Lima Ohio -
To improve literacy among students, Senate Bill 316 calls for 3rd graders who score low on the state reading test to be held back, but one local school official doesn't agree with that approach.
"It's a situation where it's gonna be broken down so much it's not going to be near as effective as he (Kasich) wants it to be," said Superintendent for Perry School Omer Schroeder.
Schroeder is talking about the exceptions that apply to students who are learning English and in special education programs. He says as the state continues to make exceptions, the bill becomes less effective.
"They make it sound like everybody's going to be held accountable to the same standard, but it's not. What's gonna happen if you have 30 kids that can't make the reading guarantee? What's gonna happen?", said Schroeder.
Another controversial part of the bill is teacher evaluations. It allows school districts to hire a third party to evaluate teachers. Pat Johnson, Labor Relations Consultant for the Ohio Education Association, says that is worrisome because the evaluators don't know what teaching methods work in that district.
"Our position is that the employees who are administrators should be the ones who are doing the evaluation of their own employees," said Johnson.
The bill says teachers who don't pass evaluations will have to pay for their own professional development, something Johnson says most educators already do.
Although bills like this one have been enacted in other states, school officials are skeptical about the progress it will make here in Ohio. The Senate modeled the bill after a Florida law. The state did see an improvement in reading scores there.
