CHEERS
Ohio policymakers tightened their list of industry recognized credentials—meant to bolster workforce preparation but often used as graduation shortcuts. Fordham’s Aaron Churchill explains why and how: Without state quality-control measures, Ohio ballooned to over 700 credentials, with schools pushing kids toward the easiest ones to help them graduate and inflate their school’s ratings. After reviewing the list against labor-market needs and career outcomes, the state cut back to just 126 graduation-eligible credentials. The work isn’t over. Maintaining the new standards will require ongoing review and political will. Still, other states can learn from Ohio’s effort (and past mistakes) if they want to restore meaning to the high school diploma and build real work-based learning strategies.
JEERS
A new research brief from NWEA shows that today’s middle schoolers—who experienced the pandemic’s disruption in their critical early years of schooling—continue to fall behind pre-pandemic cohorts, with declines driven by the lowest-performing students. Sarah Schwartz notes that while the science of reading movement is taking hold in the early grades, these students need support beyond what most middle school teachers are trained to provide.
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a twice-weekly free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation.
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