Dayton Public Schools
Lots of school news today
It’s a busy day on the school beat. This morning, caravans from several area schools, including Dayton and Springboro, went to Columbus in an effort to lobby lawmakers, who are considering the state budget, for more school funding.
Tonight, the City Day Community School governing board meets to discuss the fate of Superintendent Roseda Goff.
Also, school officials originally said tonight’s the Dayton Board of Education meeting would address the district’s $30 million in needed budget cuts. The board, I’m told, will empower Mack to make cuts but will not detail all of them.
For instance, the teachers being laid off will not be on this agenda. Their contracts will be officially “non-renewed” at a meeting in June, possibly next Tuesday. Those losing their jobs apparently are being notified this week.
Also, at least two schools will close, but the district won’t announce them tonight. They said they will announce the schools Wednesday after parents have been notified. I’m told other schools could be relocating to different buildings.
Check back here later. I’ll post more when I know more.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: City Day Investigation, Dayton Public Schools, School Funding
All schools on the editorial page
Sunday’s editorial page was all about Dayton schools. Don’t miss:
—An editorial that hails the Dayton Early College Academy’s first graduating class.
—Editorial Page Editor Ellen Belcher’s column urging community support for Dayton schools.
—Letters to the editor complaining some more about the Dayton school levy.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
The Husted Summit: What will they talk about?
Given the interest in the invited guest list for the June 11 Dayton education summit announced this week by House Speaker Jon Husted, I thought you might like to also see the agenda, which I just obtained.
One observer, upon looking over the agenda and the guest list, told me they expected this event to be “a three ring circus.” I’d love to hear whether you believe this will be a productive meeting.
Here is the agenda:
DAYTON’ EDUCATIONAL FUTURE: PROPOSED AGENDA FOR DISCUSSION
DATE: June 11, 2007
TIME: 9 to 11 a.m.
PLACE: The University of Dayton
EXPECTED MEETING OUTCOMES
—Propose and develop ideas for collaboration and partnership that lead to improved educational opportunities and outcomes for all Dayton children.
—Foster dialogue among Dayton Public Schools, charter schools and area civic, business and political leaders toward a community-wide vision for quality public education.
—Concrete next steps for future action.
AGENDA
9 to 9:05 a.m. Welcome and Introduction — Gail Littlejohn, board member, Dayton Public Schools
9:05 to 9:20 a.m. Creating a Vision for Education in Dayton — Tom Lasley, education dean, the University of Dayton
9:20 to 9:35 a.m. Choice and Competition in Dayton — Terry Ryan, vice president, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
9:35 to 10 a.m. Economic Change and Education: the Indianapolis Experience — David Harris, CEO of MindTrust and former education advisor to Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson
10 to 10:30 a.m. Voices from the Trenches — Percy Mack, superintendent, Dayton Public Schools; Ann Higdon, superintendent, ISUS charter schools; and Mike McCormick, superintendent, Richard Allen charter schools
10:30 - 11 a.m. How Can Policymakers Help Shape Dayton’s Educational Future? — Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted and state Sen. Tom Roberts
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
DECA experiment to graduate first class
(Dayton Early College Academy math teacher, Katie King, goes over work with her students.)
We had some good coverage earlier this week from my colleague Stephanie Irwin about the Dayton Ealry College Academy, which graduates its first class next week. School supporters argue the program works. Also check out a video by editorial writer Eddie Roth.
DECA is a very interesting idea. They take kids who appear to have potential but in most cases do not have any immediate family membes who have been to college. They put them in small classes with other strivers like themselves and let them set their own pace. Many of the kids begin taking college classes in high school and a few actually graduate and earn an associate’s degree at the same time.
There are two big, related questions about DECA — cost and sustainability.
I don’t know what their per student spending figure is, but I know it is high. The University of Dayton, which hosts the school in one of its buildings, helps foot the bill.
I also wonder how Dayton’s budget cuts, which Superintendent Percy Mack said will touch every part of the district, will affect DECA. Like Stivers School for the Arts, DECA’s program is delicately put together and even small changes can threaten its viability.
Mack said the details of the cuts will come at Tuesday’s school board meeting.
(Image credit: Jim Noelker, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Husted, DPS to convene summit
House Speaker Jon Husted announced at a Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce event in Columbus today that a meeting of community leaders including representatives from business, government, charter schools, private schools and Dayton Public Schools will be held June 11 at the University of Dayton to discuss education issues in the city.
This is part of the dialouge that was promised by the district when Husted agreed to back the levy.
Here is the participant list for the meeting (I’ve identified the ones I know):
—Ohio Coalition for Quality Education President Ron Adler
—Richard Blessing
—P-16 Education Consortium Excecutive Director Susan Bodary
—Premier Health Partner President and CEO Tom Breitenbach
—Retired Mead executive and Downtown Dayton Partnership board member Ron Budzik
—State Rep. Kevin Dewine
—Diggs Group investment company Chairman Matt Diggs
—University of Dayton Fitz Center for Leadership in Community Executive Director Dick Ferguson
—Former UD president Bro. Ray Fitz
—Dayton NAACP President Derek Foward
—Central State University President John Garland
—Former Assistant City Manager William Gillespie
—Grunder Landscaping President Marty Grunder
—ISUS charter Superintendent Ann Higdon
—Former Dayton Power & Light Chairman Allen Hill
—Dayton school board President Yvonne Isaacs
—Don Jentleson
—UD Education Dean Tom Lasley
—Dayton school board member Gail Littlejohn
—State Rep. Clayton Luckie
—Dayton teachers union president Pat Lynch
—Dayton school Superintendent Percy Mack
—Dayton school board member Lee Massoud
—Richard Allen Schools Superintendent Mike McCormick
—Mayor Rhine McLin
—Bob Moore
—Dayton Development Coalition CEO JP Nauseef
—Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Phil Parker
—World of Wonder charter school founder and former DPS principal Richard Penry
—Keys to Improving Ohio’s Schools Inc. Executive Director Bob Pohl
—Retired Sincair Community College President Dave Ponitz
—Mark Real
—State Sen. Tom Roberts
—Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Vice President Terry Ryan
—State Rep. Arlene Setzer
—State Rep. Fred Strahorn
—Former Montgomery County Administrator Don Vermillion
—Dayton Urban League President Willie Walker
—The Rev. Vanessa Oliver Ward of Omega Baptist Church and the Omega School of Excellence charter school
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Dayton Public Schools
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
The origins of our racial divide
In today’s newspaper, we try to explore more deeply the racial divide in Dayton that was made clear by the school levy vote.
This brings me to a nagging issue that comes up a lot when we talk in this city about schools and race — busing for integration.
Many believe the divisive court decision which led to integration busing here is what caused “white flight” to the suburbs and ultimately “ruined” the city.
But I’m here to tell you two things: flight was occurring for years before integration began in Dayton and the exodus from the city was going to happen with or without busing.
You have to look at the history of demographic changes here.
After World War II, the U.S. economy exploded, adding jobs and increasing the affluence of average Americans. Industrial cities like Dayton thrived. Dayton’s population peaked in the early 1960s at more than 260,000 before the downward slide began.
The change was driven by economics. After the prosperity of the 1950s and early 1960s, new economic pressures came to industrial cities. Manufacturers began discovering the cheap labor south. It was original outsourcing — northern factories began shutting down and jobs headed south.
By that time, the federal government was two decades into an effort to encourage the notion that the “American Dream” meant moving to the “country” — what we now call the suburbs — and owning your own home. That program was born under the New Deal in the 1930s with the goal of sparking the economy by encouraging home building.
Dayton’s demographic shift toward the suburbs was more than a decade old by the advent of busing. With suburban communities booming here, the city had lost more than 20,000 residents by the start of integration busing in 1976 despite a black population that had almost doubled for the same period.
In his book about Dayton’s integration efforts, University of Dayton professor Joseph Watras found the pace of urban flight picked up as busing began, but that change was not dramatic and the small surge proved temporary.
From 1968 to 1975, the percentage of white students in Montgomery County enrolled in suburban school districts increased by about 1 percent per year. As busing was implemented from 1975 to 1977, that rate jumped to 3 percent. But the white suburban enrollment gain then quickly returned to 1 percent annually for the next four years.
