Dear Arts Education Advocate:

St. Nick arrived in Cincinnati early this year!

At least that was true for the students at Shroeder High School, a Cincinnati Public School (CPS), when Nick Lachey visited to celebrate the gift of instruments to the music program. Representing VH-1 Save the Music Foundation, Rob Davidson and Abbott Nutrition's Julie Stoner announced that $30,000 worth of band instruments have been provided courtesy of VH-1 Save the Music and Abbott Nutrition's ZonePerfect Nutrition Bars to Shroeder High School. In addition, the organizations announced a total gift of $150,000 for instrumental music programs in CPS. Superintendent Mary Ronan was on hand with remarks supporting growth in music and arts education around the district.

To help celebrate the return of instrumental music to Shroeder, the string orchestra from Fairview-Clifton German Language School and the new Shroeder band performed to the delight of the assembly.

I found myself taken back to my days as a 10-year-old beginning band student. I remember my excitement the day I was given my first clarinet, how carefully I put it together, how proud I was to be a member of the school band. Fast-forward to last spring when my 10-year-old daughter became a beginning band student. She brought home her trumpet and carefully put it together, so proud to be part of the band at her school.

Being a member of the school band changed my life in ways I never would have expected. My best memories of elementary and high school involve the band and playing my clarinet with other students. Were we the best band? Not even close, but that wasn't ever the point.  Being in the school band taught us about working together. Being in the band encouraged us to explore different kinds of music through history. Being in the band probably made us think a bit differently about how we approached and still approach the world.

I hope the students at Shroeder shared those moments and, from the looks on their faces, I feel confident they did. Congratulations, Shroeder Jaguar Band!  VH1 Save the Music Foundation and Abbott Nutrition have made a good investment in these young musicians and I couldn't be happier for their generosity!  And, thank you, St. Nick, for giving the Shroeder students your time and demonstrating once again that CPS students can do anything they put their minds to doing. 

 Until Next Time,

Anne

Anne Cushing-Reid Anne Cushing-Reid is a member of the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education's Board of Directors. Anne serves as the Senior Director of Community Engagement & Learning at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. If you would like to contact Anne about her reflections please do so at:ACReid@cincinnatisymphony.org

If you are in need of assistance don't hesistate to contact your OAAE leadership team at 614.224.1060

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128th Ohio General Assembly

The House and Senate will hold committee meetings this week, but sessions are listed as "if needed" for both the House and Senate.

The Ohio Senate approved on December 9, 2009 Am. Sub. SB8 (Seitz) Election Reform by a vote of 22 to 10. SB8 is a comprehensive bill that includes several changes in election law including the following topics:  appointment of members of boards of elections; in person absent voting; public record status of voter registration database; implementation of federal absent voting law; presidential primary/May election; voter registration form include party affiliation; intent of over votes; polling places; time limit for voting; etc.  The House has also approved an election reform bill, HB260 (Stewart).

The Office of Budget & Management released the monthly financial report for November on December 10, 2009.  The report also includes receipts and expenditures of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds (ARRA). Ohio has received $2.19 billion and expended $2.14 billion out of the $8.2 billion Ohio is expected to receive from ARRA during the three-year program.

According to the November 2009 financial report for Ohio the pace of recovery from the recession will be slow. Employment increased by 1,400 jobs in October, but Ohio has lost 243,200 jobs since October 2008. Ohio's economic recovery will depend on the auto industry and export markets.

Ohio's November General Revenue Fund tax receipts totaled $2.0 million, which was $60.4 percent
below estimates. Non-auto sales tax receipts and better than expected revenue from auto sales, personal income taxes, and cigarette taxes offset the lower receipts from the corporate franchise and other taxes. Year-to-date tax receipts are $46.2 million above estimates.

The comprehensive report is available at http://obm.ohio.gov/.

