The CEA Blog

Despite its contentious birth, the 1973-1975 Master Agreement between the Columbus Education Association and the Board of Education was a landmark achievement in the history of CEA. Since 1968, the Board and the Association had only been able to agree to a series of single-year contracts, prompting the negotiations process to begin anew, providing for little substantial change from one agreement to the next. The 1973-1975 Master Agreement marked the first multi-year contract in the Association’s history. 

The Master Agreement between CEA and the Columbus Board of Education is a living document– just like the Constitution of the  United States, it changes over time. Much of the exact language of the 1973 contract still resides in the current Master Agreement, but many additions have been negotiated in since then. The contract at that time only numbered 48 pages; the current Master Agreement is 156 pages in length.  

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More than 100 teachers in Columbus City Schools give high school students a second chance at graduating through their active involvement in the districtwide Credit Recovery program (CR).

The 5- year-old program allows students to earn high school credits by retaking previously failed core academic courses through mastery- based computer software.

While CR has helped to increase high school graduation rates across the district, serious questions have been raised and remain unanswered about the day-to-day operations of the program.

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At the December 18th, 2007 Columbus Board of Education meeting, an updated version of the district’s real estate plan was presented to all seven members by Carole Oshavsky. The senior executive in charge of capital improvements, Oshavsky’s report updated the board on progress in the renovation and construction of new and existing schools. In addition, updates were made regarding land acquisition for new school sites as well as plans for vacant buildings within the district. The potential lease of two district buildings to charter schools outside of the district was presented to the Board, an event completely ignored by every local media outlet.

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Bill Todd is still suing CCS, despite losing the mayor’s race.

CCS has reached its goal of obtaining over 1,000 mentors for Project Mentor.

Superintendent Harris and board members share their thoughts on what it’s going to be like to put an operating levy on the ballot.

Ousted Board member Jeff Cabot plans to stay involved with Columbus City Schools.

Superintendent Harris elucidates her vision for 2008 for CCS.

Merion Village residents anticipate the reopening of Southwood Elementary for the 2008-2009 school year.

Students in CCS are now safer on their buses, thanks to a new checks performed on school-bus drivers.

“Whoa!” says the Dispatch editorial board in response to Dr. Harris’ district restructuring plan.

More column space is being spent examining the feasibility of Dr. Harris’ proposed plan; there is even a graph, too.

More on the potential elimination of middle schools in this article.

Middle schools and their potential elimination are the focus of yet another article.

The Board of Education bids farewell to a now-former member.

A CCS year-round recap here.

More about the photos appearing on this blog here.

 Click on the jump below to read the most recent news about CCS.

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A recent study  (PDF) of Detroit’s charter school locations and competition techniques by for-profit charter school operators provides chilling insight into the potential marginalization of African-American students who live in high-poverty areas. Released in October and written by Christopher Lubienski of the University of Illinois and Charisse Gulosino of Brown University, the paper outlines the tactics of educational management organizations (EMOs) that operate for-profit charter schools using a geo-spatial and temporal analysis of EMO charter openings. 

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Read more here.

K12, a for-profit Virginia-based operator of virtual charter schools in 10 different states held an initial public offering of its stock last week; the company did not do quite as well as they had hoped.

Only 63% of its hoped for $172.5 million was raised, but the Washington Post reported K12’s share price raised 36%. The company has operated the Ohio Virtual Academy since the 2002-2003 school year and currently enrolls 3,408 students in Ohio and over 27,000 in its combined operation.

Both the Ohio Virtual Academy and Columbus City Schools earned a Continuous Improvement rating for the 2006-2007 school year, but that is where the similarities end.

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When backers legislated into existence the option to create charter schools, they argued that these choices for parents would allow them to escape their failing schools and school districts. Today, no urban district has been given an “F” rating; only three earned a “D” rating. This begs the question:

Now that big urban districts and individual schools are improving across the board, what alternatives are charters actually providing?

Read more about it from the Akron-Beacon Journal.

(Hat-tip to Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks.)