However, blacks were prevented from participating in the shift to the suburbs. Watras showed in his book that Dayton area realtors were still being warned by the federal government to remove illegal language restricting the resale of homes to whites only from land purchasing contracts as late as 1969.
Dayton confined blacks through such rules and other discriminatory practices to a small section of west Dayton, which was made clear by the area’s demographics. In all of Montgomery County, a 1967 Dayton newspaper story listed just 49 black families living in suburban cities. Huber Heights was the most integrated suburb with 15 black families. At the same time, Dayton’s black population of more than 55,000 was growing rapidly.
“White flight” is more complicated than the the simple cause-and-effect that is legend in Dayton — the notion the whites suddenly moved out in huge numbers while blacks chose to stay still when busing began.
Busing absolutely created real fear in white parts of the city. It did accelerate flight. But it didn’t cause it. Flight was happening — and was going to happen — with or without integration.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Urban School Issues
Elections show Dayton’s racial split
By Scott Elliott, Ken McCall and James Cummings
Staff Writers
Just before sundown tonight, black and white residents will meet downtown at the Third Street bridge, where they will join hands and symbolically connect east and west.
It’s the annual Peace Bridge event, a 19-year effort to break free from the city’s long history of racial division, where the Great Miami River cuts a chasm between east and west, black and white.
But the May 8 Dayton school levy defeat served as a stark reminder that the city remains split into separate camps with different and often competing priorities. When voting patterns are mapped out, the other side of the river might as well be the other side of the planet.
The levy was crafted to benefit schools throughout the city. Yet the east side said no, sometimes by more than 90 percent, while the west side voted yes by a landslide 60 to 70 percent in most areas.
The levy map is eerily similar to the last two mayoral elections. Two years ago, when black incumbent Mayor Rhine McLin defeated white challengers David Bohardt and Barbara Temple, McLin’s margin of victory was gigantic to the west, but she lost nearly all of East Dayton. It was the same story when McLin unseated then-Mayor Mike Turner, who is white, in 2001.
Other factors affected the levy vote, including the size of the levy. But in a school district that is 70 percent black, it is hard not to notice that the vote breakdown closely matched the racial makeup of the city.
The question is, will Dayton always be this divided?
For some, today’s Peace Bridge event is a commitment to change, a chance for people on both sides of the river to come together.
Claud Bell Sr. won’t be there.
“I don’t see anything in my lifetime that’s going to change the fact that this city is divided,” said Bell, chairman of the Southwest Priority Board. “That’s why I’m not a fan of the Peace Bridge. Every year people march to the middle of town and hold hands, then they go home to their own side of town, and nothing really changes.”
Darryl Fairchild’s boyhood home was two doors over from Belmont United Methodist Church on Smithville Road. When the Belmont Elementary School bell clanged, he could scoot through the parsonage yard and be in his seat before the ringing stopped.
The people at school — his classmates and his closest friends —were very much like him: white, middle class and from the neighborhood.
When busing for integration began in 1976, that all changed.
Fairchild had to catch the bus down the street for a 30 minute ride to Residence Park Elementary School on the city’s west side. His three best Belmont friends moved away to Kettering, Beavercreek and Centerville.
Over time, Fairchild had one set of friends at his integrated school, another on sports teams where he was sometimes the only white player and another through his childhood Belmont connections.
Conversations became awkward, he remembers. Friends in one group distrusted those in the others.
“I can still recall the one gnawing question,” he said. “Why were we, the children, being asked to do what the adults couldn’t do?”
Now Fairchild believes his generation has failed to achieve the racial understanding that was the dream of school integration. So today he is leading an effort by white clergy in Dayton to promote stronger connections between blacks and whites.
“My life was negatively impacted by racism,” Fairchild said. “I know some people will be uncomfortable with me and my colleagues as we state the obvious — as a community, we still have work to do.”
The May 8 defeat of Dayton’s school levy was what pushed the ministers into action. Voting matched a pattern typical in city balloting — east voted strongly no while the west voted yes.
Fifty-eight percent of voters were against the levy while 42 percent voted yes.
Even so, the levy’s fate probably was sealed by what voters on both sides of town perceived as its high cost.
“I would not ascribe defeat of the school levy solely to the issue of race,” said U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice. “A lot of it was legitimately the price tag.”
No voters on both sides of town said the cost of Dayton’s 15.17-mill request — $464 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home — was too heavy. “This levy hit us so fast, we didn’t know what was happening,” said Teressa McDonough, a resident of the racially diverse Five Oaks neighborhood and the owner of a cleaning business who voted no. “We’re willing to make sacrifices to educate our kids, but nobody explained to us why so much of a sacrifice needed to be made.”
Michael Holbert, a 1967 Colonel White High School graduate who lives in Belmont, said he did not believe race was an important factor in the school levy vote. He believes the district has not spent its money wisely and that’s why he voted no.
And with only 15 to 18 percent of Dayton households having children in school, passing any levy remains challenging.
Still, the precinct-by-precinct results of the levy matched very closely with a racial demographic map of Dayton. The correlation was much less strong for other factors, such as home ownership or poverty.
As co-chair of the Dayton Dialogue on Race Relations, Rice has led an effort to get black and white residents together in small groups to talk earnestly about race. “There was nothing in that map I haven’t seen in local elections for many years,” Rice said. “Mayoral elections and city commission elections all show that the city is racially divided.”
When it comes to city politics, Dayton’s racial divide is a given. It’s just not discussed out loud very often.
“The public-arena, politically correct discussion doesn’t count for much if, in fact, real beliefs and attitudes are something different,” said David Bohardt, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2005. “I very much found that was the case in the campaign.”
Bohardt, who is white, lives in the Santa Clara neighborhood west of the Great Miami River. When he ran against Rhine McLin, a popular black incumbent, political consultants told him his best chance in the race was to accept the political math of Dayton — east will vote for the white candidate and west will vote for the black candidate.
The smart play, they said, was for him to focus on energizing East Dayton and ignoring the west side.
Candidates — and levy strategists — have to weigh the investment of time, energy and money against the possible payoff, Bohardt said.
City Commissioner Nan Whaley said it appeared Dayton schools followed a strategy of focusing solely on black West Dayton, which she believes was a mistake.
“They didn’t put up signs in the east,” she said. “They didn’t make calls. They didn’t court East Dayton. I disagree with that. You don’t give up on the east side.”
Whaley, who is white but lives in the racially mixed Fair River Oaks Council Priority Board area west of the river, said smart candidates campaign out of their comfort zones. Like Bohardt, McLin crossed the river in her campaigns, too.
“She lost (on the east side), but she didn’t lose by as much as she would have if she didn’t campaign,” Whaley said.
A key step for the city would be to begin an honest discussion of race and politics, Bohardt said.
“There are still two political discussions going on in this town,” he said. “There is the politically correct one where everyone says the right things about collaboration and diversity. And then there is the private agenda discussions, which are divisive, ill-informed and often bigoted.”
Insular communities on both sides of town contribute to misunderstanding, several community leaders echoed.
“Racism is not limited to one race or the other,” Rice said. “It is a prevailing problem in the community — the white community and the black community.”
Willie Walker, president of the Dayton Urban League, believes the problem begins with housing segregation.
“Look at how people live,” he said. “They don’t go to church together. They’re not at a lot of social events together. If you had more instances where people were being together more than apart, there would be more communication and better understanding of the issues.”
City commissioner Dean Lovelace said progress has been made in housing. But people can’t be forced to live together.
“It’s hard to move away from the culture you grew up with,” he said. “Dayton has areas with strong African American culture. We’ve got areas with strong Appalachian culture. There are strides being made to connect the communities, to build bridges. It’s just not at the pace some people would like.”
Deliberate city efforts, like the rehabilitation of the now diverse Wright Dunbar neighborhood off West Third Street, demonstrate that change can happen, Lovelace said. “You have to be purposeful,” he said. “You have to have governmental involvement. Things like Wright-Dunbar don’t happen on their own.”
Events like today’s Peace Bridge event, which culminates in a symbolic coming together of east and west on the Third Street Bridge, raise awareness, Rice said, but reconciliation efforts can’t end there.
“You basically need the metaphorical equivalent of a 365-day-a-year peace bridge,” he said. “You cannot put on a one day event and expect it to work like magic for the next year. People need to talk to each other, not at each other. What I think this community lacks is an understanding that we are all in this together.”
