School districts backing local control bill

DRESDEN – A handful of local school districts' officials are banding together in attempt to regain some of the local control they feel they have lost in the past couple of decades.

A bill in the Ohio House of Representatives would eliminate state-mandated evaluation systems and give districts the power to choose their own standardized tests.

The state Legislature banned the use of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, tests in the new two-year state budget, signed Tuesday by Gov. John Kasich.

Tri-Valley Superintendent Mark Neal said PARCC and the dips it took into curriculum-shaping were the tipping point for him. The abrupt end to PARCC in Ohio after this year's opt-out frenzy, he said, indicates the urgency for securing more local control for districts.

"We said a couple months ago (that concern over PARCC) was a bunch of Internet hysteria," Neal said. "Here, we sacked the whole program."

That move by the state government, he said, made the case for local control stronger than ever. The Tri-Valley school board passed a resolution in support of the local control legislation, House Bill 212, which extends far beyond standardized testing.

The bill is a colossal piece of legislation sponsored by Rep. Andy Thompson, R-Marietta, and puts some of the most controversial state mandates in the crosshairs.

The Times Recorder left multiple messages for Thompson and House Education Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Hayes, R-Harrison Township, but did not receive a reply.

The bill language explicitly prohibits the state from adopting or implementing Common Core standards or anything like them. HB 212 also would eliminate current evaluation programs for teachers and principals: the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System and the Ohio Principal Evaluation System.

It strips the state board and Ohio Department of Education of control over evaluations and assessments, instead placing the authority in the hands of districts.

"At the state and federal level, we try to broad-stroke solutions to problems that may not exist everywhere," River View Superintendent Dalton Summers said.

The group of local educators has said the state government — and, to a degree, the federal government — is aiming for one-size-fits-all education laws when not all districts fit that size.

What Summers is saying is that effective districts are hamstrung by state and federal mandates intended to lift up ineffective ones.

"What we've run into is trying to help large urban districts with accountability and corrective action measures and things," Mid-East Career and Technology Center Superintendent Tom Perkins said. "And it ends up hurting already effective and efficient local school districts."

With the conclusion of the budget process, the Legislature is on summer break and will not return to session until September.

The House Education Committee did not take up the legislation this session, and it is undetermined whether and when it will next session.

With the ban slapped on PARCC tests in the budget, HB 212 might be pulled in favor of different local control legislation or scrapped altogether. Neal worries some will equate PARCC's prohibition with an end to issues of lost local control.

"(Eliminating PARCC) was the goal of a lot of Ohio parents," Neal said, "so they may not be as in tune until the next big surprise."

Neal, Summers and Perkins hope that, with the passage of HB 212, that big surprise never comes.

bparks2@gannett.com

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Twitter: @Bradley_W_Parks