Federal Update

This Week at the Statehouse

DECEMBER 15, 2009

The House Education Committee, chaired by Representative Williams, will meet at 2:00 PM in room 017. The committee will hear testimony on HB370 (Garrison), Computer-Based Community Schools.

The Senate Education Committee, chaired by Senator Cates, will meet at 4:00 PM in the North Hearing Room.  The committee will hear testimony on HB19 (Harwood) Dating Violence, which would require school districts to adopt a dating violence policy and to include dating violence education within the health education curriculum; HB290 (Bubp) Junior ROTC; SB102 (Turner) School Dropout Programs; and SB180 (Husted) Education.

Impact of the State Budget Deficit Detailed

A December 11, 2009 memo from Tracy Najera, Office of Budget and Management Section Chief for Education, updates the impact that the loss of $851 million in the state's FY10-11 budget will have on school budgets and state efforts to secure additional federal funding.  According to the memo,

"Failure to replace the forgone VLT revenue ($851 M over the FY 2010 and 2011 biennium) puts Ohio below 2009 funding levels and the state will be in violation of the federal State Fiscal Stabilization Fund - Education Stabilization Fund eligibility criteria.  This reduction will endanger over $1.4 billion in federal State Fiscal Stabilization Fund - Education Stabilization funding over the biennium.  These federal funds are used in both the K-12 and higher education budgets."

The memo goes on to say that further reductions in Ohio's education budget puts Ohio at risk for meeting Maintenance of Effort Requirements (MOE) for the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA).

In addition, Ohio may not be eligible for Race to the Top grants if it is ineligible for State Fiscal Stabilization Funds.

News from the ODE

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment - Literacy (KRA-L) annual data from Fall 2005 through Fall 2008 is now posted on the ODE Interactive Local Report Card Web site. The information is disaggregated by student demographic characteristics at both the district and state levels.

The KRA-L is an initial screening instrument administered to all incoming kindergarten children no earlier than four weeks prior to the start of school and no later than October 1. The KRA-L is designed to assist educators in the evaluation of young children's literacy skills at the beginning of the kindergarten year. The KRA-L measures six elements or essential indicators of later reading success: answering questions, repeating sentences, identifying rhyming words, producing rhyming words, identifying letters and recognizing initial sounds.

Access the report and look for Early Learning Tests on the following site.

The ODE and Ohio Family and Children First will hold a free professional Webinar on December 16, 2009 from 1:30 - 3:00 PM to discuss HB1 requirements to establish district-level family and civic engagement teams, and to define the role of family engagement coordinators. The information presented will inform the work of school personnel and community partners who may be involved in district or school family and civic engagement efforts.

The Webinar will be presented by ODE and staff from The Ohio State University (OSU) College of Social Work and the OSU Center for Learning Excellence.

More informationis available on the ODE website.

Update on Ohio Youth Voices

The October-November, 2009 update on Ohio Youth Voices includes information about communicating with State Senators to prevent further cuts in the state budget for education, and communicating with future teachers.

Ohio Youth Voices created a set of Questions and Answers for teachers to use to help students understand the $851 million state budget gap and the proposals that were being discussed to close that gap. Students from Cleveland Lincoln West outlined narratives describing what these potential cutbacks would mean for their education, and sent them to lawmakers. Students from Fort Hayes in Columbus prepared testimony and met with Senators Goodman and Ray Miller, and delivered their testimony to Senate President Bill Harris.

Ohio Youth Voices students spent October and November preparing their presentations to future teachers who are in college. Students from across the state identified issues to include in their presentations, such as language, expectations, multiculturalism, different levels of learning, respect, acting yourself, differences among Hispanic ethnic groups, understanding different cultures, neighborhoods, and religions, dealing with disruptive and unmotivated students, and getting to know the lives of students and the pressures they feel. All students emphasized the importance of making sure teachers understand students as individuals and unique learners.

Students from Fort Hayes and Columbus East made presentations at classes at Ohio Sate University and Otterbein College. Fort Hayes students shared the results of their survey of over 100 students about their views of teaching, and in a unique technological event allowed the OSU students to respond to the same questions and get immediate results. East High students narrated the pressures they have in their own personal lives so that the Otterbein students could understand the economic and family responsibilities they have in order to succeed. A Somalia student offered a unique perspective on achievement and connection for these future teachers.

Ohio Youth Voices students will continue to make presentation to future teachers in December and January with presentations planned at many colleges in the Cleveland, Lorain, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Toledo areas.

Ohio Youth Voices will hold a statewide gathering in February to work on the 2010 plans, which include producing a booklet for national distribution about their insights and experiences speaking to future teachers, policy makers, and lawmakers, and getting ready for the 2010 electoral season, and the 2011 state budget process.

For more information about Ohio Youth Voices please contact Michael Charney, Ohio Youth Voices Director at 216-548-4059.

Experts Blog about Charter Schools

The National Journal Expert Blog for December 7, 2009 includes postings from several researchers and policy makers  on the question, "Do Charter Schools Deserve the Spotlight?" by Eliza Krigman,
available.

The responses so far provide an overview of just some of the policy, philosophical, research, and political questions that have driven debate over charter schools and privatizing public education for several years.  The following is a sample of some of the responses to the question:

• Anne Bryant, Executive Director, National School Boards Association: "NSBA supports the charter school concept as long as the local school board is the authorizer. The reason is the board can provide the appropriate oversight and accountability to the public while ensuring that the charter's mission fits with the district's overall educational strategy."
• David G. Sciarra, Executive Director, Education Law Center: "To advance equity for all students, federal policy should demand states put in place more rigorous frameworks for charter authorization, accountability, funding parity and transparency, and program evaluation, embedded within district-wide improvement efforts for all schools, regardless of governance structure. And we need tough requirements, with enforcement teeth, to safeguard against further student segregation in districts that are already intensely segregated. Otherwise, we'll find ourselves in another cycle of trying to figure out how to "reform the reform."
• Jeanne Allen, President, the Center for Education Reform: "We know that charter schools work for the vast majority of kids, and we know that because there is very reliable data, which doesn't need a researcher's lens to comprehend. State test scores, in real time and growth models, combined with individual school data and other outcome measures as provided by and through authorizers, can give us a very strong indication of how charters are performing."
• Deborah Meier, Forum for Education and Democracy, Coalition of Essential Schools, NYU: "At a time when we are beginning to grasp the damage inflicted on our body politic and the economic welfare of so many Americans by an unaccountable business and financial industry, we are "choosing" to experiment on seeing how such a system might work in educating K-12 kids, particular poor inner-city ones. By the time it plays out and we see how this new "theory" works in practice, it may be very hard to undo its impact on a generation of young people."
• Cynthia Brown, Vice President for Education Policy, Center for American Progress:  "High performing charter schools have demonstrated that disadvantaged students can be held to and perform at high academic levels. Successful charters need to be expanded, replicated, and allocated their fair share of public resources through weighted student funding schemes where dollars follow individual students to the schools their parents or they select. Traditional public schools also need to be funded in this way and given freedom to innovate so that some day no school is "traditional" as we have known in the past. All students need choice of public schooling."
• Greg Richmond, President & CEO, National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA): "When well-executed, charter schools deliver strong results, often for the most disadvantaged students, exceeding almost anything in the traditional public school sector. But when they are not well-run, many charter schools produce academic, financial and compliance outcomes that are worse than the traditional public school sector."
• Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education, New York University: "Charter schools are being over hyped and oversold. They are no panacea. They represent deregulation and privatization. Deregulation nearly destroyed our national economy. What will it do to public education?"
• Nelson Smith, President & CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: "The answer is an emphatic yes. Expansion of high-quality charter schooling is well worth the attention it's getting from Obama and Duncan. But let's understand what that "attention" actually is, and why it's justified. The Administration doesn't advocate unconditional proliferation of charters."

Highlights of the December State Board of Education Meeting