When Fairchild, the Belmont-bred minister, gets discouraged about race relations in the city, he remembers the story of his grandfather for inspiration.
His grandfather, Richard Foland, lived in the Hearthstone section of East Dayton, and likely was “not a proponent of the civil rights movement,” Fairchild said. They had a hard time understanding each other on racial issues.
But then, at Foland’s funeral, a black man that nobody in the family knew came to pay respects. Fairchild asked the man how he knew Foland and heard a remarkable story.
“He said when he was a young man working at the post office, my grandfather saw potential in him and encouraged him to take the test to become a supervisor,” Fairchild said. The man took the test and went on to a successful career as a postal service manager.
“Because of my grandfather’s humility, and his fear of his co-workers opinions, I suspect he gave those words of encouragement in private,” Fairchild said. “And I suspect in the privacy of a voting booth, he could have done the right thing, too.”
Permalink | | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, My Favorite DDN Stories, Urban School Issues
No, really, it’s not racism
Over the last week, I had a lot of phone calls from angry east siders. It was a curious phenomenon. A map in the newspaper, followed by a group of ministers, show and state the obvious — Dayton is a racially divided city.
It just seems a bit strange to me that this makes people so mad.
One phone call in particular was interesting. And telling.
The lady left me a message. I didn’t keep the message and I don’t remember her name. I’ll call her Mary. She told me she was furious about Thursday’s story on the ministers and really wanted to talk to me about it. She was direct but polite. So I called her back.
The school board election was not about race, Mary told me. Her no vote certainly wasn’t motivated by any ill will toward black folks and neither did any of her east side friends. In fact, she has many black friends at work and they, too, voted against the levy because it was just too costly.
I told Mary I believed she was being honest about why she voted no. But I pointed her back to the map and the stark divide it showed. This is not natural, I said. A school levy result should not show such a racial divide. In most cities, when levies pass or fail, the voting does not follow any sort of geographical pattern.
That may be, Mary said, but in this case, it was the school board. They’ve done a rotten job of managing. It’s the school district’s spending, she said. They paid too much for the Reynolds buildings and they spend way more per student than private schools.
I pointed out to Mary that she was changing her argument. Did she vote no because she couldn’t afford the levy, or to punish the school board for its bad management?
Mary returned to defending herself and her neighbors, saying they are not racists. She felt the ministers, by calling for racial reconciliation, were calling her a racist, Mary said. It made her so mad, she promised to work against any future levy.
I reminded Mary again that she started off saying that she opposed the levy because she couldn’t afford it. Now she says she will fight any future levy, before she even knows how much it will cost? Suppose it is small and affordable? If cost is the issue for her, how can she know already that she will be opposed to it?
Because she is angry, Mary told me. She is angry at the ministers. What do they know anyway, she asked? Ministers aren’t exactly known for being a bright bunch, she said.
“Maybe you should ask yourself why it makes you so angry,” I suggested. “Why does it make you angry that someone should point out that our city is racially divided?”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
The fact that Dayton’s levy result not only maps to a geographical divide, but also matches to a demographic divide by race suggests more is going on here. Are people consciously going into the voting both and trying to stick it to the folks on the other side of the river? Except for the truly hardcore racists, I don’t think most people think that way.
But perhaps something is going on subconsciously. Some voters, it seems, may have told themselves they were voting no because of cost, or because they believe the school board has done a bad job. On the other side of town, perhaps they voted yes telling themselves they were doing it for the kids, or to keep the city economically viable.
But the data would suggest some of them are voting the way they do, somehow, to spite those other folks across the river.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, My Favorite Posts, Urban School Issues
Ministers: City’s racial divide must be closed
Pastors John Paddock and Rod Kennedy
When Pastor Rod Kennedy of the First Baptist Church downtown spoke to members of his congregation before the Dayton school levy, he heard some very old arguments for voting no.
“They were bringing up issues that went back 20 years,” he said. “One man told me he was opposed to busing and that’s why he voted against the levy. That was still a hot button issue.”
Busing for integration officially ended five years ago in Dayton but the voter complaint harkened to a racial divide that goes back decades.
More than a half dozen ministers from predominately white churches met Wednesday at Belmont United Methodist Church and said the racial undercurrent in the school levy vote was a call to arms for renewed effort to improve the city’s race relations.
On Saturday, the Dayton Daily News published a precinct map that showed most voters who live west of the Great Miami River voted strongly in favor of the 15.17-mill operating levy while those to the east voted even more strongly against it.
Darryl Fairchild, executive director of a coalition of 39 churches and the Catholic archdiocese called Greater Dayton Christian Connections said ending this racial divide was the goal of the annual “peace bridge” event, which will be held this Sunday for the 19th time. But the levy vote show racial reconciliation still has not been achieved.
“It’s a little sad that 19 years later the dividing line is still the river,” he said, holding up a clipping from Saturday’s newspaper. “You can see it right here on this map.”
The ministers said they would press a renewed fight against racism, support any future Dayton school levy and lobby the state to change the funding system.
Money, Kennedy said, was real issue for many people who voted no because they could not afford higher taxes.
“I have friends who simply did not feel they could afford this levy and I respect their position,” he said.
Still, the pressure on local taxpayers masks a deeper issue. Better state funding could relieve that pressure, he said.
“The new cover for racism in Dayton is green,” Kennedy said. “That’s the color of our money. People can hide behind it and pretend they do not have any more issues between black and white. Can we move that to the side and talk about how we can connect with each other?”
Permalink | Comments (42) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
City Day sponsor urges firing
City Day Superintendent Roseda Goff
The news I reported today about a move by charter school sponsor Education Resource Consultants of Ohio (ERCO) to aggressively push for the firing of City Day Community School Superintendent Roseda Goff actually is a bigger deal than it might seem.
The move may be unprecedented for a charter school sponsor in Ohio.
ERCO attorney Phyllis Brown told me a sponsor all but ordering one of its charter schools to make a personnel move, as ERCO effectively has done by threatening to take disciplinary action against the school if it doesn’t, is exceedingly rare. ERCO has never done it before, she said, and she is not aware of another sponsor in the state who has.
The action was prompted in part by, amazingly, another incident of testing irregularities this year that occurred while ERCO staff was administering the Ohio Achievement Test — a move the was supposed to ensure protocols were followed to the letter this year.
The City Day governing board is an independent body that has sole discretion to manage the school as it sees fit. But it can’t operate without a sponsor. It appears to have two choices — follow ERCO’s lead or find another sponsor. The board is supposed to meet Thursday, although it canceled its monthly meeting in April.
For a recap of our City Day coverage follow these links:
Here is the original City Day story from early February.
Here are City Day’s practice test questions compared with real state exam questions.
Here’s a follow up story with data that shows how remarkable the school’s test performance change was.
Here’s when the state said it would investigate City Day.
Here’s the story from when City Day was placed on probation by ERCO.
Here’s another blog post about the lessons in test security that can be drawn from this case.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, City Day Investigation, Testing
City Day sponsor urges superintendent’s removal
By Scott Elliott
Staff Writer
The sponsor of City Day Community School has urged its board to remove Superintendent Roseda Goff following what it says are continuing problems with state tests.
In February 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.
Phyllis Brown, legal counsel to Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, said the sponsor observed more testing irregularities by school staff while ERCO staff administered Ohio Achievement Tests earlier this month.
Brown said the incidents were reported to the state education department, but would not elaborate on the nature of the problems. The Ohio Department of Education declined comment.
“During the administration of the tests, ERCO had issues with some employees at the school,” Brown said. “They were not problems of test security, but they were problems that could, if not found, lead to questions about the accuracy of the results of the test.”
In its stories, the Dayton Daily News found 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.
And when state report cards came out last year, huge gains in the percentage of students who passed the test helped the school jump two steps up the state’s lowest rating scale from the lowest category of “academic emergency” to “continuous improvement.” About 170 students attend the school at 318 S. Main St.
Brown said the testing problems and other “leadership issues” at the school caused ERCO to strongly urge the City Day governing board to replace Goff, one of the school’s original founders.
“It’s up to the board of the school to terminate her,” Brown said. “As a sponsor we can recommend to the board and maybe even take disciplinary action down the road, but she works for the board. We believe there should be a change at the highest levels of leadership, namely the superintendent.”
