John Kasich on Higher Standards: Fact-Checking the Education Summit

During The 74's New Hampshire Education Summit, Ohio governor and presidential hopeful John Kasich talked to Campbell Brown about pertinent issues in education today and where he stands on them.

When asked about the Common Core, Kasich​ revealed his sentiments on the issue are very much like those shared by Jeb Bush. Despite the term "Common Core" receiving widespread backlash from Republican constituents, Kasich supports higher standards in education and a higher bar for kids to aim for.

"If you have a low bar, everybody gets to jump over," he said.

As a result, he's a proponent of high standards being developed through local school boards and parental advisory meetings, and he discussed one of the programs he helped implement in Ohio called The Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

The Third Grade Reading Guarantee was a controversial policy decision in Ohio to not pass the state's third graders that could not pass as "proficient" in reading.

Kasich said that despite the widespread backlash and controversy surrounding this decision (as parents do not like to see their kids retained), the effort has proven to be wildly successful in improving student achievement and has produced collective efforts from communities.

"Libraries, teachers, senior citizens have come together to help kids learn to read on the third grade level," he said, saying reading performance has gone "sky-high."

This effort, he indicated, is part of his support for higher standards to educate children as they so deserve, regardless of income, age, or culture.

However, when John Tulenko, special correspondent for Learning Matters Television, delved deeper into the program, he came up with some interesting findings about the standards.

In April of this year, Tulenko sat down with Ohio State Senator Peggy Lehner (R) and three educators from Ohio's Carson Elementary School for PBS.

When Tulenko asked Carson Elementary School fourth grade teacher Maria Cleveland how many kids in her fourth grade class are actually at the reading level of a fourth grader, she responded with only 50 percent.

"But the reality is that kids are all over the place. They just aren’t ready for some of the things — I mean, you know, kids don’t know how to sound out words; they’re working on some phonics skills that they never received. It’s — it’s an eye-opener," she said.

Despite the inconsistency in reading abilities in Cleveland's class, all students had passed the reading exam.

When Tulenko looked at the expectations to be considered "proficient" for the exam, the findings revealed surprisingly low standards.

"...a big shadow of doubt still hangs over Ohio’s 96 percent pass rate. A close look at test documents reveals more on just how low the bar was set. Ohio will promote third graders even if they lag behind 85 percent of their peers nationwide," he said.

"Ohio is on track to slowly raise the score for promotion until it matches the score for proficient. At the higher score, Ohio third graders will still lag behind roughly 75 percent of their peers nationwide."

Read the PBS article here.

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Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor