Taft Touts School Plan, Says Teachers Need New Skills
Posted on: Friday, 27 January 2006, 15:00 CST
By Mark Niquette, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Jan. 27--CANTON -- A day after unveiling a sweeping plan to require Ohio high-school students to take more rigorous classes, Gov. Bob Taft couldn't offer details about how much it would cost but said the main challenge would be upgrading the skills of math and science teachers to be able to offer the courses.
"A lot of what we're talking about is not necessarily more courses or more teachers," Taft said yesterday after a roundtable forum with education and community leaders at Timken High School to promote his plan.
"It will take teachers with higher skills, or perhaps different skills."
That may mean providing additional state resources to help teachers use summer programs or other opportunities to upgrade their training, as well as providing incentives for students in college to become math and science teachers, he said.
Taft didn't identify where that funding would come from, saying only there are some resources in the current budget and that perhaps money could be set aside in next year's budget or reallocated.
More details will be worked out as a bill to enact the plan is drafted, the governor said.
Critics of the education plan Taft announced Wednesday during his eighth and last State of the State address say they applaud the goal of making the state's high-school curriculum more rigorous but that it would create significant financial demands -- and that the state isn't providing enough resources now.
"Without stable and adequate school funding, beginning in preschool, this is all just happy talk," Tom Mooney, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, said in a statement.
The governor has outlined a five-point education plan that would require all high-school students starting with the class of 2011 to complete a core set of classes to graduate -- unless their parents sign a waiver opting them out of the program.
The "Ohio Core," as Taft calls it, would be four years of math, including Algebra 2; three years of science, including biology, chemistry and physics; four years of English; three years of social studies; and at least two years of a foreign language.
No student could enroll in an Ohio state-funded, four-year university without taking the classes, and Taft's plan also would move all remedial education to the state's two-year campuses. All high-school students would have to take an assessment during their junior year to determine whether they are prepared for college or work.
Legislative leaders have said they're willing to consider Taft's plan as "a starting point."
As for funding, House Speaker Jon A. Husted, R-Kettering, said Wednesday, "We aren't willing to send blank checks, but we are willing to make targeted investments."
One piece of advice for Ohio from an official in Indiana, which adopted an initiative similar to Taft's, is to offer courses for a few years before requiring students to take them.
That allows districts to find enough teachers and make other needed changes, said John Ellis, executive director of the Indiana Association of Public Superintendents.
"I wouldn't want to implement this overnight," Ellis said.
Indiana first offered its "Core 40" advanced curriculum to students in 1995 without making it a requirement for graduation, said Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Education.
The number of students voluntarily taking the tougher courses increased from 57 percent in 2002 to 65 percent in 2004, which made it easier for the state to make the curriculum mandatory starting this fall, Wilhelmus and Ellis said.
Ellis also expressed surprise at Ohio's plan to bar any students who opt out of the advanced classes from enrolling in a state university.
The opt-out in Indiana doesn't do that, which Ellis said doesn't discourage those students from seeking more education after high school.
But James Jeter, a senior at Timken High School who attended yesterday's roundtable discussion in Canton, said he doesn't think Ohio should let any students opt out of the advanced courses.
"I think this is a great idea," he said. "It should have been done a long time ago."
Educators at the Canton event applauded Taft's recommendations, which mirror those of Achieve Inc., a nonpartisan education group the governor helps lead.
Achieve has developed what it calls "benchmark standards" for graduation through its American Diploma Project.
Only four states require Algebra 2, as Taft proposes for Ohio, but studies say the course is "the linchpin for student success in the postsecondary world," according to a presentation Achieve President Michael Cohen gave to Taft's Partnership for Continued Learning last fall.
"This is a major change," Taft said yesterday.
"There may be some controversy, but it's a change I believe we absolutely have to make if Ohio is going to succeed in this new world economy."
mniquette@dispatch.com
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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
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