Efforts to reach Goff, school administrators and governing board members were unsuccessful. The board is scheduled to meet Thursday at the school at 6 p.m.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: City Day Investigation, My Favorite DDN Stories, Testing
Profiles in cheating
Before it gets too far away from me, I wanted to talk a little about another session I participated in at the Education Writers Association’s national conference in Los Angeles abut 10 days ago.
I moderated a great panel there on test cheating, featuring two reporters who had done remarkable reporting and a first-class expert in test security who specializes in catching cheaters.
If there’s one newspaper that really set the standard for this sort of reporting, it’s the Dallas Morning News.
Panelist Josh Benton was part of a team of reporters that started with a irregularities in a single school district in 2005 and later found evidence that hundreds of schools were cheating in Texas. (You can find the stories here at Benton’s personal web page.)
I wrote about this last year after a testing company called Caveon confirmed the Morning News’ findings when it said scores were suspicious at 700 Texas schools. The founder of that company, Jim Impara, was also on the panel.
Find one of the better stories from the Morning News on this issue here.
The other panelist, Melanie Burney of the Philadelphia Inquirer, also started with a small story and watched it mushroom into a huge scandal thanks to dogged reporting by her and her colleagues.
That story began with seemingly good news — several schools in low-scoring Camden, N.J. had been among the biggest gainers on state tests. But the district’s nervous reactions to the paper’s effort to write about the apparent feel good story led the reporters to look more closely. The ensuing scandal brought down the superintendent.
Most amazing from the Inquirer’s coverage was this story about the culture of cheating in Camden. Burney and her colleague describe how new teachers were indoctrinated into a routine of systematic cheating on state tests that was so ingrained over years that it was hardly questioned.
I talked a little about our coverage of City Day Community School during the panel discussion.
Several months back at a meeting here at the paper, I proposed the idea of looking into the issue of test cheating. As I talked about cheating, one of my colleagues interrupted.
“Wait, I don’t get it,” she said. “The adults help the kids cheat?”
No, I said, it’s the adults that cheat.
That’s hard to understand. But when their jobs are on the line, adults don’t always behave honorably.
From Texas and Camden, it’s clear cheating can be widespread and systematic. It’s also seems states could do a lot more to find and catch cheaters. Simple changes in a state testing program can discourage cheaters very effectively, if only states take those simple steps.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Testing
Urgency lacking in Dayton school crisis?
(Stivers freshman Danielle Snyder pickets the school board in November.)
Sunday’s paper had a couple of school-levy related items on the editorial page. First, Stivers students sound off in letters to the editor about the cuts.
Then editorial page editor Ellen Belcher asks in an intriguing column if business and community leaders will rally to address the school crisis the way they have in the past, or if our city has changed to the point at which there no longer is urgency about the schools?
What do you think of Ellen’s idea of a blue ribbon panel of business and community leaders that could help by poring over the distrct’s books in search of costs savings, advising the district on its options politically and rallying a broader base of support?
Permalink | Comments (27) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
The school vote divide — right down the middle
This much was evident in the precinct-by-precinct data from Dayton’s failed school levy: our city has a deep racial divide and the levy’s cost was too much for voters who otherwise might have been supportive.
I can’t link to the voting map that’s in today’s paper for some reason, but it’s worth picking up the paper to see it. Almost the entire (mostly white) east side of Dayton voted no on the levy and many precincts voted no by huge margins — 90 percent against in several.
On Dayton’s (mostly black) west side, the vote went the other way — heavily in favor of the levy. The turnout on both sides of town was roughly the same and 86 precincts voted no while another 86 voted yes.
So why wasn’t the vote closer? Because many normally supportive black west-siders voted no because they simply did not feel they could afford it. On that side of town, the percent voting yes was 60 to 70 in many precincts — a strong yes vote but still not enough to overcome the ultra-heavy no votes on the east side.
Readers, why do you make of these numbers?
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Yeah, but the kids really are the losers
(The jazz ensemble at Stivers School for the Arts)
Forget for a moment whether you were for or against the levy. And withhold judgment for a moment about who is to blame, either for the levy’s defeat or for the school district’s financial crisis.
Much of the discussion under Thursday’s post about how the levy failure hurt kids revolved instead around those other issues of fault and blame. Let’s focus for a moment on who lost the most on Tuesday. No matter how you look at it, I think it’s the kids.
Let’s run down the list:
Administrators: Some will lose their jobs. (Mack’s plan from last week called for a 31 percent cut in administrative jobs. He argued to me this week that cut is deeper than in the instructional staff, where 28 percent of jobs face elimination.) Those who remain will have a difficult task running the district on a bare bones budget.
Teachers: Many will lose their jobs also. Those who remain will have to deal with larger classes and even more limited supplies, plus less managerial support with assistant principals gone.
Parents: Those with options can move their kids to private schools or out of the city altogether. Those committed to the district, or who do not have options, will have to live with the stripped down education program.
The school board: This was a stinging defeat politically for a group that has enjoyed a long run of success in the political realm. The levy loss will cause the board to dismantle parts of a reform program it credits with raising test scores. The board will have to manage through crisis for the first time in several years.
Taxpayers: For now, they save money. But the victory could be temporary, as the board is sure to be back with another levy try. School officials say 85 percent of city residents have no children in the school district. For those who do not feel invested in the district, they save on a potentially high expense for something many do not believe benefits them or the city.
The city: Taxes stay lower, but if a decline in school quality follows that can hurt its competitiveness compared to other cities. There also is some economic impact from the lost of taxpaying jobs at the school district.
I am sure there are other groups that I left out. Please let me know who they are through the comments.
From my list, the hardest hit are those who lose their jobs. Most of the other negatives are manageable, if unpleasant. But most of those laid off will find other work.
Now back to the kids. I keep using Stivers because it is a strong example of something that nearly everyone agrees is good for Dayton and yet it is gravely threatened by the upcoming budget cuts. Think about it. If you are a high school sophomore and a talented cellist who aspires to play in a professional orchestra someday, the loss of the professional who gives you lessons hits pretty hard.
But if you are a high school golfer aiming for a scholarship and now you have no team to play on, again that also hurts. Or suppose you are a troubled kid from a broken home and the counselor who connected you with social services and helped you get your grades on track is no longer there next year. Or maybe you want to be a doctor but the school stops offering AP biology.
These are the sorts of things a kid can’t get back. That’s why I say this hurts the kids the most — even if the levy was too much, even if the school district didn’t deserve it, even if it’s the board’s own darn fault.
Maybe I’m overlooking something here. Can you think of a group that lost more with Tuesday’s levy defeat?
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
What the kids lost Tuesday
(Lee Matthews volleys one for the Stivers tennis team)
Today’s paper has lots more on the fallout from Dayton’s school levy. But the best stuff comes from the kids themselves as they describe what they lost.
My colleague Ron Jackson spoke with Stivers tennis star Lee Matthews who now is contemplating a transfer out of the school district. Kids who are deeply committed to “minor” sports like tennis, golf, baseball, softball and others are really in a pickle now.
Most kids at Stivers are not athletes. The region’s premiere arts high school has its very identity threatened by the looming cuts. Other students there told DDN reporter Mark MeGregor the programs and competitions they depend on to hone their arts and music skills are threatened.
Also, the school board says it is not inclined to seek a levy again in August and it will ask for community guidance for reshaping the school district to its new reality.
And check out today’s editorial on the district’s crisis.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Readers: My compliments to you
I spent part of last week at the Education Writers Association’s national conference in Los Angeles where I participated on a couple of panels, including one on education blogging for journalists.
Believe it or not, this blog was just the nation’s third education blog sponsored by a professional news organization when it launched in August 2005. So I’ve been asked often to speak about education blogging.
This question always comes up: How do I deal with the inevitable bad behavior of readers who post comments? You know, racial slurs, profanity, libel and just plain overheated nastiness?
My answer, thanks to you readers, is that those problems are not inevitable. And I think we’ve shown that here again this week with the discussions under my posts about the emotional issue of Dayton’s school levy.
Frankly, when I tell people I rarely have the kinds of problems described above at GOTB, they either don’t believe me or they want to know my magic formula — what is it that I am doing that gets people to behave?
