1. School districts in Ohio have been dealing with the scourge of grade inflation—blamed largely on dual enrollment in college courses—by doing away with the valedictorian system and adopting the Latin cum laude system instead. In general, the stated fear is that students will either work too hard (taking lots of college or AP classes to get a GPA boost) or not hard enough (taking lower-level classes in which they know they will score well) in order to reach the top GPA. But even with the Latin system fix, the sky is still the limit on GPAs. The only thing that changes is whether you get to give a speech. Columbiana High School, however, has chosen a different path: the Latin system and grade deflation. Starting in 2022, max GPA there will be 4.0 no matter what courses you take. Not sure what that will do for students’ motivations, but it is at least a novel approach to the issue. (The Morning Journal, 7/4/19) Editors in Toledo opined on that very subject this morning, coming out against a bill that would ban the Latin system and require all schools to have a traditional valedictorian/salutatorian for each graduating class. The editors’ reasoning is a little weird. Although they believe that each graduating class “deserves to be represented by its top achievers” because “everyone benefits” from hearing from them, they are opposed to making it a legal requirement in Ohio. (Toledo Blade, 7/5/19)

2. Whatever troubles dual enrollment is causing in terms of GPAs and valedictorian status, I think it is safe to say those are going to continue as Ohio’s popular College Credit Plus program continues to expand. Zane State College in Muskingum County announced this week that it will be serving students in three additional districts next school year. (Y-City News, 7/4/19)

3. Preschool or perish! Expansion is on the minds of Trumbull County’s Head Start program, but not because it is full. Just the opposite. Enrollment in the free pre-K program stands at less than 50 percent capacity. If they don’t boost enrollment and quick, the federal funding supporting it will be in jeopardy and the entire program could go under. (WYTV, Youngstown, 7/4/19)

4. Finally this week, another story about high school students in central Ohio participating in internships prior to graduation. This piece covers Columbus City Schools and a number of suburban districts, but as with the previous story on this topic which we discussed last week, it doesn’t actually seem as if there are lot of these internships going on. The numbers discussed seem awfully low in comparison with the sheer number of kids in area districts, not to mention all the charter and private school kids who no one cares to include. More of this please, and put Columbus kids first in line! (Columbus Dispatch, 7/4/19)

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Let’s take it from the top

The first of what will probably be several stories to come out of the National Charter Schools Conference held this week in Las Vegas focuses on the “obscure educator” credited with creating the idea of charter schools. Ray Budde, an English teacher and professor of education at U Mass, expounded on the notion of schools which operated outside of their districts in a paper first published in 1974. It would be more than 15 years before the first charter school law was passed in the United States, but the groundwork laid by Budde was an important start.

But what about 2019?

Bloomberg News took a look at the state of play in the charter sector right now, with a quick analysis of political, critical, and quality spheres. Seems pretty fair in acknowledging legitimate pluses and minuses, but it would be worth asking whether a similar piece on traditional public schools would give equal time to critics.

 An opportunity for charter schools to benefit from federal economic development funding

The numbers are staggering: More than 8,700 newly created Opportunity Zones across the country can split up to $6 trillion in federal tax incentives in order to “jumpstart economic development in distressed communities”. For charter and private schools, along with traditional districts, in these designated zones, the Qualified Opportunity Fund program can be used for building improvements. You can check out an overview of the education aspects of Opportunity Zones here in Education Next, and you can find more Ohio-specific information here (including a map of eligible Opportunity Zones).

Calling all Ohio teens!

The timing may not be the best here in the depth of the summer, but a great opportunity is a great opportunity. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has extended the deadline for high school juniors and seniors to apply to join his Teen Ambassador Board. The board advises the AG’s office on issues important to teens and the work can help those young people gain an insight into possible careers in public service. It is open to charter, district, and private schoolers and the new deadline is July 22.

Legislative update – no news is no news

ICYMI, the state legislature missed the June 30 deadline to complete work on Ohio’s next biennial budget. A continuing resolution passed by both chambers and signed by the governor extended the current budget for 17 days and work is expected to resume soon to resolve any remaining differences early next week.

Eligibility

The A Moonshot for Kids Competition (the “Contest”) is only open to persons who are U.S. residents over age 18 at the time of submission. Void outside the 50 United States and the District of Columbia and where prohibited by law. To be eligible to be a Finalist or Winner (defined below), the entrant must meet certain eligibility criteria, outlined below.

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Contest Sponsor and Administrator

Center for American Progress, which is located at 1333 H St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20005, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which is located at 1016 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, are the co-sponsors and administrators of the Contest (“Co-Sponsors”).

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Participation in this Contest constitutes entrants’ full and unconditional agreement to these Official Rules and Co-Sponsors’ and judges’ decisions, which are final and binding in all matters related to this Contest. These Official Rules are subject to change. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein. The Contest begins and ends according to the below schedule (the “Contest Period”). Co-Sponsors’ computer is the official time-keeping device for the Contest.

