OEA reflects on final days of Lame Duck
Senate Bill 178 would have moved most of the oversight of education in Ohio away from the State Board of Education and into a newly created cabinet-level department under the Governor. Late Wednesday night, the Senate amended SB 178 into House Bill 151, which was originally intended to improve the state’s resident educator program and summative assessment. Harmful and unnecessary language to ban transgender girls from playing high school sports was also added to that bill by the House earlier this year. Early Thursday morning, in the final hours of the session, Ohio House members voted against concurring with the Senate’s Lame Duck changes. A new version of SB 178 will likely be reintroduced in the new year.
“OEA believes it is worth taking a hard look at how Ohio’s schools are governed and supported at the state level. However, collaboration is key,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Stakeholders need to be at the table. The voices of Ohio’s educators need to be heard, valued and central to any change. That is how we will get the best results for Ohio’s students.”
OEA appreciates the work of legislators in the 134th General Assembly who adopted educator’s recommendations on Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA), the funding component that supports economically disadvantaged students, resulting in an increase of approximately $56 million in additional state funding in FY ‘23. Additionally, lawmakers increased allocations of the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds for our public schools and provided an additional $112 million in federal funds for school building security and safety grants.
OEA remains hopeful that the next General Assembly will once again take up the cause of ending mandatory retention under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, after the Senate failed to act on the House-passed House Bill 497 this session.
OEA also looks forward to collaborating with Ohio’s elected leaders to ensure the Fair School Funding Plan is fully implemented in the new state budget. That plan, which represents the first constitutional school funding system in the state in decades, was adopted in the last budget but only funded through the end of this biennium.
“Certainly, there is more work to be done, especially around issues like addressing growing educator shortages and supporting student and educator mental health and wellness,” DiMauro said, “but OEA is proud of what our members have been able to accomplish through their diligent advocacy work this session. We all look forward to working collaboratively with members of the 135th General Assembly to ensure their important public education priorities are front and center as new legislation is introduced.”
OEA applauds State Board of Education members working to end mandatory retention under “Third Grade Reading Guarantee”
[November 16, 2022] The Ohio Education Association (OEA) has long advocated for changes to Ohio law to end the harmful practice of mandatory retention tied to high-stakes standardized testing for elementary schoolers. OEA applauds the State Board of Education for voting 18-1 to pass a resolution urging the General Assembly to eliminate the requirement that third-grade students who do not meet cut scores on the English language arts assessment must repeat that grade in most cases. The text of that resolution can be accessed here.
The State Board of Education’s resolution asks the Ohio Senate to pass House Bill 497, which the Ohio House passed with broad bipartisan support in June. The Ohio Senate must move forward on the bill and pass it by the end of the legislative session this year, or lawmakers will have to start from square one on it again in the next General Assembly.
“Our students cannot wait for Ohio lawmakers to do the right thing and end the harmful practice of mandatory retention under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “The research has been clear that mandatory retention disproportionately impacts students of color while failing to result in any meaningful academic gains for students over time. The law requiring mandatory retention was misguided. House Bill 497 sets that right while maintaining the Third Grade Reading Guarantee’s emphasis on building critical literacy skills for young students.”
By reducing the number of required administrations of the third-grade ELA test, House Bill 497 ensures more time for meaningful teaching and learning. More importantly, it ensures that the life-altering decisions about whether a student can advance to the fourth grade are made by their parents, educators, and school administrators—the people who know the child and their abilities best.
“The clock is ticking, and Ohio families are watching. There’s no excuse for the Ohio Senate to fail to take up this bill,” DiMauro said.
OEA calls for end of mandatory retention under Third Grade Reading Guarantee
[October 10, 2022] The Ohio Education Association (OEA) joined together Monday with state leaders, educators, and education policy experts to advocate for action in the General Assembly to end mandatory retention tied to third-grade standardized testing.
A full recording of Monday’s virtual event can be viewed and downloaded here.
