If you’re going to be in Ohio in June, there are two events that you cannot miss. The first of these is #edcampcle taking place in Cleveland on Saturday, June 14. Wondering what an edcamp is? Check this out from the website: What is an EdCamp? When people attend professional conferences, they often remark that the best parts are the spaces ...

I’m at the ODE “Connecting the Dots” conference today. The session I’m in right now (like, as I type this) is about designing high quality LEA assessments as SGM for SLO development. Because it fits so well with my post about SLOs, I had to share. Pair this post with my Layman’s term to help design your district’s work…(SLO in Layman’s Terms ...

I’ve been stewing on SLOs since January when legislation dictated that value-added teachers (reading and math grades 4-8) would now be required (as of 2014-2015) to have 50% of their evaluation based on value-added. I attended an SLO training in January, but left feeling….unsatisfied. So many of my questions were answered with “That’s an LEA” ...

New guidance documents from PARCC today are now posted on ODE’s Website. Because I’m a big dork who likes to read this stuff, I thought I’d take the liberty of highlighting and passing along to those of you who are less interested I’d encourage you to draw your attention to a couple of things: 1. Note the recommended number of devices chart. ...

For specifics about the framework, be sure to see Dwight Carter’s (@Dwight_Carter) blog after his three-days training. Today was my first of 3 OTES days, and I’m still feeling pretty good about that “left side” (or the performance piece) of the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System framework. (The “right side,” or the student growth side, is another ...

The following was posted on Hamilton School’s Director of Secondary Programs, Keith Millard.  Find him on Twitter @scarletandgray and follow his blog at free ranging ideas Ohio Accountability Changes Update I had the good fortune yesterday to attend the BASA regional meeting in Dayton and have Michael Sawyers turn out to be the ODE speaker on ...

I’m stuck tonight unable to sleep.  It seems dumb, but I cannot stop thinking about those HB555 changes.  I’ve got this image in my head of what the end of the 2014-2015 school year will look like in Ohio, and it’s a little something like this: We’re a year into holding kids back in third grade for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.  Elementary ...

When all this teacher evaluation stuff started almost a year ago, I saw some benefits in restructuring to create more consistent expectations across the state. The 50% Performance Pieces 50% of the evaluation is based on performance, which is also tied to the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Profession (which are also similar to the Ohio ...

I am always thankful to Join the Future for finding news I miss. Check out this post on 11th hour changes to evaluations…Hope your district hasn’t spent massive amounts of money on creating SLOs yet….

It wasn’t that long ago when I followed the report card legislation from first mention, through the “Yes, it’s happening/No, it’s not” debates, to the 11th hour NCLB waiver application, and finally to the May 30, 2012, NCLB waiver approval. In May we were left knowing that the NCLB waiver application submitted by the state of Ohio included ...