General Requirements

Theme & Criteria

The Contest will initially seek applied research and development ideas (“Entry”, collectively “Entries”) that will unleash innovation, support educators, and dramatically improve student outcomes.

Criteria for Competition:

Would the Entry (500 words or less) help the U.S. achieve one of the following big goals:

• Cut in half the number of fourth graders reading “below basic”
• Double the number of eighth graders who can write an effective persuasive essay
• Shrink by 30 percent the average time a student spends in English-language-learner status
• Double the amount of high-quality feedback the average middle schooler receives on their academic work
• Ensure that every student receives high-quality college and career advising by ninth grade
• Double the number of students from low-income families and students of color who graduate from high school with remediation-free scores on the SAT, ACT, or similar exams
• Double the number of young women who major in STEM fields

Co-Sponsors will choose ten individuals (the “Finalists”) based on the above criteria, who will be invited to further flesh out their idea using up to 2,500 words (“Entry”, collectively “Entries”) and to participate in a “Shark Tank” style competition in Washington, D.C., to submit their ideas to the scrutiny of a panel of judges, including educators and senior staff of large national foundations who will select a single winner (the “Winner”), and award a $10,000 grand prize.

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Entries:

Initial Entries to the Contest must be submitted using the online portal by August 1, 2019 (11:59:59 p.m. EST).

No material owned or created by a third party may be submitted. By submitting an Entry, you grant Co-Sponsors the non-exclusive right to use, publish and otherwise display the idea or permit the idea to be used by others.      

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By participating, where allowed by law, all Contest entrants grant the Co-Sponsors non‑exclusive permission to use their names and likenesses in connection with promotion of this Contest and for all other uses and waive any claims to royalty, right, or remuneration for such use. By entering, you acknowledge that Co-Sponsors may, but have no obligation to, use or post your Entry online or in other media.

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By completing the registration and submitting your entry, you agree that your Entry conforms to the rules and requirements set forth herein and that the Co-Sponsors, in their sole discretion, may remove and disqualify your Entry at any time and for any reason, including if it believes, in its sole discretion, that your Entry fails to conform to these rules and requirements in any way. By submitting an Entry, you warrant and represent that your Entry meets the following content restrictions:

• The Entry does not contain material that is inappropriate, indecent, obscene, hateful, tortuous, defamatory, slanderous or libelous
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By submitting an Entry, you acknowledge that there is a limited universe of ideas and that Co-Sponsors have access to and/or may create or have already created ideas and concepts that may be similar or identical to an Entry. Contest entrants will not be entitled to any compensation or other consideration because of the use by Co-Sponsors of such similar or identical material, ideas and/or concepts. Contest entrants waive any claims because of the use by Co-Sponsors of such similar or identical material, ideas and/or concepts, including claims based on contract, copyright, or intellectual property laws.

By submitting an Entry, you irrevocably grant Co-Sponsors and their agents an unlimited, worldwide, perpetual, unconditional, gratis license and right to edit, modify, adapt, distribute, stream, post, publish, broadcast, reproduce, encode, store, copy, transmit, publicly display, exhibit, and or otherwise develop, use, or reuse (without limitation as to when) the Entry, in whole or in part (in each case, as submitted or as edited/modified in any way by the Co-Sponsors, in their sole discretion) in any way, and may use them now or hereafter devised, worldwide in perpetuity, without attribution, compensation, permission or notification to you, your successors or assigns, or any other entity, and without notice, review, or approval from you or any other party.

Furthermore, although Co-Sponsors are not under any legal or contractual obligation to do so, Co-Sponsors reserve the right to review and/or edit any and all Entry elements deemed by Co-Sponsors, in their sole discretion, to be prohibited, inappropriate, offensive, infringing or otherwise unacceptable. Should Co-Sponsors edit any such elements, you are not relieved from responsibility for compliance with these rules.

By submitting an Entry, you acknowledge that Co-Sponsors have no obligation to use or publicize your submitted Entry.

Entrants also agree to sign all other legal forms deemed necessary by Co-Sponsors to establish Co-Sponsors’ right to use, publish and otherwise display the idea or permit the idea to be used by others. Winners may be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility and a liability and publicity release within a time period specified by the Co-Sponsors. Failure to respond may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate winner.

Subject to the terms and conditions hereof, Co-Sponsors acknowledge that you retain a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free license to use and republish the Entries (including portions thereof). 

Taxes

Any valuation of prize(s) stated above is based on available information and the value of any prize awarded to a Winner may be reported for tax purposes as required by law. Each Winner is solely responsible for reporting and paying any and all applicable taxes related to the prize(s) and paying any expenses associated with any prize that are not specifically provided for in the Official Rules.

LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY AND RELEASE

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• disclaim all liability for the inability of any person to complete or submit an entry or submission due to equipment malfunction, busy lines, inadvertent disconnections, acts beyond our control, or otherwise. For all contests, we disclaim all liability for any delays, misdelivery, loss, or failure in the delivery of any Entry or item. Co-Sponsors are not responsible for mechanical, technical, electronic, communications, telephone, computer, hardware or software errors, malfunctions or failures of any kind, including: failed, incomplete, garbled or delayed transmission of online entries, traffic congestion on telephone lines, the Internet or at any website or lost or unavailable network connections which may limit an online entrant’s ability to participate in the Contest, and any injury or damage to an entrant’s or any other person's computer related to or resulting from participating in or downloading any information necessary to participate in the Contest, or any injury, loss or damage arising from the acceptance, use, misuse of any prize or any prize related travel or activity.

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By participating in the Contest, each entrant waives any and all claims of liability against the Co-Sponsors, its employees and agents for any personal injury or loss which may occur from the conduct of, or participation in, the Contest, including while claiming the prize.

Any waiver of any obligation hereunder by Co-Sponsors does not constitute a general waiver of any of Co-Sponsor’s rights nor a waiver of any obligation required of an entrant.

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Entries are subject to Co-Sponsor Center for American Progress’s privacy policy.

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Except where prohibited, each entrant agrees that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with this Contest or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by a Court of the District of Columbia.

Winners List

To access a winner’s list after the Contest concludes In October/November, 2019 send a self-addressed envelope to Co-Sponsors at:

Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 1016 16th Street NW, Floor 8, Washington, DC 20036

1. From the What Did You Expect Department: A huge number of people turned out for a hiring event looking for bus drivers in Dayton City Schools. Anyone who’s been paying attention around there about the money flowing to school transportation will probably fail to be surprised. (WHIO-TV, Dayton, 7/1/19)
   

2. Some folks are making a big deal over an award given to Fairview Park City Schools, an exurban district (median home price $175,500…just sayin’) not far from Cleveland. It is an award for innovation bestowed by the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) at their recent Model Schools Conference in D.C. According to the news coverage here, ICLE recognizes schools for “change, collectively establishing a vision, and systematically working together to create a learning environment that enables students of all abilities to thrive.” Sounds OK, I guess, but there’s not much meat to that description. And what to make of Fairview Park’s most recent report card in which the district received a C in Achievement, a D in Progress, and a C overall? How does THAT merit an award? When we take a closer look, the answer becomes clear. The criteria for the award are “credible supporting data, passion, student focus, future forward, supportive culture, communication, public relations and branding.” Literally nothing about student achievement or academic growth. Not even the gimme of graduation rate. Passion? Branding? PR? With criteria like that, they should give the award to Chili’s baby back ribs. (Cleveland.com, 7/1/19) And just in case you can stand more of the educational preciousness of this modern day Mayberry, here’s a look at what the district’s support foundation is spending money on this round (one of two rounds each year): Lots of STEM and coding toys, but I am intrigued by the Conflict Resolution Time Machine Mats. Sounds like the planet of the Bougie Time Lords to me. (Cleveland.com, 7/3/19)
   

3. Finally today, we catch up with a story previously discussed back in the spring. The petition by a group of families in Jefferson Township Schools to have their property rezoned to adjacent Valley View Schools was denied by the state board of education. An appeals court ruling this week overruled the state board, charging that members were focused on the wrong things (such as race and money) in their deliberation and decision. The state board has the right to appeal the latest ruling. I hope they don’t. (Dayton Daily News, 7/2/19)

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1. Late last week, Governor DeWine announced two appointees to fill open seats on the state board of education. One of them is Steve Dackin, former superintendent of Reynoldsburg City Schools, current high level administrator at Columbus State Community College, and a member of Fordham’s board of trustees. Sounds like a great get to me, although I could be the teensiest bit biased. No, not because of that. Because my niece and nephew thrived in Reynoldsburg City Schools. (AP, via WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, 6/30/19)
   

2. Fordham is referenced heavily in this piece looking at a proposed change to school report cards contained in the Senate version of Ohio’s next biennial state budget. With numbers and graphs that seemed pretty convincing. If you ask me, those folks quoted in support of the change should also get some graphs. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/28/19)
   

3. Speaking of Ohio’s next biennial budget, this piece from Friday says that there were at the time a number of potential sticking points—including a graduation requirements proposal in whose development Fordham had a hand—that could contrive to make final agreement on the bill very difficult for the House and Senate to reach by the deadline. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/28/19)
   

4. In case you missed it, the good folks at Gongwer were right: final agreement on Ohio’s next biennial budget did end up being impossible to reach by the deadline. And so a 17-day extension of the current budget was agreed to over the weekend. Kind of a bummer, but conference committee will probably resume right after the holiday and everything will eventually work out. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/30/19) Speaking of weekend bummers, it was announced late on Friday that the Youngstown Vindicator will cease publication at the end of August after 150 years of existence. (Youngstown Vindicator, 6/28/19)
   