“Mandatory retention under the so-called ‘Third Grade Reading Guarantee’ takes decisions about students’ futures out of the hands of parents, administrators, and teachers who know them best, allowing politicians in Columbus to determine their fates based on arbitrary cut-scores on high-stakes English language arts tests,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro, who moderated Monday’s event. “OEA commends the State Board of Education for its attention to this issue as it considers a resolution to call on the General Assembly to change this misguided law.”
“Grade retention distorts test data, disproportionately impacts and punishes vulnerable populations of students, and creates a distraction from reading reform’s ultimate goal of increased student reading proficiency,” noted Furman University Professor Dr. Paul Thomas in his recent white paper, “A Critical Examination of Grade Retention as Reading Policy.”
“It’s rare that policymakers stop and measure mandated education initiatives for their effectiveness, but that’s exactly what we have done for third grade retention. Through data provided by the Ohio Department of Education, we now know retention has failed as an initiative and has, in fact, hurt children more than helped,” said Dr. Christina Collins, Ohio State Board of Education member for District 7, who put forth the resolution that the State Board of Education is considering this week.
“In my experiences as a third-grade teacher, I have observed students put tremendous stress on themselves, become discouraged, think of themselves as losers, and develop behavioral problems because of this punitive, socially inappropriate, and educationally ineffective practice,” agreed Karen Carney, a teacher at Campbell Elementary & Middle School in Campbell, Ohio. “What a huge burden for a young child to carry—this truly broke my heart. As an educator, my primary job is to teach my students to be life-long learners, not test takers.”
“Ending mandatory retention has broad bipartisan support because it’s the right thing to do for kids,” said State Rep. Gayle Manning (R-North Ridgeville), who sponsored House Bill 497, a measure to end mandatory retention under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. “These decisions should be made by parents and educators, not dictated by a score on a test.”
House Bill 497 passed in the Ohio House in June. The Ohio Senate must take up the bill and pass it when lawmakers return to session later this fall.
OEA members offer solutions to state’s growing teacher recruitment and retention crisis
[September 29, 2022] As Ohio continues to contend with an alarming decrease in staffing in its K-12 public schools, educators from around Ohio have come together to take on the problem and offer potential solutions. The Ohio Education Association (OEA) convened the cadre of diverse educators, as part of the National Education Association’s Educator Voice Academy (EVA) program, beginning in January, 2022. The EVA team’s full report, which includes numerous suggestions for Ohio’s elected leaders and OEA, is available here.
“Ohio’s growing teacher recruitment and retention crisis is one of the largest issues of our time,” OEA President Scott DiMauro pointed out. “When excellent educators are feeling that they have no choice but to leave the profession or young people are left feeling that teaching is not a sustainable career option – for a variety of reasons noted in the EVA’s report – Ohio students lose out on crucial opportunities and supports. Ohio’s students can no longer wait for meaningful solutions to this problem.”
Recommendations in the EVA report include:
- Immediately increase Ohio state minimum teacher’s salary to $40,000, and pending approval of a change in OEA Legislative Policy by the OEA Representative Assembly, increase the state minimum salary to $50,000.
- Fully fund the Fair School Funding Plan in the 2023-2025 state biennial budget and provide state support to local school districts with the resources to help fund necessary salary increases.
- Extend Public Service Loan Forgiveness deadlines and expand student loan forgiveness, grants, and scholarship programs to provide meaningful financial relief for those who commit to serving students in our public schools.
- Strengthen educators’ retirement security by supporting a fully funded State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio and repealing the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).
- Remove financial barriers for completion of pre-service requirements for teacher licensure.
- Require the state to complete a comprehensive assessment of the alignment of Ohio’s teacher preparation programs with the realities of PK-12 schools.
- Seek feedback from educators on their working conditions and create systems for school leaders to act on that feedback to make necessary changes to policies, practices, and culture in schools.
- Create and maintain an accessible statewide database of education job openings to facilitate the matching of educators seeking employment with available positions and to provide a reliable source of information for the public to monitor trends in education employment in Ohio.
