The CEA Blog

Welcome to the Carnival of Education! This is the 167th carnival, and the second time The CEA Blog has hosted this wonderful collection of rantings, musings, quotations, ideas, thoughts, inspirations, realizations and the like. The 168th edition will be hosted by the Education Wonks; email them at owlshome {at} earthlink {dot} net, or use this handy submission form. Yes, for those of you wondering, the picture is a snapshot of our fair city. Without further ado, click on the jump below and…. let’s Carnival!

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Read the full story here.

The recent campaign launched by the Center For Union Facts (CUF) has wrongly placed the highly qualified and hard-working teachers of the Columbus Education Association in its crosshairs with the release of its anti-teacher smear campaign.

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This letter to the editor appeared in the Columbus Dispatch on Saturday, March 8th.

As a middle-school Pre-Algebra and Algebra I teacher, I strongly agree with the teachers’ concerns expressed in the Feb. 13 Dispatch article “Teachers disgruntled over volume of tests.” However, some of the information was incomplete or inaccurate.

Not only elementary but also middle-school students were subjected to taking the full-length (2.5 hours per subject) practice Ohio Achievement Tests to prepare for the real tests in April. They had already done a week of half-length practice tests in September.

In January, eighth-graders were required to take tests in all four academic areas, immediately after completing a week of quarterly assessments in the same subjects. When I informed my homeroom of this Columbus City School District requirement, one young man pleaded, “Don’t they know we’re tired of taking tests?”

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The Columbus Board of Education passed a resolution at their most recent meeting that designates Linmoor Middle and Indianola and Medary Elementary schools as swing spaces and leases Kent, Linden Park and Second Avenue elementary schools to third parties which include two charters. The resolution also slates Pinecrest and Scioto Trail elementary schools for demolition and designates Wayne Elementary School for district storage.

Brentnell will be leased to the Charles School at Ohio Dominican University for $62,594.00 per year for a term of ten years. The rent will be capped so that it does not increase more that 13.5% as compared to increases in the consumer price index. Linden Park Elementary will be leased to the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) for $55,345.50 per year under the same terms. Both entities are responsible for capital improvements, maintenance and utilities for the properties in addition to the yearly lease amounts.

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“Market forces have changed the employment and education landscape in our community,” said Superintendent Harris, introducing the recommendations made by the Linden Area Task Force’s Feasibility and Implementation Team to the Columbus Board of Education. 

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The Columbus Dispatch has recently run a story on the ongoing testing saga students and teachers in the Columbus City Schools have been forced to endure since returning from Winter Break. The amount of testing at all grade levels in CCS has been the subject of a grievance sent to arbitration by your Association as well as an earlier Speakout on The CEA Blog.

“When you need to be spending time teaching children to read, you are testing them,” said Columbus Education Association President Rhonda Johnson. “That’s taking away valuable classroom time.”

You can read the entire story here.

The deliberation continues on uniforms for CCS students. The committee studying the issue has said they need more time. A graphic here shows the support by administrators, teachers, parents and students at the elementary, middle and high school levels. This publication puts the blame on the potential costs for the uniform.

For more CCS items featured in the news media, click on the jump below.

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