Updates on Ohio HB1 and SB1

It was my intention to send this update to you yesterday. However, my mother

was taken to the emergency room and consequently I needed to help her. This

is just a note of explanation. I consider it a privilege to help her, not a

burden. She has been a wonderful lifelong inspiration to me.

I also want to express deep appreciation to everyone who took the time out of

busy and sometimes complicated schedules to come! THANK YOU!! For HB 1

concerned citizens filled up and overflowed two hearing rooms -- some were

sitting on the floor or stood for hours. The House Education Committee took

testimony from 3:30 - 9:00pm -- 5 1/2 straight hours of opponent testimony!!

THANK YOU to everyone who prepared testimony -- it was ALL outstanding!

THANK YOU to everyone who attended to demonstrate the magnitude of public

The members of the House Education Committee listened patiently and their

questions were a reflection of their desire to understand the concerns. I

have requested the list of witnesses from both the House and Senate hearings.

The details that I have from the Senate hearing are sketchy, but I will

summarize what I can after I get the witness slips and copies of testimony.

On the House side, there were a wide variety of witnesses ranging from

classroom teachers to parents to a veteran school psychologist. One

highlight was in the testimony of a mom toward the end of the hearing who

shared the results of her daughter's 4th grade writing test. She acquired

the actual test taken by her daughter before it was shredded. Her daughter

passed the writing portion with numerous errors in sentence structure as well

as spelling [e.g. mud - spelled mude]. The students were instructed prior to

taking the test that they could earn the best score if they did certain

things -- one of which was to "try" to spell correctly. This was an

important piece of evidence that the "standards" for a criterion-referenced

Several parents and teachers passionately argued and gave evidence to the

need for scraping the proficiency test system. It isn't working. It is

So...presenting testimony was the "easy part" even though it took great

effort to get there for many of the citizens. Now the challenge will be to

follow up with phone calls and contacts to legislators. [see outline below]

We will NEED the effort of citizens statewide to continue the process of

NOTE: The briefing material I prepared for legislators has been posted on

the Eagle Forum of Ohio website http://www.ohioeagleforum.org

NEXT STEPS: CONTACT MEMBERS OF THE EDUCATION COMMITTEES AND YOUR OWN LEGISLATORS WITH THE FOLLOWING POINTS:

VOTE NO ON HB 1 AND SB 1 UNLESS ALL OF THE CONCERNS BELOW ARE ADDRESSED:

The points outlined here are basic and should not be compromised. If

legislators fall for crumbs of compromise on this bill, what is already bad

policy in state law will become worse. I do not say this lightly. Nor is

this an overstatement. As proposed HB 1 gives unlimited and unchecked

authority to the ODE to EXPAND state testing and completely finish the job of

eliminating local control. Ohio can't have a top-down state driven system

and local control at the same time. The two cannot co-exist.

1. Put an IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM or REPEAL the criterion-referenced testing system [Ohio Proficiency Tests]. It makes no sense to continue a system that

has no credibility. There are other ideas that can be debated to achieve

Legislators on the House Education Committee were given examples of

Proficiency Test questions compared to questions on previous versions of the

Iowa Test of Basic Skills. It was a night and day difference.

2. To fulfill the need for annual statewide testing -- DEFINE DIAGNOSTIC

TESTS IN LAW TO BE A "NATIONALLY NORM-REFERENCED STANDARDIZED ACHIEVEMENT TEST" [e.g. Iowa Test of Basic Skills, California Achievement Test, etc] IN READING/LANGUAGE ARTS AND MATH ONLY. This will fit the requirements of federal Title I regulations if standards

are benchmarked to these tests. These tests already provide diagnostic

profiles and other information that can be used to determine learning

We lost this baseline of information in 1992 when the requirement for schools

3. RESTORE THE PROTECTIONS FOR OHIO FAMILIES THAT WERE REMOVED IN HB 1 AND

3301.0715 (C) protects students from performance-based testing beyond 5

3301.0716 (B) protects Ohio from bad policy in health curriculum by requiring

that the curriculum model in health receive public hearings and approval by

4. DISCONNECT INTERVENTION FROM THE TRUANCY STATUTES.

If they tie intervention to truancy laws, parents will be fined up to $500 if

their child doesn't attend or in certain circumstances in which there is

already a problem with attendance in school, not showing up to intervention

will mean ciriminal charges could be filed against the family in the juvenile

court system. THIS HORRIBLE POLICY extends compulsory education to

evenings, weekends, and Saturdays -- with no school transportation provided.

These are the FOUR BASIC POINTS that need to be stressed with legislators.

I have almost finished drafting specific language for legislators to use. It

is more technical and lengthy for most people, so I will send it to you if

you request it -- AFTER key legislators have had the opportunity to review it.

ACTION: PLEASE START MAKING PHONE CALLS IMMEDIATELY.

1. Call members of the HOUSE Education Committee and your own legislator

with the above points. Also call the members of the SENATE Education

2. Share this alert and ask others to call. If you don't know who

represents you in Columbus, contact your County Board of Elections and find

I WILL UPDATE YOU WITH AMENDMENTS AND VOTING RECORDS. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY. THIS INFORMATION WILL ALSO BE POSTED ON THE OHIO EAGLE FORUM WEBSITE AND OTHER WEBSITES.

House Education Committee Members (* denotes a brand new legislator)