Wednesday, April 19, 2000
Commission: Education should be the focus over politics
Standards the key to new Taft board
BY James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati's three representatives on the Ohio governor's new education commission said Tuesday the group should be able to put politics aside and make substantive recommendations on student standards and assessment.
“If we use the classic mod el of argument and put ideas out on the table and weigh them critically, I think we can alleviate the political conundrum that often surrounds discussions like these,” said Cincinnati State Technical and Community College president Ron Wright.
The 33-member Commission for Student Success, formed by Gov. Bob Taft last month, holds its first meeting today in Columbus.
Mr. Taft has formed the group, which includes lawmakers, teachers, school administrators, parents and business representatives, to review state educational standards — specifically in the early grades. He has asked for recommendations by December.
Cincinnati's other commission representatives are Bob Wehling, a global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble and a former member of the Wyoming board of education, and Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development president and CEO Clifford A. Migal.
Beginning next year, students who do not pass the reading portion of the fourth-grade Ohio Proficiency Test will not be allowed to advance unless the child's principal and teacher agree that the student is ready for fifth-grade work.
Parents and legislators have called for a moratorium on testing until the tests can be reviewed, and the state Department of Education is conducting its own review of the fourth-grade reading test.
Last month, however, Mr. Taft said the concept of testing was not open to review. He did say the commission should examine how the test is implemented and graded and try to align standards with curriculum statewide.
""My hope is that this will be data-based, so the emotion of the far right and the far left will be removed from the process,” said Mr. Wehling.
Mr. Migal said to avoid politics, the commission should avoid the school funding issue — currently tied up in litigation.
“That's something we won't be able to solve in our time frame,” he said. “If we stay away from that ... we can put a lot of the politics aside.”
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