Do you know what I tell them? It can’t possibly be me. I truly believe that one of the biggest keys to the successful reader interaction here is that people who live in and around Dayton, Ohio, are unusually polite. That sometimes gets a laugh until people see that I am not kidding.
Beyond that, I think the regular commenters here have done a great job of setting a tone that encourages thoughtful discussion and discourages misbehavior. Honestly, GOTB does a great job of policing itself.
I do moderate the comments here. I approve them all before they appear, which is somewhat cumbersome and can slow the discussion down at times. But I can tell you this — after almost two years I don’t need all my fingers to count the comments that I have disapproved. I only block comments for these reasons — profanity, racial slurs or libel. And those problems rarely come up. (The trash can pictured above has gotten little use.)
I thought about all this as I read your comments on the school levy lately. For the most part, they have been thoughtful, engaging, diverse in point of view and, of course, polite. I learn a ton just by reading your reactions to my stories and posts. And for that, readers, I thank you.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Journalism
Prediction wins T-shirt
CORRECTION: It turns out Mr. Teacher predicted a levy win with 60 percent voting yes. So only Lindsy gets a T-shirt. I mailed it Friday.
On Tuesday, I offered a Dayton Daily News T-shirt to the commenter who came closest to predicting the correct Dayton levy results. The results are in and we have a winner!
The winner was Lindsy Hamilton, who guessed the levy would fail with 60 percent voting no. The actual percentage was 58 percent. Lindsy — email me at selliott@daytondailynews.com to make arrangements to get your shirt.
At the start of April, I probably would have made the same prediction as Lindsy — 60 percent voting no. But by election day, my impression was that the race had tightened significantly. If I had guessed yesterday, I probably would have said the levy would fail but by a close 52-48 ratio. It turns out the race did not tighten nearly as much as I thought.
Here are the other predictions from yesterday. You can see as a group we were all over the map:
Dayton Teacher predicted a defeat with 70 percent voting no
Lindsy Hamilton (winner) predicted a defeat with 60 percent voting no
Proud to be Here predicted a narrow win with 51 percent voting yes
Dayton Teach predicted a levy win with 55 percent voting yes
The Fullers also predicted a win with 55 percent voting yes
Mr. Teacher predicted a win with 56 percent voting yes
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Now what? Dayton’s next steps
(Percy Mack, Yvonne Isaacs and Gail Littlejohn huddle on election night)
Well, I’ve been thrown out of Sinclair Community College and I’m now writing this post from the sidewalk out front. So I guess they’re trying to tell me to call it a night.
Before I do, here are some things to think over about Dayton schools.
With Tuesday’s sizeable levy defeat, Dayton faces two big problems — what to cut and when to go back to the voters and try again.
First, the cuts. Superintendent Percy Mack said tonight that the ominous cut plan he announced last week — 600 job cuts including 400 instructional staff, three school closings and a deep cut in music, art and athletics — will be the starting point for a discussion that will begin immediately.
He said the district’s contract with RTA for high school busing will be cut for sure. Administrators will reconsider the high school program to be sure all the state requirements are covered and then add on only what they can afford beyond that. Which schools might close is a big unanswered question.
As for the question of a new levy later this year, school board President Yvonne Isaacs said the board would have to think about that. They will have to move fast if they want to try again in August. That filing deadline is later this month.
Once the cuts for the upcoming school year are made on July 1, there is nothing more the board can do to change this school year’s financial status. Even if a levy passed later this year, it wouldn’t help the district until 2008-09.
The talk Tuesday night was that November was probably more likely than August for that reason. But that would mean a school levy competing with a countywide human services levy and the statewide constitutional amdement on school funding.
Finally, as some commenters have noted, turnout was very low tonight. How to address that problem is another challenge for any future levy campaign.
No matter how you look at it, there are big issues for Dayton moving forward. I’ll be working on answering those questions Wednesday.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
School levies: The final numbers
NOTE: I’ve corrected Miamisburg from a loss to a win. Sorry for the confusion.
Here is a round up of the final percentages in Montgomery County school levy votes. Four losers and five winners in nine races:
Dayton: Lost 58-42
Oakwood: Won 80-20
Kettering: Lost 52-48
Miamisburg: Won 70-30
Northmont: Won 53-47
Brookville: Lost 55-44
Jefferson Twp: Won 67-33
Huber Heights: Lost 56-47
West Carrollton: Won 53-47
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Dayton levy defeated
We still don’t have final numbers from the Montgomery County Board of Elections (which seems to be having a rough night), but now all but two precincts are reporting and the margin for Dayton has not significantly changed. Here are the numbers now:
Voting no: 8,739 41.78% Voting yes: 12,179 58.22%
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Numbers not getting better for Dayton
The margin did not move in the latest small update. Here’s what we have for Dayton now:
Total registered voters in the district: 109,115
Voted so far: 13,800
Voting yes: 5,970 (43.26%)
Voting no: 7,830 (56.74%)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Levy in trouble: margin grows
About 70 percent of precincts are in and the “no” votes have pushed farther ahead. Here’s what we have for Dayton now:
Total registered voters in the district: 109,115
Voted so far: 12,637
Voting yes: 5,547 (43.89%)
Voting no: 7,090 (56.11%)
UPDATE: By my eyeball count, there should be roughly 5,000 votes still out there uncounted in Dayton. They margin right now is about 1,500 votes. If my math is right, this means the levy would have to get 4 out of 5 of those uncounted ballots as yes votes to finish this thing with a majority voting yes. That’s a HUGE longshot. The levy appears like it fail.
Permalink | | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Levy losing narrowly with half the precincts in
About 49 percent of precincts are in, but I hear there are computer problems at the board of elections. Here’s what we have for Dayton now:
Total registered voters in the district: 109,115
Voted so far: 8,968
Voting yes: 4,293 (47.87%)
Voting no: 4,675 (52.13%)
The big unanswered questions is what parts of town have reported and what parts are still uncounted.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Absentee ballots at 50-50
The absentee ballots are in. Here’s what we have for Dayton so far:
Total registered voters in the district: 109,115
Voted so far: 1,131
Voting yes: 562 (49.69%)
Voting no: 569 (50.31%)
Again, remember these numbers have no predictive value.
Update: Here’s a roundup of what’s happening in other school races:
Oakwood: Winning 74-26
Kettering: Losing 54-46
Miamisburg: Winning 62-38
Northmont: Losing 54-46
Brookville: Losing 58-42
Jefferson Twp: Winning 52-48
Huber Heights: 61-39
West Carrollton: Losing 62-38
Permalink | | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Waiting for the first report …
I’m at the school district’s levy party at Sinclair Community College. So far, no results from the Montgomery County Board of Elections. The polls closed at 7:30 p.m., so we should have absentee results soon.
David Ponitz, the levy chairman and former Sinclair president, said he heard those ballots came in roughly 50-50. (Could it be thad he has better sources than me?) Even so, I can tell you that the absentee ballots have no predictive value.
In fact, be careful not to draw conclusions too early tonight as partial numbers come out. Remember, Dayton is a very divided city. Depending on what precincts are reporting, the trend can look very different.
More soon…
Permalink | | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Today’s the day: How will you vote?
OK, it’s election day. All the rhetoric ends here and Get on the Bus readers will know (first I hope) if the Dayton school levy passed or failed before the day is done.
If you’re a Dayton voter, please tell us if you voted yes or no today.
While we wait for the results, let’s have a little fun. Give us your prediction. Will the levy win or lose? What percentage of the electorate will vote yes vs. no?
The commenter who gets closest to the right percentages will win a prize. I’ll send you a Dayton Daily News T-shirt.
So here’s a recap:
—If you’re a Dayton voter, did you vote yes or no?
—Do you think the levy will pass or fail?
—What percentages will vote yes and no?
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Superintendent’s standards too high for Toledo?
(William Harner visits a Greenville (S.C.) primary school on his birthday)
Eagle-eyed reader Mary noticed this Toldeo Blade story about the superintendent search there that raised an interesting question: Should the superintendent have to live in the school district?
Most school boards, of course, would answer yes. But consider job candidate William Harner’s complaint — his daughter is a top student and not a single Toldeo high school has an adequate program of advanced courses for her preferred course of study.