“It is important to note that the recommendations from the Educator Voice Academy are focused exclusively on issues related to the recruitment and retention of teachers; issues related to the recruitment and retention of education support professionals, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and paraprofessionals, among others, is an equally important topic deserving serious consideration as soon as possible,” DiMauro said. “Ohio’s policymakers and school leaders need to take immediate, significant action to ensure our students have all their needs met so they can learn, grow, and thrive in our classrooms. The time to act is now.”
OEA celebrates advocacy wins in new state report card system
[September 15, 2022] As families and education stakeholders around the state continue to examine the newly released state report card data, the Ohio Education Association (OEA) is celebrating the hard work of Ohio’s dedicated educators to support the state’s students as they continue to overcome the challenges of pandemic-era learning. Further, OEA expresses its sincere gratitude to the lawmakers who answered OEA’s calls for report card reform, resulting in the fairer assessments that were made public today.
“OEA has long fought against the overreliance on high stakes standardized tests in determining the value and success of Ohio’s public schools and students. The adoption of House Bill 82 in 2021 and other recently enacted laws that resulted in the significant changes in this year’s state report cards represent an incredibly important win in that regard,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Gone are the misleading A-F grades, which gave an incomplete picture of a district’s performance at best. Gone are the draconian punishments for districts that failed to measure up to the cookie cutter standards of out-of-touch bureaucrats who clung to the report card letter grades to trigger state takeovers and wrest control from local parents and voters. Here to stay is a commitment to a more accurate and transparent assessment system for Ohio’s public schools.”
Among the trends highlighted by this accountability system, it is clear that Ohio’s traditional public schools continue to best serve the students in their communities. This year’s data demonstrates that the average achievement component score for the state’s traditional public school districts is 3.5 stars compared to the 1.7 star rating achieved, on average, by charter schools in the state on that same metric.
While more work is needed to further improve the state’s report card system, including major changes to improve accountability standards for Ohio’s charter schools and the private schools that take taxpayer-funded vouchers, OEA celebrates the move to a more informative star-rating system in this year’s report cards, complete with explanations about what the stars mean to provide the public with critical context. Further, OEA welcomes the inclusion of Student Opportunity Profiles in the 2022-2023 data that will be released next September. Those profiles will provide detailed information regarding what students have been offered to enhance their success. Academic and non-academic supports are essential for our students, especially as pandemic recovery continues.
OEA members recommend pro-public education candidates for statewide, legislative races
[September 7, 2022] Decisions made in Ohio’s statehouse and by other elected officials impact what happens in our public-school classrooms every day. Ohio Education Association members have spent the last several months interviewing candidates in political races around the state to make recommendations about who will best serve Ohio’s students, educators, and public schools if elected to office. The full list of OEA member-recommended candidates is now available here.
Among the many recommendations made by OEA members who serve on the OEA Fund State Council and District Screening Committees, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nan Whaley has received OEA’s recommendation. “Whaley was instrumental in the Senate Bill 5 fight in 2011, serving as a key voice in the effort to protect collective bargaining rights in Ohio. As Dayton’s mayor, she was able to implement universal pre-K across the city and championed gun safety reforms that would make our schools safer,” OEA President Scott DiMauro noted. “Ohio needs Nan Whaley as governor.”
OEA members have also voted to recommend Representative Tim Ryan for U.S. Senate and Justice Jennifer Brunner, Judge Marilyn Zayas, and Judge Terri Jamison for the Ohio Supreme Court. Other OEA member recommendations include Representative Jeff Crossman in the race for Attorney General, and Mayor Scott Schertzer in his bid for Treasurer of State.
In races for the General Assembly, OEA members are recommending several educators-turned-candidates, including State Representative Joe Miller (D-53), Sean Brennan for House District 14, and Sophia Rodriguez for House District 84. “When educators represent us in the statehouse, Ohio’s students win. These candidates know better than anyone what our students need to succeed and how lawmakers can provide meaningful support for our public schools. They also know firsthand how damaging bills dragging our schools into manufactured culture wars have already been, so their voices in the ongoing battle to ensure our students have the freedom to receive a fair and honest education will be crucial,” DiMauro said.
