In this edition: Wal-mart wants to create a Columbus charter school, old buildings become new again, increased administrative payroll costs are voted into the CCS budget, a CCS teacher makes math accessible to students and their families, fewer students taking art, technology and physical education at the high school level, and much more!
Click on the jump below to read what has been written about CCS recently.
As a result of the implementation of the shortened school year in 2006, teachers in all grade levels throughout CCS were given common planning time to be able to prepare strategies with their colleagues with the goal of improving student achievement.
How has common planning time helped you improve student achievement? If it hasn’t helped you, what is preventing common planning time from being an open-ended collaborative experience for you and your colleagues?
Speak out below—make sure you’re registered!
Toledo Federation of Teachers (TFT) President Fran Lawrence recently announced TFT’s proposal to transform an underperforming Toledo elementary school into an administrator-free operation. Pickett Elementary would become a “neighborhood center”, partnering with a variety of agencies and services to help the students as well as the members of the surrounding community. Ohio Superintendent Susan Tave Zelman has expressed interest in the proposal, as have a number of Toledo Board of Education members.
The lone dissenting voice has been the Toledo Association of Administrative Personnel, the union that represents administrators in the Toledo Public Schools.
Reactions in the blogosphere have thus far been surprisingly optimistic– Eduwonk Andy Rotherham is on board with the idea, as is confirmed teachers’ union watchdog and skeptic Mike Antonucci.
In October the Ohio Education Association (OEA) sent out a memo to all of its members, warning them of the potential danger to their career by participating in online social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. Your Association followed OEA’s lead, warning members about the pitfalls of online social networking sites in this edition (pdf) of The CEA Voice.
In mid-November, the Columbus Dispatch examined teacher online behavior in this recent article, and the combined effect of the OEA memo and the Dispatch article prompted a flurry of blog posts from across the world.
Click on the jump below to read what non-CEA members have written across the blogosphere about this emerging threat to teachers.
Note: This is the third in a series of inaugural posts on the new CEA blog. In an effort to preserve the institutional history of the Columbus Education Association, this ongoing series of posts will chronicle the 1974-1975 school year that led to the first and only strike by the membership of CEA. To view all published entries in the series, click here.
The man who would be President of the Columbus Education Association during its most trying period of existence admits to never wanting to seek the office. A series of events would conspire to influence Theodore Thomas to become the leader of thousands of Columbus teachers shortly before bargaining began in the fall of 1974.
This CCS Principal For A Day went in to an elementary school expecting to see certain things, and was pleasantly surprised.
Former teachers continue to write in to protest “The ABC’s of Betrayal” series written by a local paper.
$1.56 million in tax dollars could pay for a lot of teachers– except none of it went to teachers, only to charter school ideas that never served a single student. Now Ohio thinks it’d be a good idea to get the money back.
Children allegedly hurt, teachers fired and suspended at a local charter school. Buckeye State Bloggers have a reaction.
Currently, The CEA Blog is being blocked by CCS’ filtering software. We are working on a resolution to this situation. The CEA Blog can still be viewed at our regular address on non-CCS computers.
The unfolding events involving Ohio charter (community) schools made the front page of the New York Times a few days ago. Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann filed suit against three low-performing charter schools earlier in the fall, citing their collective failure(s) as charitable trusts. The suit was filed in the home county of Ohio’s Speaker of the House Jon Husted, a voucher and charter school advocate. Husted bristled at the suits, saying:
“This is like suing the American Cancer Society just because they haven’t yet cured cancer,”
Terry Ryan, a Vice President of the charter-school sponsoring organization and think-tank Thomas B. Fordham Foundation was also quoted, saying:
“These suits are the latest in a long line of Democratic assaults on the charter school program in Ohio,”
Despite the fact that a higher percentage of Ohio charter schools are in state-designated Academic Watch or Academic Emergency categories than true public schools, edu-wonks and policy makers are still finding reasons to laud the movement as successful. Read the entire article here.
The Columbus Education Association Board of Governors voted unanimously at its most recent meeting to send two unresolved grievances to arbitration on behalf of the entire membership of the Association. The first grievance dealt with the administration’s expansion of the city-wide standardized testing program. The second grievance dealt with an elementary school principal who changed their school’s unified arts schedule without first going through the Reform Panel. Both grievances were submitted to the administration for appropriate relief, but the relief requested by your Association was denied, prompting the CEA Board of Governors to vote to send both grievances to arbitration.
Almost 1,000 members of the South Western Education Association (SWEA) participated in an informational picket of the South Western School District Board of Education meeting Monday night. The members of SWEA have been negotiating for a new contract since April and working without a contract since June 30th.
