At the end of each school year, Ohio Schools put out a report with the board-approved priorities for the next school year. The most important thing on the Ohio Schools End of Year Report for 2006-2007 was the quality of the teachers. According to the report, the board and administrators think that finding, training, and keeping good teachers is very important to the success of a school. That's not something that people are likely to argue about. So, the real question is what Ohio schools are doing to fix this problem.
From Columbus to Cincinnati, Ohio's cities are very different, making it hard for schools to meet national standards and find good teachers to help. Columbus is a great example of how Ohio schools face big problems. Thirty percent of their 11,000 students move from one school to another every year. It's always hard to find good teachers who are willing to work in "high-risk" schools. Here are some of the things the Ohio Schools' Board of Education plans to try to fix the problem.
SIR, YES SIR
A programme called "Troops to Teachers," which is paid for by the federal government, gives retired and former military members money to get certified. There are 270 teachers in Ohio schools who have taken part in this programme. Sixty-seven percent of them teach in Ohio schools with a lot of needs. Administrators hope that the teachers who used to be in the military will enjoy how easy it is to switch to a civilian job and that students will be interested in their military backgrounds.
FOLLOW YOUR OWN PATH
There are other ways for people who want to teach to get into Ohio schools besides joining the military. As the schools in Ohio try to find qualified teachers, many administrators are happy to change certain requirements if it means getting more qualified applicants. Since the Alternative Education License was made in 2000, it has been used by more than 1,900 teachers to get into Ohio schools. 48 percent of them are teaching in schools with a lot of needs right now.
But how do the people in charge of Ohio Schools know that these people are qualified? Surely, breaking the rules and getting less qualified applicants would defeat the point. So, the Credit Review Board was made (CRB). How it works is as follows. Imagine that a person from another country wants to teach his own language in Ohio. Even though he wouldn't have met the traditional requirements, the CRB would make sure he meets the requirements.
Last but not least, the Ohio board gave the go-ahead for more TeachOhio Diversity Grants to be used. These give money to colleges and universities in Ohio so they can set up alternative education programmes for math and science teachers of teenagers. The goal is to find, train, and send these students to Ohio schools that need teachers the most.
For the coming year, Ohio schools will be focusing on coming up with new ways to find and hire great teachers. "Teachers Matter" is the message. How good will all of these teachers be who are qualified in other ways? Schools in Ohio want to find out the same thing.
