[LETTERHEAD]
July 10, 1997
Governor George V. Voinovich
Office of the Governor
Columbus, Ohio 43266
Dear Governor Voinovich:
Thank you for your recent letter regarding the
proposed standards for Ohio schools. I appreciate that you are giving the standards your
careful attention. This letter is in response to your concerns and an opportunity for me
to share some of my concerns with you.
1. Vocational competencies: In your
letter, you acknowledge that there are objections to the inclusion of vocational
competency for all students - the result of merging our three-track system (general,
post-secondary, and vocational) into one track. Although the claim is that vocational
education is optional, how will students opt-out of a fully integrated school-based and
work-based system in which academic and vocational education are completely intertwined?
The opposition to Career Plans for students is
very real, but it is also important to recognize the strong opposition to Career
Passports, as they are viewed by many as glorified work permits. Since Americans have
always had opportunities for careers based on talent, initiative, creativity, and supply
and demand in our free-market economy, it is logical to ask: Why must the government in a
free nation assure that students have opportunities for careers?
At the center of the public policy debate is:
What is the function of our public school system? Is it to educate youth to enable them to
become productive, intelligent citizens in a free society, fully-prepared to independently
chart their own course; or is it to set-up and fund, at taxpayers' expense, a workforce
development system to produce workers for the perceived good of the economy?
If adopted, the latter data-driven system,
with its state curriculum, career plans, career passports, new assessments, new
"exit" credentials, and labor boards, will reduce our children to dependent,
intellectually stunted laborers for a future collective. Asking citizens to swallow a
major tax increase is always risky business, but linking that tax increase to unproven
"standards" that have the potential to turn our schools into little more than
job-training centers will do nothing but bring condemnation upon those who promote it.
2. Competencies: You have asked, and
rightly so, why the student competencies (outcomes) were not developed in concurrence with
the standards document. The health component was not completed because of a conscious
recognition, on the part of some, that moving forward with it would endanger passage of
the standards package. It is now public knowledge that a draft health model does exist.
Its very existence makes the point that the competencies are being worked on, but held in
abeyance. I had been asking the same question you are: Where are the student competencies?
Accordingly, I was displeased, to say the least, to learn that the department had drafted
a 300-page health model prior to our vote to adopt the standards in principle, yet we as a
board, were unaware of the model's existence. The failed attempt to keep it under wraps
has undermined the standards as a whole.
3. The manner of instruction is vague.
In your letter, you state that the standards ask students to demonstrate the skill and
knowledge "that has been identified for each grade." However, the standards are
not based on grade levels. Whether the board "believes" that Carnegie units are
compatible with the standards or not, the fact remains that, at their very core, grades,
grade levels, and Carnegie units are completely contrary to the essence of what the
standards are all about: a performance-based (outcome-based) system. This is not to say
that the General Assembly cannot be persuaded to adopt a transitional hybrid of the
two systems.
4. Benchmarks. You have stated that
Ohioans want graduation rates, attendance rates, and test scores to serve as
"benchmarks", and that the state needs "tools of assessment" for
evaluating districts. However, many perceive such benchmarks as being oppressive, while
others are unable to see how they will help parents, schools, or communities to achieve
their goals. Furthermore, there seems to be a distinction between the three benchmarks and
the tools of assessment, but I do not know what it is, so I respectfully request
clarification. Even so, it is my considered opinion that the mantra that "people want
to know what they are gong to get in return for increased investments in public
education" is being used as the basis for all manner of mischief. What people want is
for their children and grandchildren to know how to read, write, and do math; they are not
asking for new management systems, diminished local control of schools, more intrusive
data collection, performance indicators, exit credentials, or state curricula.
5. Unrealistic school performance standards.
You are correct; for a variety of reasons, not all districts can meet the proposed levels
of performance. In addition, I agree that there is indeed a big difference between the
state "monitoring" a struggling district and the "direct state
control" being promoted. Above all, the standards, in their entirety, do erode local
control. Control is being shifted away from elected school boards to state
agents/employees who are not directly accountable to the electorate. No amount of
"assurances" to the contrary will negate that fact. In addition, although the
department proclaims a shift from a "regulatory" to a "service"
agency, the proposed standards, in my opinion, clearly do not support such a claim.
In your letter, you state that the existing
authority to identify excellent and deficient schools "has not been used as
aggressively as it could have been". Consequently, it seems unreasonable to step in
with new, more intrusive authority. Had we utilized the excellent/deficient indicators, as
painful as it may have been, we would have, as you said, "influenced the behavior and
performance" of school districts.
6. Data collection. Since the
perceived need to collect data to track individual students consistently comes up at board
meetings, and since such tracking may be connected with the academic audits that are being
proposed, your request that the board provide "assurances that the data required by
the new standards will not unduly burden districts" may be too limited. Assurance
must be expanded to address the public's aversion to data collection by the government and
how confidentiality issues will be addressed.
7. Special education. I certainly
appreciate your sensitivity to this important subject. However, the suggestion of
disconnecting these standards from the whole does not address the problem. Most of the
special education section is simply a re-statement of Federal law, so that section is not
the problem. The core standards and how they are related to special education is
the problem.
8. How to proceed. You have shared
your concerns with us and have asked us to give immediate attention to specific points,
while at the same time acknowledging that the standard-setting process is in its final
stage. The board has already adopted the standards in principle; the standards have
already been delivered to the House and Senate; and work is already underway to schedule
semi-public forums.
How do you envision the board responding to your
concerns? Are you suggesting a motion to reconsider our resolution to adopt the standards
in principle? Would we then present the revised draft to the House and Senate? And, at
what point do you foresee the board soliciting public input on the revised document?
9. Laying a new foundation. Even if
the adoption of the standards is postponed for months, once critical legislative changes
have been made, probably through SB 55 and perhaps HB 412, the foundation for
acceptance of the standards by the General Assembly will have been laid. Then, whether
sections of the standards that are problematic make it into the final product or not
becomes irrelevant; the legislation alone will be enough to enable the issuance of waivers
from the standards, regardless of what they look like.
As I see it, only about ten critical legislative
changes need to be made, those related to EMIS, graduation requirements, exit credentials,
state curriculum, extension of pupil services, shared teaching credentials, performance
indicators and some provision to incorporate the heart and soul of the standards,
continuous improvement, i.e., Total Quality Management. The data-driven TQM system may be
appropriate for business and industry, but it is manipulative when used in the process of
shaping the lives of young children in a compulsory attendance environment.
I am not alone in my analysis that we have
the cart before the horse; consultants from the Education Commission of the States say:
". . . the process you have undertaken to develop standards is a confusing one for
most people. In fact, it is the reverse of what many other states and districts are
doing. You are putting a process in place before you have actually defined your content
standards."
Accordingly, the whole standards development
process, including any attempt to secure legislative changes associated with the
standards, must come to a screeching halt and be kept separate from the proposed tax
increase. If the tax increase can't stand on its own merit, apart from the standards,
including the proposed performance accountability and graduation requirements, then it
deserves to fail. A person can stomach one bite from a sour apple, but a rational person
wouldn't wash it down with a swig of vinegar.
Again, thank you for clearly communicating
your concerns to the board. I am confident that the board will respond to you, through
President Sheets. Nonetheless, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your letter on
behalf of my constituents.
Sincerely,
(signed) Diana Fessler
Diana M. Fessler
Ohio State Board of Education - Third District
7530 Ross Road
New Carlisle, OH 45344
[email protected]
www.fessler.com
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