The Blade’s editorial board ripped the school board for dropping Harner from consideration. (Although my research suggests the former Army lieutenant colonel has had a rocky ride in his prior education gigs.)
But the debate is an interesting one. Harner’s trepidation points out a serious problem in Toledo schools — the lack of high-end course offerings. If they really wanted Harner, it would seem like this was a real opportunity to press for needed change. What about a compromise in which Harner vows to beef up high school offerings, say, within two years and then move his daughter into the district?
What would you have done if you were on Toledo’s school board?
(Image credit: Greenville (S.C) schools)
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Why Dayton’s levy comes now
(World of Wonder Community School student attend to a school sign promoting Dayton’s tax levy.)
In Sunday’s newspaper, I tried to explain the complicated debate over how the state calculates charter school enrollment.
The dispute has prompted a lawsuit by one urban school district. And Dayton school officials say it is the reason why the school board has called for such a large operating levy so soon.
When I began covering education in Dayton in 1999, the city had one charter school with 60 kids that was costing the city school district about $250,000 a year.
Today, Dayton is recognized nationwide as the hottest charter school marketplace (not counting New Orleans), where nearly three of 10 schoolchildren attend charter schools. There are now 31 charter schools in Dayton with more than 6,000 kids enrolled at a cost to the school district that exceeds $45 million.
As charters grew in Dayton, the school district’s inability to track charter enrollment became almost an annual joke. Near the end of each school year I would inevitably write a story about how many millions off the district’s estimated charter costs were and the scramble for cash that would follow.
At one point, I began doing my own estimate, based simply on a phone survey of charters that I conducted, that was at least closer to the right figure.
A frustrated Superintendent Percy Mack tried to put a stop to the ritual charter shortfall by putting his best data analyst — director of accountability Fred Dawson — on the case. What Dawson found was the state’s method of counting enrollment was deeply flawed.
Dayton’s story is that the Ohio Department of Education was, at first, thankful to Dayton for pointing out problems with its system and initially proposed a settlement to make up part of the millions Dayton claims it has lost to bad student counts.
Lawmakers, as you can read in today’s story, then intervened and the deal was off. But House Speaker Jon Husted has a simple, and compelling, complaint about the proposed settlement — can’t we somehow figure out what the right enrollment counts are and pay based on accurate figures?
This story, complex as it is, was an important final installment to our detailed look at Dayton’s levy request. This dispute, the district says, is the reason Dayton voters face a 15.17-mill levy Tuesday.
It’s not to say that a levy wasn’t coming anyway. One was certainly coming, probably in 2008 or, the school board had hoped, in 2009. But the evaporation of the charter school enrollment settlement last May, when Dayton’s 2006-07 budget was already set with the settlement money included, is what the board said caused the scramble for cash Dayton now faces.
I want to know what you think of this argument from Dayton. From what you read in today’s paper, what’s your take on the debate with the state over charter school enrollment counts?
(Image credit: Chris Stewart, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Dayton Public Schools, Urban School Issues
Officials say House actions cost millions
(Teacher Sanjii Johnigan and her class at the World of Wonder Community School, a former charter school now under the Dayton Public Schools banner.)
By Scott Elliott
Staff Writer
State lawmakers were close to wrapping up debate last May over House Bill 530 when Dayton school leaders learned it might cost them millions.
Then-school board president Gail Littlejohn grabbed her phone and dialed state Sen. Jeff Jacobson’s cell number. “What is going on here?” she demanded.
Just a few weeks earlier, Dayton, Cincinnati and other urban districts had cut a deal to resolve a dispute over charter school enrollment — a settlement with the Ohio Department of Education that would compensate those districts for overcharges on charter school enrollments.
But lawmakers didn’t like the deal. They were frustrated with what they viewed as frequent revisions to the education department’s enrollment numbers — revisions that meant millions more each year in money for education. And they were uncomfortable with the terms of the settlement, which had the state offering to raise school district enrollment counts by about half the disputed number of students.
So House Bill 530 effectively blocked the settlement after it was already signed by Dayton school board members. And by the time Littlejohn reached Jacobson, it was too late. He had already voted for the bill.
“I told her there was nothing I could do,” said Jacobson, R-Butler Twp.
Dayton school officials say the iceberg of charter school funding — and the politics of a dispute over enrollment and funding — is a principal reason they are asking voters for a 15.17-mill tax levy on Tuesday.
Although Cincinnati schools sued the state to restore the deal with the education department — a lawsuit that is pending before the Ohio Supreme Court —Dayton officials decided they couldn’t wait for the outcome in the courts. They decided to seek a levy earlier than planned to address a shortfall looming as a result of the department’s new calculation of state aid.
Littlejohn said the state’s enrollment change reduced aid to the school district by $14 million.
“The impact was significant,” she said. “And the legislation got passed in the 13th hour.”
Enrollment counts don’t match
Not long after Fred Dawson was hired in 2002 as Dayton Public Schools’ chief data expert, Superintendent Percy Mack gave him a big assignment.
Mack asked Dawson to figure out why the district’s charter school enrollment projection was always wrong.
At the close of every school year, it seemed, the state would present Dayton with a bigger than expected bill for charter schools and Mack was tired of scrambling to fill the accompanying budget gap.
Over several years, Dawson refined a method for double checking the names of charter school students and nailing down errors in the data. His approach eventually caught the attention of other urban districts and became the basis of an argument that they were being overcharged in state aid that was deducted for charter schools.
“We were not making sure that every kid in charter schools was in our count,” he said. “That changed and we started getting very good at it.”
The problem, Dawson now believes, was Dayton was paying charter schools for kids who were not attending those schools. And it was costing the district millions.
Discrepancies in the various student counts — the traditional state enrollment count each October, a new state process for counting charter school enrollment monthly and Dawson’s method for checking charter names against other school district records — came to a head last spring when the Ohio Department of Education balked at settling a disagreement with cash payments, prompting a lawsuit by Cincinnati Public Schools.
Dayton school leaders opted against waiting and hoping for a favorable outcome in the Cincinnati legal case, and instead put a 15.17-mill levy on the ballot.
Tuesday’s levy — the first operating levy in Dayton since 1992 — will cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $464. But school officials say the levy might have been smaller and would have been put off for a year if the state hadn’t walked away from a settlement over the disputed number of students attending charter schools.
Identifying students a challenge
For Dawson, the key clue to solving the mystery of charter school enrollment was a new Ohio effort to create unique identity numbers for students statewide.
Schools use a statewide database to enter new students who come into their districts, if their prior schools had not already created a number for them.
The Ohio Department of Education does not have access to all the data in that system. But Dawson found he could use other identifying information in the computer files — such as birth dates and home addresses — to track down students who were missing from Dayton’s count.
Often Dawson found those unmatched students were mistakes. In many cases, kids were accidentally given new identifying numbers after changing schools when their new schools failed to check to see if they were in the system already.
“All this information was submitted to the state,” Dawson said. “I was told the state was surprised I knew as much about my data as I did.”
Under Ohio’s school funding system, districts are paid state aid based on their enrollment. For those districts that also have charter schools, enrollment for the district and all charters is combined. The state then deducts aid for charters.
For Dayton, the problem arose when it submitted its enrollment count for 2005-06. Its figure was about 680 students higher than the state expected and charter school students made up the bulk of the difference.
Ohio now has a separate system of tracking charter school enrollment, a system under which charters report their student counts month-by-month. In many cases, charters had counted the same student more than once or counted students who Dawson could show were now attending schools in the district.
The 680-student difference amounted to about $4.5 million in state aid Dayton was expecting to keep but the education department were poised to pay to charters.
This prompted a meeting with state education officials. Dayton and other urban districts, using Dawson’s method, laid out their cases and the state began discussing a compromise settlement.
Last spring, a deal was made to essentially split the difference, with the state offering to raise school district enrollment counts by about half the disputed number of students. But there was a problem. Some lawmakers didn’t like the deal.
Lawmakers unhappy
Last week House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, endorsed the Dayton school levy. The irony is the levy is on the ballot, at least in its present form, largely because he helped derail the deal the urban districts had cut with the education department over the disputed charter school enrollment figures.
Husted said when he first heard of the settlement his frustration with the education department boiled over. He wanted to know only one thing — what were the right enrollment figures for Dayton and the other districts? A settlement that split the difference, he said, was out of the question.