The decisions about who to recommend for office are made entirely based on the candidates’ views on public education issues, or in the case of an incumbent candidate, on their record regarding public education issues. Political affiliation and views on other issues are not factors in these recommendations. “OEA members know having pro-public education leaders in office is essential for the future of our public schools,” DiMauro said. “We thank all of the members who have dedicated so much of their time and energy to the candidate screening process to ensure the best pro-public education candidates receive Ohio educators’ support.”
OEA – Teacher wage gap report highlights teacher shortage cause
“Ohio must do more to make teaching an attractive profession, and that starts with paying educators fairly as the skilled professionals they are,” said Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro. “Between the fact that you can get paid a lot more money working in another career field and the constant attacks from extremist politicians who are ignoring the will of the overwhelming majority of Ohio parents who trust their children’s teachers to do the jobs they were trained to do, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing far fewer Ohioans entering the profession than even a few years ago and we’re struggling to keep many highly qualified, experienced teachers in this career. Something has to give.”
According to the EPI report, average weekly wages of public school teachers in the United States, adjusted for inflation, increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021, while inflation-adjusted weekly wages for other college graduates rose $445 over that same period. And, even when things like health insurance and retirement plans are accounted for, the benefits advantage for teachers has not been enough to offset the growing wage penalty, which was a record-high 23.5% nationally last year.
“This report should set off huge alarm bells for policy makers at every level. We are at a tipping point,” DiMauro said. “Without significant action right now to address the pay disparities for teachers and the other major issues contributing to staffing shortages, our schools are not going to be able to maintain the workforce levels needed to deliver the world-class education every student deserves. Ohio’s families need our lawmakers to step up and invest in our public schools.”
“Ohio must make a long-term commitment to fully and fairly funding our schools and paying our educators what they deserve,” DiMauro added. “OEA calls on every Ohio lawmaker to take this EPI report to heart.”
Ohio Education Association expresses disappointment in Gov. DeWine’s shortsighted decision to sign HB 583
After charter and voucher hawks snuck 11th hour amendments into legislation meant to address the substitute teacher shortage in Ohio’s public schools, Governor Mike DeWine had the opportunity to do the right thing and line-item veto those ridiculous changes. Unfortunately, Governor DeWine failed to act, and by signing House Bill 583 on Friday as presented to him, he has once again put the interests of the lobbyists clamoring for ever more money to be diverted to private and charter schools over the wellbeing of the 90 percent of Ohio children who attend public schools and Ohio’s taxpayers.
“The bill should have never made it to the governor’s desk with all of these sweetheart deals for underperforming charter school sponsors and wealthy families trying to create loopholes to have their children’s private school tuition funded by public dollars,” said Ohio Education Association (OEA) President Scott DiMauro. “The lawmakers who rammed those deals through took a bill that was meant to help Ohio’s public schools meet the challenges of this moment by giving them a tool to address staff shortages in the short term and created legislation that will hurt Ohio’s public schools instead.”
The version of House Bill 583 that originally passed in the Ohio House on March 30, 2022, was proposed to address that state’s substitute teacher shortage by increasing flexibility for districts to hire subs. Substitutes are typically required to have a four-year degree, but during the pandemic, the state legislature passed a temporary measure allowing anyone 18 or older with a high school diploma to seek a substitute teacher’s license. HB 583 extends that measure for another two years.
Unfortunately, some charter school interests, many of whom are for-profit entities, convinced legislators to add several controversial charter and voucher amendments during the Senate Primary and Secondary Education Committee on May 24, and that was the version of the bill that was ultimately sent to the Governor’s desk for his signature.
One amendment weakens the accountability of charter school sponsors by prohibiting the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) from assigning an overall sponsor rating of “ineffective” if the sponsor scored zero points on only one of the three evaluation criteria: academic performance, adherence to quality practices, and compliance with laws and administrative rules. “Previously, failing in any of those categories was enough to warrant an ‘ineffective’ rating. Now, under the newly signed legislation, the charter sponsors have to be extraordinarily subpar in multiple categories to raise a red flag. That’s wrong,” DiMauro said.
