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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > September > 24
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Guest column: State relies on each district to provide, check its data
This column was written by Deborah Delisle, Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction.
Re the Dayton Daily News editorial, “School data means nothing if it’s wrong,” Aug. 25: The Ohio Department of Education absolutely agrees that the data-collection process must provide an accurate presentation of what’s occurring in schools.
Each year, the department collects more than 400 unique pieces of information from 1,045 individual entities, including public school districts, community schools and educational service centers. This information is critical for calculating the amount of state funding schools receive, compiling performance accountability metrics for state report cards, complying with No Child Left Behind, and meeting state reporting requirements, as well as for reports on which federal funding is dependent.
We do rely on these entities to report information through our data-collection system.
A series of checks and balances exists to ensure the information reported is as accurate as possible. Throughout this process, we rely on the reporting entities to verify their information.
Some of the checks conducted are basic. For example, if no data is reported, or if an analysis shows that 100 percent of students have been reported in one category, these issues raise a flag. The reporting entity is made aware of the possible issue and reviews the information.
Other checks involve reviewing trends over time to determine if there is a spike or dip in a particular element.
Again, we alert the reporting entity that there may be an issue, ask it to investigate and confirm the data, and then we readjust the report as needed.
The expulsion data referenced in the editorial is evaluated by several checks: one for no reported information, one that looks at changes from previously reported numbers, and a check that looks for high expulsion rates.
We did notify the Dayton school district on several occasions, highlighting all potential data issues. The department has no way of knowing if the information is incorrect. We can only ask that districts check what they have submitted.
In addition to checking data, the department has worked with the General Assembly to obtain the authority to initiate enforcement actions when issues go uncorrected. Recently, the education department was authorized to withhold funds, require corrective action plans and, in exceptional cases, revoke licenses when misreporting occurs.
In 2008, the department of education required 236 corrective action plans from entities that did not meet data submission requirements, most of which also had temporary financial penalties applied. We are monitoring entities with corrective action plans.
In addition to mistakes that have been made, the editorial also pointed out a recent incident involving test scores that were allegedly changed by a school district official. It is correct that schools are responsible for reporting test scores. The reason is that schools may challenge test scores of individual students and, if the scoring company finds a mistake, the school would need to correct that score. There is a check run against what the school submits to the education department and what is received initially from the testing vendor.
Too many changed scores in a particular district will raise a flag.
In the case highlighted, the changes that were allegedly made did not meet the threshold needed to generate a flag. However, it is also important to note that someone in the district alerted us to the matter.
An overwhelming majority of Ohio’s educators are honest. The data is not collected or reported in a vacuum, and as multiple individuals in a district have the opportunity to review the information, they are often the best defense when issues like this occur.
Ohio has a well-regarded data-collection system. Even with this acclaim, it is not a perfect system, and mistakes happen. However, with each of these instances, we learn something and look for ways to improve.
Practically speaking, it’s unlikely any system that collects as much information as ours does will be completely error-free — but that is what we strive for.
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Editorial: Murky law in Husted case needs to be fixed
Anybody reading Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s 12-page decision about state Sen. Jon Husted’s residency is likely to conclude that one problem here is the law. The law is a mess.
Secretary Brunner, a Democrat, was obliged to send the Montgomery County Board of Elections her views on whether Sen. Husted, R-Kettering, should be allowed to vote in Kettering, or whether he must be considered a resident of Franklin County.
The local board had deadlocked on the issue twice, 2-2, along political party lines. The secretary of state breaks ties. The Ohio Supreme Court recently gave Secretary Brunner seven days to make her decision, criticizing her for taking too long.
This point cannot be made too often:
The issue here is not whether Sen. Husted can represent Kettering (and many other Dayton suburbs) in the Senate, but only whether he can vote in Kettering. The question is loaded with political freight for a candidate for secretary of state, as Sen. Husted is. (Secretary Brunner is running for the Democratic nomination to replace George Voinovich in the U.S. Senate.)
At bottom, this is a story about an appropriately ambitious young man who went to Columbus as a legislator, successfully sought to be speaker of the House and married a Columbus woman. Under those circumstances, the fact that he spent little time in Dayton is pardonable.
But the law must be confronted.
The mess:
Republicans on the county elections board point to a law that says that when a person “enters the employment of the state, the place where such person resided at the time … shall be considered” the place of residence.
They also point to a passage that says that when a person leaves the state to serve the state, that person shall not lose his or her residency. Sen. Husted hasn’t left the state, but the spirit of that law might be seen as protecting him.
Meanwhile, though, the Democrats on the board cite a law that says that the “place where the family of a married person resides shall be considered to be the person’s place of residence” for voting purposes. That place, in the Husted case, is clearly Franklin County.
Beyond all that, several passages in the law focus on a person’s “intention of returning” as the determining factor for deciding a voting address. Sen. Husted insists he intends to return to Kettering.
And yet he is running for statewide office. And his family seems to have no ties to Kettering.
Secretary Brunner does not mention his candidacy in her decision. But she does make the point about his family in the context of a discussion of intent.
Relying mostly on the law about where spouses live, Secretary Brunner ruled Sen. Husted is a resident of the Columbus area. She says she didn’t want to rule against him, that the last thing she wants to do is deprive a person of his voting registration. But, she says, the law is the law.
Sen. Husted responded to her decision saying, “This is another partisan, political decision that is typical of Jennifer Brunner.”
Sen. Husted’s real enemy here is the law, because it does give comfort to his critics, and because it’s ambiguous. He should help fix it, either as a senator or secretary of state.
Secretary Brunner says she hopes the Supreme Court, to which Sen. Husted has appealed, will issue guidance as to which laws trump which. Failing that, she says, the Legislature should clarify things.
Somebody needs to.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics, Ohio politics