“When you’re part of a public agency you can’t just say ‘we’re not going to follow the law’ and do a compromise,” Husted said. “They were essentially saying ‘we don’t want to follow the law because we made a mistake.’ We would have had to cut other parts of the budget to even do that.”
Education Department spokesman J.C. Benton said he could not respond. “Because this issue is the subject of pending litigation, we can’t speak to it,” Benton said.
According to Husted, enrollment counts were a long running frustration for the legislature. Eleventh-hour adjustments often required lawmakers to find millions of dollars to fill funding gaps, he said.
“I understand this failure by the Ohio Department of Education was a difficult situation for some people,” Husted said. “This was just the final straw.”
House Bill 530 gave the education department more flexibility in determining enrollment counts. The deal with the districts was dead and Dayton was out $14 million, the amount of money they would have received from the state for the bogus enrollment counts from 2005 to 2007.
Dayton officials began talking about a levy, but there was a glimmer of hope.
A break was coming on the Cincinnati case.
Districts win, case appealed
In November, a judge ruled in favor of the school districts in a lawsuit filed by Cincinnati Public Schools disputing the state’s enrollment counting method.
Dayton school officials held off filing the paperwork for their levy hoping there wouldn’t be an appeal. But in late January, the state appealed the ruling and Dayton decided it couldn’t wait any longer. It filed the levy paperwork.
Now the case is in the hands of the Ohio Supreme Court. A spokeswoman for Cincinnati schools the district believes it will prevail, but that the appeal has slowed down the process.
“In our view, the courts are on our side, so far,” she said.
At issue is a critical one: How do you count students so that all schools are treated fairly?
In his ruling for the districts, Judge Fred Nelson in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court said the case was simpler on the surface than it appeared.
Ohio Revised Code permits one method of calculating enrollment. Schools count kids, report their numbers to the state and the state pays aid based on those counts.
The month-by-month method for counting charter school kids — the system Dayton maintains frequently leads to inaccurate counts and a heftier payment for charters — is not permitted under state law, Nelson said.
Husted said he wants the Education Department to use whatever method connects students and the funding that follow them to the proper schools.
“I want the school where the student is attending to be paid,” he said. “The money should follow that student.”
(Image credit: Chris Stewart, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Dayton Public Schools, My Favorite DDN Stories
Governator: California will lead the education way (or else)
Billionaire Eli Broad might have been the the richest and most influential education superstar who spoke to education journalists here in Los Angeles Friday, but there was another somewhat famous name in the room with big ambitions in education reform.
That would be the Governator — futuristic killing machine portrayer turned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger was feeling pretty good, touting recent successes coaxing environment emissions limits and infrastructure improvements out of the state legislature that have both his and state lawmakers approval ratings on the rise.
Now, he says, he’ll have an ambitious education agenda to announce in his state-of-the-state address next January.
Schwarzenegger said he has 22 study groups, led by Stanford University, spending 18 months reviewing California’s issues, after which a wide spectrum of interest groups will have input on the reform program he will announce next year.
He hinted that he is a big fan of creating an accessible data system that parents can use to gather information about the finances and academic performance of schools. And, like Broad, it sounds like he’ll push for differentiated pay (giving schools the ability to pay more for highly rated teachers, teachers in high demand fields and teachers who accept tough assignments).
OK, that’s enough about the Gov’s education policies. Now to the real burning question many reporters had after the speech — how tall is Schwarzenegger anyway?
It turned out that I did a smart thing by getting to the session late. There were only a few empty seats in a packed house and one was right smack in the middle of the front row, right next to former Colorado governor and Los Angeles school superintendent Roy Romer.
So I got a pretty close-up look at Schwarzenegger, who was on a podium less than 10 feet away. As we had been told in anticipation of his arrival, he doesn’t look as big and menacing in person as he does in films like the Terminator. He does have a huge chest (which he repeatedly bragged about). And like many popular politicians, he has a funny, easy-going style that belies his bad-ass movie persona.
Perhaps all that, and the lack of movie effects, makes the guy seem smaller. I felt like he couldn’t be more than an inch taller than me. (I’m 5-foot-10-ish). and I noticed he was wearing unique cowboy boots that appeared to have the state seal on them. That could have been giving him a boost of an inch or two.
A quick Google search revealed that Schwarzenegger’s height is something of an ongoing controversy that he finds amusing. He says he is 6-foot-2. I have to say I really find that suprising.
On the Net, there are lots of pictures of him next to people of various heights, with accompanying specultation about what that means for Schwarzenegger’s stature. I guess I am not the only one who thinks he looks short in person.
By the way, at the end of the speech he promised that California would be the talk of the nation for its education reform by the time us ed journalists reconvened next spring and he promised he’d return to tell us about with these words (yes, you guessed it):
“I’ll be back.”
UPDATE: Other posts from EWA’s national conference:
—On blogging: A compliment for my readers
(Image credit: http://talent.pratt.edu)
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Mister Ed for president in ‘08!
I’m in Los Angeles today for the annual convention of the Education Writers Association, a wonderful professional organization for journalists who cover education that I’ve belonged to for close to a decade.
As usual, EWA lined up some A-list speakers, including education philanthropist Eli Broad, who spoke Friday at a luncheon.
Broad recently announced he has joined with Bill Gates to pool together $60 million for a political effort he calls “ED in ‘08,” an unusual push to get the 2008 presidential candidates to state clear positions on education issues.
Specifically, Broad wants to know where the candidates stand on three issues he believes are the keys to improving education in America. We’ll get into that in a minute.
The effort is sort of an odd one. ED in ‘08 is a non-profit, so it can’t advocate for candidates or lobby for legislation. Broad said campaign representatives will show up at every election event and press the candidates to explain, in detail, their education views.
This sounds great in concept, but how it will actually work isn’t clear. Greg Toppo, the fine education reporter at USA Today, half-jokingly asked Broad if his people will attend campaign events dressed up, the way Democrats have had a “Mr. Butts” walking cigarette character stalk Republican candidates who take tobacco money.
Hmmm. ED in ‘08. What could Broad’s foot soldiers dress as? I’ve got it! They could dress up as the talking horse — Mr. Ed!
Think of it, a horse character stalking Hillary Clinton or Rudy Guliani, hoof-counting every meaningless education platitude they speak!
I’m copyrighting this idea right here and now. If Broad wants it, and you know he does, it’s going to cost him a slice of that $60 million!
OK, back to the serious problem of political candidates and their meaningless non-positions on important education issues. Here are the issues Broad wants answers on, proposed education solutions he thinks would make a difference in national education policy:
—Strong “American standards” for student learning. Whatever that means. Strangely, Broad said he is not calling for “national standards,” an idea that has repeatedly bitten the dust in the face of “local control” resisters.
—An effective teacher in every classroom. Broad believes this can be achieved through what is know as “differentiated pay.” That is, pay scales would be higher for high performing teachers, teachers willing to work in high poverty schools and those in high need areas, such as language, math, science and special education.
—More time for learning. Translation: a longer school year. Broad said the typical American school year includes somewhere around 600 hours of instruction — 175 days, on average, with six hours of school, of which 60 percent, he said, was spent on instruction. Broad said other countries instruct kids for closer to 1,000 hours a year.
This is a weird campaign. First of all, I am not sure why Broad set this up as a non-profit. Why not make it a political action committee? Why not endorse and financially back good candidates and oppose those who don’t have convincing plans to improve education? Wouldn’t Barack Obama take ED in ‘08 more seriously if he thought Broad’s $60 million might end up in Hillary Clinton’s campaign wheel barrow?
Second, Broad’s three issues are hardly clear cut. National standards, or whatever he is calling them, treads into a red hot debate over who controls what we teach our kids and challenges an American tradition of “locally” controlled schools. Broad insisted this challenge is more easily overcome than you might expect and can be achieved without a national curriculum.
Differentiated pay, as opposed to union wage scales, is an invitation for war with teachers’ unions. That’s an especially tricky minefield for Democrats, who depend on union cash.
And imagine being the presidential candidate pushing for a longer school year — a plan that would disrupt the lives of nearly every American family? Doesn’t sound like a winning issue to me, even if Broad’s right that it could dramatically improve education.
In other words, the politics of signing on with Broad’s pet reforms is no picnic.
