In his State of the State speech yesterday afternoon, Ohio governor Ted Strickland announced that Ohio had been awarded the Frank Newman Award for Education Innovation by the Education Commission of the States ”in recognition of the comprehensive education reform we created last year.”
A key component of Strickland’s recent education reform efforts was joining the Partnership for 21st Century Skills in October and committing Ohio to developing 21st century assessments and requiring professional development in the teaching of 21st century skills. We’ve presented the evidence to show the faults in P21′s program. Others have noted that developing these assessments will be very, very expensive. That’s interesting because two other P21 member states – South Dakota and Massachusetts – chose to award their lucrative 21st century skills assessment contracts to P21 board members. P21 itself handles the kind of professional development that Strickland has promised to spend taxpayer dollars on.
If we follow the money this looks less like thoughtful reform than it does an effort by a “non-profit” to grab tax dollars and put some in the pockets of its corporate backers. Perhaps ECS made a mistake.
James Elias
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