Strickland Touts education reform during visit to Valley

Gov. Ted Strickland, in town here Friday, touted the education reform package in the recently passed two-year budget as providing more money and more demand for increased accountability from public and charter schools.

Speaking to more than 100 students, parents, educators and Democratic supporters, Strickland defended his policies as moving the state forward during a time of economic recession.

The governor spoke at Western Reserve High School, which is in a district that has earned an excellent rating on the Ohio Report Card every year during the last eight years.

”There are states that are cutting back on their commitments to education,” Strickland said. “When I first was elected governor, the state’s financial share was 48 percent. Currently, Ohio is providing approximately 51 percent of their budgets. In 10 years, it will be 61 percent.”

Strickland said the state also is working to bring more accountability to charter and public schools.

”We want curriculum to be such that we emphasize the science, math and English, but also we want them to be able communicate effectively, engage in problem solving activities, think independently, collaborate and think creatively,” he said.

Remarks by President Obama on Education

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for the outstanding introduction from Matthew. And Matthew’s teacher, you’re doing obviously an outstanding job — although I understand Matthew’s mom is also a teacher who has also won awards for her outstanding work. So the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. We are very proud of him.

Obviously I want to thank my wonderful Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who has helped to lead us. (Applause.) I want to thank all the members of Congress who are here, the governors who are in attendance. And I want to give a special shout out to Chairman George Miller of the Education Committee in the House, who has just been a outstanding partner for reform. Please give him a big round of applause. (Applause.)

You know, from the moment I entered office, my administration has worked to beat back this recession by creating jobs, unfreezing credit markets, extending unemployment insurance and health benefits to Americans who are out of work. But even as we’ve worked to end this immediate crisis, we’ve also taken some historic measures to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity that can help secure our economic future for generations to come.

One pillar of this new foundation is health insurance reform that can control deficits, and reduce costs for families and businesses, provide quality affordable care for every American. Another pillar is energy reform that makes clean energy profitable, that creates green jobs that can’t be outsourced, and frees America from the grip of foreign oil. We’re also working to enact financial reforms that will set up firm rules of the road to help prevent an economic crisis like the one we’ve just gone through from ever happening again.

But even if we do all of those things, America will not succeed in the 21st century unless we do a far better job of educating our sons and daughters, unless every child is performing the way Matthew is performing. In an economy where knowledge is the most valuable commodity a person and a country have to offer, the best jobs will go to the best educated — whether they live in the United States or India or China. In a world where countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow, the future belongs to the nation that best educates its people. Period. We know this.

But we also know that today, our education system is falling short. We’ve talked about it for decades but we know that we have not made the progress we need to make. The United States, a country that has always led the way in innovation, is now being outpaced in math and science education. African American, Latino students are lagging behind white classmates in one subject after another — an achievement gap that, by one estimate, costs us hundreds of billions of dollars in wages that will not be earned, jobs that will not be done, and purchases that will not be made. And most employers raise doubts about the qualifications of future employees, rating high school graduates’ basic skills as only “fair” or “poor.”

Of course, as I said before, we’ve talked about this problem for years. For years, we’ve talked about bad statistics and an achievement gap. For years, we’ve talked about overcrowded classrooms and crumbling schools and corridors of shame across this country. We’ve talked these problems to death, year after year, decade after decade, while doing all too little to solve them.

But thanks to Arne’s leadership, thanks to George Miller’s leadership, thanks to all the dedicated Americans in statehouses, and schoolhouses, communities across this country, that’s beginning to change. We’re beginning to break free from the partisanship and the petty bickering that have stood in the way of progress for so long. We’re beginning to move past the stale debates about either more money or more reform, because the fact is we need both. We’re beginning to offer every single American the best education the world has to offer from the cradle to the classroom, from college to careers.

In recent months, I’ve spoken about the different parts of this strategy. I’ve spoken about what we’re doing to prepare community college students to find a job when they graduate; to make college and advanced training more affordable; and to raise the bar in early learning programs. Today, I want to talk about what we can do to raise the quality of education from kindergarten through senior year.

Because improving education is central to rebuilding our economy, we set aside over $4 billion in the Recovery Act to promote improvements in schools. This is one of the largest investments in education reform in American history. And rather than divvying it up and handing it out, we are letting states and school districts compete for it. That’s how we can incentivize excellence and spur reform and launch a race to the top in America’s public schools.

That race starts today. I’m issuing a challenge to our nation’s governors, to school boards and principals and teachers, to businesses and non-for-profits, to parents and students: if you set and enforce rigorous and challenging standards and assessments; if you put outstanding teachers at the front of the classroom; if you turn around failing schools — your state can win a Race to the Top grant that will not only help students outcompete workers around the world, but let them fulfill their God-given potential.

This competition will not be based on politics or ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group. Instead, it will be based on a simple principle — whether a state is ready to do what works. We will use the best evidence available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform — and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant. Not every state will win and not every school district will be happy with the results. But America’s children, America’s economy, and America itself will be better for it.

And one of the benchmarks we will use is whether states are designing and enforcing higher and clearer standards and assessments that prepare a student to graduate from college and succeed in life. Right now, some states like Massachusetts are setting high standards, but many others are not. Many others are low-balling expectations for students — telling our kids they’re prepared to move on to the next grade even if they aren’t; awarding diplomas even if a graduate doesn’t have the knowledge and skills to thrive in our economy.

That’s a recipe for economic decline, and it has to stop. With the Race to the Top fund, we will reward states that come together and adopt a common set of standards and assessments. Now, let me be clear: This is not about the kind of testing that has mushroomed under No Child Left Behind. This is not about more tests. It’s not about teaching to the test. And it’s not about judging a teacher solely on the results of a single test.

It is about finally getting testing right, about developing thoughtful assessments that lead to better results; assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can use a pencil to fill in a bubble, but whether they possess basic knowledge and essential skills like problem-solving and creative thinking, creativity and entrepreneurship. And already, 46 states are working to develop such standards. I urge those 46 states to finish the job. I urge the other four to get onboard. (Laughter.)

Hawaii school scores expected to rise again

Education officials say they expect Hawai’i students to continue to show steady progress in math and reading when state test scores are released this week. However, they predict more schools may face sanctions because of the ever-increasing expectations of the No Child Left Behind law.

While fewer Hawai’i schools have been meeting the federal goals known as “adequate yearly progress,” students have shown steady improvement in math and reading scores since testing began back in 2002.

The recent spike in the number of schools that did not achieve their NCLB goals — only 42 percent of schools achieved AYP last year, down from 65 percent a year before — has been attributed to what school officials call the increasingly unrealistic expectations of the federal No Child Left Behind law.