Broad mentioned that $60 million is three times what the “swift boat” campaign that torpedoed John Kerry spent in 2004. But the swift boaters were partisan and focused. Can Broad be as effective with his non-partisan, advocacy-free effort?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Dayton vouchers make front page news in Chicago
(Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on a visit to Wright State University in March.)
A friend who flew through Chicago yesterday handed me Thursday’s Chicago Tribune and pointed out a front page story featuring LaTeefah Appleberry, an Alter High School student who uses a publicly-funded voucher to pay tuition at the private, Catholic high school.
The story was about the school choice movement generally and pitted 14-year-old LaTeefah against Gov. Ted Strickland, pointing out that both are from humble backgrounds but the young student views her voucher as a savior and the governor has declared war on vouchers.
There’s just one problem with the story. Two days earlier Strickland called for a cease-fire in the war and signed a truce, otherwise known as the state budget, that left alone the school choice programs he had targeted.
The Tribune story pitched Ohio as an example of a state that is taking stock of school choice and re-examining its merits. There is no doubt Strickland is not a fan of school choice and his proposals to eliminate vouchers and curtail charters was a shock to some Ohio-based choice supporters.
But in the end, Strickland traded away those proposals to get other things he wanted in the budget. And on Tuesday, The Ohio House stunningly passed the budget bill 97-0, one of the very, very few examples of bill with complete bipartisan support in the state’s history.
So it seems a bit strange that two days later, the Tribune assigned a story about the battle over school choice in Ohio to its front page. Give it a read and tell us what you think.
(Image credit: DDN)
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Jon Husted: Vote yes for Dayton schools
Jon Husted
A lot of people within Dayton Public Schools probably thought it would be a cold day in hell before House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, endorsed the Dayton school levy.
If that’s true then Satan’s wearing snow pants today.
I just got off the phone with Husted, who said after conversations with school board President Yvonne Isaacs and Fordham Foundation Vice President Terry Ryan he has decided to endorse the 15.17-mill levy on Tuesday’s ballot.
In return, Isaacs has agreed Dayton schools will work more closely with charter and private schools.
Husted said Isaacs agreed to a series of meetings at which leaders of district, private and charter schools could discuss their common issues, including facilities, transportation, academic quality and student head count.
“I think it’s a chance to take the financial issues off the table and begin to talk about quality issues and improved relations,” he said.
This is a big turnaround from Husted, who early in the levy campaign was critical of the district, then suggested he might be supportive if the district were more cooperative with charter schools.
That prompted the school board to defend its dealings with charters. But as recently as last week, Husted was criticizing Superintendent Percy Mack’s comments about charter schools.
Apparently, that’s all water under the bridge now. Husted said charter and private school supporters should get behind the levy.
“Given the commitment I just got from the president of Dayton school board to work with the charters and private schools in Dayton to build better overall academic environment for chidlren no matter what schools they attend, we can improve all schools in Dayton,” Husted said.
This is a huge boost to the levy efforts to have perhaps the highest profile school choice supporter backing the levy. What are your thoughts about these developments?
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, My Favorite Posts
Private school ups and downs
While I was buried in Dayton school levy stories Wednesday, two of my colleagues picked up on important local private school news.
First, Kyle Nagel wrote about how the number of applications for taxpayer funded vouchers to attend public schools doubled this year to 1,200. So more kids will use vouchers to attend private schools next fall.
At the same time, one of the city’s best private schools, Chaminade Julienne High School, announced to its parents that the school will have a big enrollment drop next fall and laid off 11 staff, as reported by Stephanie Irwin.
First, let’s look at vouchers. This is a huge gain in the number of voucher kids, which can’t make Dayton Public Schools happy. The timing of the news of 600 more kids seeking to leave the district just days before a crucial levy vote can’t please district leaders either.
By my eyeball count, it appears that per capita Dayton likely has the biggest voucher program in the state now, to go along with the charter school movement here, which by percentage has been biggest in Ohio and among the nation’s hottest charter school markets for several years.
But at the same time more public money is being spent on private school tuition, Chaminade is facing a steep enrollment decline. (Full disclosure: My wife works at the school.)
For several years, I’ve been writing about how a long term trend of declining Catholic school enrollment has accelerated as the charter school movement has grown. But so far, most of the charter high school options are niche schools usually targeted at dropouts. Those are not kids likely to attend private schools anyway. So until now there has not been a huge charter school impact on private high schools.
Dayton schools may be a factor here, as the district has focused on creating better high school options in recent years. The Dayton Early College Academy, for instance, grew this year to more than 300 kids and graduated its first class. These are students identified as likely college bound when they enter the program. How many of them might have chosen Chaminade if not for the free option of DECA?
Perhaps if voucher growth continues, more students can use that option to attend Chaminade. I am wondering how Dayton’s other Catholic high school, Carroll, is being affected? I am traveling today, but perhaps I’ll touch base with the Carroll folks when I return.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues. Please post a comment if you have one.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Private Schools
Cuts would hit teachers, close schools, chop sports and arts
For an overview of Dayton’s proposed cuts, go here. Some additional details:
—Sports. Superintendent Percy Mack said only revenue producing sports would be kept. He said that would include football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls track and field and girls volleyball. For Title IX equity, I’m guessing they’ll have to add at least one more girl’s sport.
—Music. Elementary schools have both vocal and instrumental music. One or the other will be cut. Mack wouldn’t say which one.
—Arts. Most, if not all, adjunct arts instructors will be cut — a severe hit to high performing Stivers School for the Arts.
—School closings. This was not on the list of cuts presented, but I pressed Mack about how they could lay off so many teachers if they didn’t close schools. He said they certainly would have to close schools — probably three of them. He said which schools is yet to be determined.
—Instructional staff cuts. I’ve used the round figure of 1,500 teachers for months but last night they were more specific — and the acutal number is much lower. There are 1,360 instructional staff, which includes certificated non-teachers like nurses, librarians, counselors, etc. The number of actualy classroom teachers is closer to 1,200, they said. I am going to try to nail down the exact number. But this pushed the percentage of cuts pretty high — more than a quarter of the instructional staff.
—Assistant principals. They’re all going to go if the levy fails. This is a controversial proposal because assistant principals are viewed as important to maintaining discipline and critics of the district have pressed for deeper central office cuts. This move means half the administrtive cuts come at the school level, not downtown.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
A chance to have your say on the levy TONIGHT!
The Dayton school board will detail its planned cuts for July 1 if the May 8 levy fails at a meeting tonight. They will take public comment after the presentation, so if you want the board to hear your thoughts on the levy or the cuts, you can have your say tonight.
Here’s the statement the board sent out:
Superintendent presents straight facts about fiscal crisis
Deep cuts would impact a generation of students
The consequences of a levy defeat will be outlined in a presentation to the public at the Dayton Board of Education’s May 1 information meeting, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the Jackson Center Auditorium at 329 Abbey Ave.
Without voter support for the Dayton Public Schools operating levy on May 8, $30 million in cuts must be made by the end of this school year (June 30). Dayton Public Schools Superintendent Percy Mack will outline deep cuts in staffing, programs and services that will, in his words, leave “a shell of a district” to prepare a generation of young people for the future.
This is the first operating levy the district has placed on the ballot in 15 years (since 1992).
Because of the importance of the issue, the public will be heard at this information meeting.
WHO: Superintendent Percy Mack, Ph.D.
WHAT: Presentation to the Dayton Board of Education and the public at the Dayton Board of Education information meeting
WHEN: 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 1, 2007
WHERE: Jackson Center Auditorium, 329 Abbey Ave.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Note: Correction for Sunday’s story
Kudos to Buford, who was the first reader to notice this discrepency:
In Sunday’s edition of the Dayton Daily News on page A6, the story “Dayton’s poverty rate means more spent for special programs” should have listed the total salary of 157 Dayton school administrators as $10.9 million, as compared to $5.7 million in total salary for 72 school administrators in the Lakota school district.
In the story, the listed figure for Dayton was $4.8 million.
Update: I’ve posted Sunday’s stories here at Get on the Bus after a couple of request for good links to them:
—Dayton vs. Lakota: What we learned (Sunday’s blog post about the stories)
—Lakota built when Dayton bought
—Five years filled with change for Dayton
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
