Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, isn't convinced. For districts not currently under state takeover, such as Canton, improvement team requirements would start in July 2020. Those teams, with outside assistance, would conduct performance audits and develop the improvement plan. HB 154's language would dissolve all current Academic Distress Commissions and instead require district leadership at those three districts to create improvement teams for each building that got an "F" grade the prior year. It then was rolled into the House's biennial budget proposal, which awaits action in the Senate in June. It's called House Bill 154 and passed with strong bipartisan support in the House earlier this month. There's a better way to attack the problem, though, and several people in Canton are assisting in bringing needed attention to that effort. State control of the Canton City School District and several others across Ohio is looming over the next two school years unless legislative action reverses course. ![]() In short, theses disastrous ADCs have done nothing to improve student achievement while decimating teacher, parent and student morale and eliminating local decision-making.Ĭommissions control Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland schools. Among the law's many components, it created state-controlled Academic Distress Commissions that step in and install CEOs to take over districts that repeatedly fail to achieve academic benchmarks.Ī reasonable idea in concept, but one that has proven fraught with unintended consequences in execution. John Kasich, led an effort to turn around failing schools there that in 2015 produced House Bill 70. We prefer an alternative - one far better for Canton and districts in similar circumstances - that awaits consideration in the Senate as well.Ī quick recap of how we got to this point: Well-intentioned leaders in Youngstown, with the strong backing of Gov. The Senate's "Ohio School Transformation Plan" would employ the same heavy-handed, outsider-led approach of the failed commissions it's seeking to replace. They should be scraped and replaced, and not with the "commissions-lite" approach the Ohio Senate's Education Committee began discussing Wednesday. One thing we do know: Academic Distress Commissions, a 4-year-old "solution," have been abject failures. ![]() That, of course, is the roughly $8 billion question in Ohio many are trying to answer. So how do we get "there" - the place where kids attend buildings turning out students proficient in core subject areas and achieving at or above grade level? We all lose if a generation of kids is promoted blindly through a system producing substandard outcomes. Strong communities are built on a foundation of educational attainment and opportunity. Make no mistake, we fully support efforts to hold school districts, through their boards of education and top administrators, accountable for students' academic performance.
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