The Akron Legal News

New legislative report on education, poverty offers recommendations

KEITH ARNOLD
Special to the Legal News
Published: December 13, 2018

A legislative task force charged with taking a deep look at poverty's impact on the education of Ohio's children and any resultant achievement gap between rich and poor students has wrapped up its work and filed a report.

Rep. Bob Cupp, R-Lima, announced the report's release this week - the culmination of four months' work examining the issue.

"The information compiled, as a result of the work of the task force, will give the legislature a greater understanding of the effects that growing up in poverty has on student achievement," said Cupp, the task force chairman. "Going forward, these insights will be helpful as policymakers work on effective ways to lift the academic achievements of all students, and thereby help provide a pathway out of poverty and toward economic and personal success."

The task force focused on the following areas:

• Community and health education prevention and awareness in high-poverty areas,

• National perspectives on education and poverty,

• State policies and data collection currently in place,

• Dropout prevention and recovery programs,

• Career technical education, and

• Early childhood education.

Of the task force's recommendations, a pair of them direct legislators to continue efforts both to reduce the achievement gap between poor districts and wealthy ones by emphasizing training and holding districts accountable for recruiting and developing teachers who have an understanding of the barriers poverty can create and to expand the availability of quality early childhood education to families in all areas of the state.

"Poverty matters and it needs to be addressed," Wellston Schools Superintendent and task force member Karen Boch said. "However, the impact of poverty is complex and is not isolated to limited financial resources.

"It affects both families and communities, which in turn makes it necessary for us to look at the impact of poverty through multiple lenses: Adverse health and mental health issues, housing instability, financial instability, along with other challenges such as transportation, safety, support structures, food insecurities, etc."

The task force encouraged school districts and schools to create and maintain partnerships with community- based organizations and take advantage of creative tools for behavior management as another of its recommendations.

"I firmly believe the most dramatic way to impact students in poverty is to provide them 'skills' and not always academics," Lancaster City Schools Career and Technical Education Director Anthony Knickerbocker said. "Again, imagine the impact on student's lives if their high school diploma included a career and technical license and/or certification."

The group adopted Knickerbocker's perspective and recommended that policymakers ensure equitable access to career-technical education for all students, including those who attend a dropout-prevention and recovery school.

Of the remaining recommendations, perhaps the most important is a study to determine the state's return on investment of programs and interventions that demonstrate evidence of success in measurably helping to close achievement gaps in schools throughout the Buckeye State.

Other task force members included Reps. Janine Boyd, D-Cleveland Heights, and Darrell Kick, R-Loudonville, and former state legislator Margy Conditt, along with experts in education BRIGHT Senior Adviser Thomas Maridada, Cuyahoga County ESC Superintendent Bob Mengerink, KIPP Columbus Executive Director Hannah Powell, and Oakmont Education President and CEO John Stack.

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