Another amendment funnels more tax dollars from Ohio’s public schools to wealthy families who could comfortably afford to send their children to private schools on their own. HB 583, as signed, allows just about any family who ever qualified for income-based vouchers to continue reaping the rewards of those tax dollars even when their financial situation dramatically improves.
“The governor knows these are bad deals for Ohio’s taxpayers, Ohio’s communities, and Ohio’s public schools. He signed the legislation anyway,” DiMauro said. “Shame on him.”
Ohio Education Association decries Gov. DeWine’s decision to sign HB 99
“Our students and educators need to be in safe environments where they can focus on teaching and learning, not on the threat of having unprepared, woefully undertrained people—regardless of their good intentions—making split-second life-or-death decisions about whether to pull the trigger in a chaotic classroom full of innocent bystanders. It would take hundreds of hours of training and firearms practice to be ready for those situations; Governor DeWine says he’s fine with just 24 hours of instruction,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “It’s absurd.”
OEA members have been clear that they do not want to be in the dual role of educating students and serving as armed security guards. Ohio’s educators should be trusted to do the jobs they’ve gone through years of training to do; instead, they’re being asked to shoulder the burden of potentially shooting one of their own students with just a few days of training.
“DeWine’s decision to sign this dangerous legislation on the same day that Ohio’s new law allowing just about anyone to carry a concealed weapon with zero training takes effect truly shows where his priorities lie,” DiMauro said.
DeWine himself endorsed a plan with approximately 150 hours of training for school personnel who were authorized to carry guns in schools when he was attorney general. As he stated, “It’s not just about can I [armed school staff] shoot a gun. That’s just a small part of it. It’s: Do I have enough training to be able to react so that my training goes into effect, and I don’t end up shooting someone who’s innocent?” (Dayton Daily News, Jan. 28, 2014). “His choice to sign a bill requiring just 24 hours of training now does not reflect any change in the need for rigorous training standards,” DiMauro pointed out. “It just reflects DeWine’s own lowered standards for himself and his unwillingness to stand up for Ohio’s kids.”
Ohio Federation of Teachers and Ohio Education Association Urge Gov. DeWine to Veto House Bill 99
“In the wake of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Ohio lawmakers are rushing to take action to address school safety concerns in our state. The Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers want to be clear: House Bill 99 will make Ohio’s students less safe in their schools.
The safety of Ohio’s students and educators is our utmost priority, but we know putting more guns into school buildings in the hands of people who have woefully inadequate training—regardless of their intentions—is dangerous and irresponsible. Teachers and other school employees should not be asked to serve dual roles as educators and school safety personnel armed with weapons, but, if they are, rigorous training standards, as set under current Ohio law, are essential. House Bill 99 guts those requirements, capping the state training requirements at 24 hours and putting educators in the impossible position of making split-second life-and-death decisions without sufficient training. This could undoubtedly lead to more tragedies in our schools.
Governor DeWine has acknowledged this himself. When he served as Attorney General, he stated, “It’s not just about can I [armed school staff] shoot a gun. That’s just a small part of it. It’s: Do I have enough training to be able to react so that my training goes into effect, and I don’t end up shooting someone who’s innocent?” (Dayton Daily News, Jan. 28, 2014). He then asked the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission to develop recommendations for appropriate training for school personnel, and the model curriculum was set at approximately 150 hours of training. We now ask the governor, what has changed that would make you say 24 hours of training is enough to arm educators today? The answer is nothing has changed. Twenty-four hours is not enough.
Our students need to be in safe learning environments where they can focus on getting a world-class education; they should not have to worry about what could happen with a gun in the hands of an undertrained individual in their classrooms with them. More work is needed on House Bill 99, and more work is needed by the Ohio legislature to address the needs of our students and educators, like prioritizing mental health resources and enacting common sense gun safety reform. We strongly urge Gov. DeWine to do the right thing and veto House Bill 99.”