5. I will have to retract my previous ribbing of the elected board of Dayton City Schools regarding their ability to spend the giant pile of surplus cash on which they are sitting. Any school board that can make it rain to the tune of $4 million on a Saturday in June deserves mad props. But seriously: Can those board members have any lower opinion of high school kids? (Dayton Daily News, 6/29/19) The folks at Preschool Promise are bush league spenders compared to the local school board, but they are trying. They will soon be laying out a larger chunk of their considerable budget to expand the program a little and to get more money to pre-K teachers for pay, bonuses, and training a lot. Plus they did their spending during the regular work week. Aim higher, gang. Aim higher. (Dayton Daily News, 6/29/19)
   

6. Finally today, the new superintendent in Canton City Schools is going to be spending the summer revamping the district’s discipline policy, because, he says that recent discipline problems “whether real or perceived” need to be addressed. The president of the local teacher’s union is all for this new effort. “The teachers in our district relish the opportunity to recommend interventions and alternative settings within the district,” he says. I’m sure he is not exaggerating at all. (Canton Repository, 7/1/19)
   

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A new study of North Carolina public schools finds that black students in charter schools are more likely to have black teachers than their regular public school counterparts, and that the positive effect of “teacher/student racial match” on the test scores of black students is more pronounced in charter than in regular public schools.

Like most good analyses of charter and regular public schools, this report, written by economist Seth Gershenson and published by the Fordham Institute, is an opportunity to learn from the comparison between the charter and regular public school sectors. For instance, the fact that the “match effect,” which is fairly well-established in the literature (e.g., Dee 2005), is stronger in charter schools is fascinating, though a well-informed discussion of the reasons why this may be the case is well outside of my rather modest wheelhouse (there are some possibilities mentioned in the paper’s conclusion). 

I’d actually like to focus briefly on the first finding – that teacher/student racial match is more common for black charter school students. This is the descriptive and arguably less interesting part of the analysis, but it struck me because, like the paper's main finding about the magnitude of the “match effect,” it too raises policy-relevant questions, in this case about why teacher diversity might vary between sectors.

Specifically, Gershenson reports that 35 percent of black charter school students had at least one black teacher between 2007 and 2012, compared with 22 percent of regular public school students.

This may be due in part to within-school assignments (i.e., charter schools may be more likely to assign black students to black teachers). It may also arise if black charter school teachers teach in schools with larger shares of black students than black regular public school teachers (though North Carolina charters overall, unlike those in most states, serve larger proportions of white and non-FRPL-eligible students than do regular public schools in the state).

But the primary reason why racial match for black students is more common in charter schools is most likely the simple fact that charter schools employ more black teachers (as a proportion) than regular public schools, and so black charter school students are more likely to have black teachers.

The differences here are not enormous in absolute terms—roughly 14 percent of charter school teachers statewide are black, compared with about 10 percent of regular public school teachers—but they are certainly large enough to affect the frequency of racial match, at least for black students (white students were no more likely to have white teachers in charter schools than their peers in regular public schools).

Before discussing why this might be the case, it bears mentioning that, despite a couple of news article headlines implying that this is a nationwide phenomenon, it is possible that North Carolina is among the exceptions here. The evidence is admittedly partial, but, for instance, in our 2015 teacher diversity study, which presented detailed data for nine large U.S. cities, regular public schools employed a larger share of black teachers, and a smaller share of white teachers, than did charter schools in five of six cities with available data (the exception was NYC’s small [at the time] charter sector, where black teacher representation was three percentage points higher). There were also well-documented and large decreases in black teacher representation that coincided with charter proliferation in D.C. and New Orleans. 

If you know of any other breakdowns of charter versus regular public school teacher diversity, please leave a comment. Note that national comparisons are not really meaningful in this context. Across the entire U.S., charter school teachers are more diverse than regular public school teachers. Of course they are—charters are concentrated in cities. Meaningful inter-sectoral comparisons really should be made on a location-by-location (or even neighborhood-by-neighborhood) basis, in much the same way that studies of charter versus regular public school test score effects compare schools in the same districts or neighborhoods. State-level comparisons are only interesting in states, such as North Carolina, where the charter and regular public school sectors seem to be relatively comparable in terms of the characteristics of the areas in which they operate, and even then findings should be viewed with caution.

Again, our diversity report is hardly conclusive generalizable evidence on charter versus regular public school teacher diversity (and most of our datasets ended around 2010), but we can actually ask the big question generically: if we found that charter schools in a given location employed a more diverse teacher workforce than nearby public schools, why might this be the case (and what can this teach us about improving teacher diversity in all schools)?

We’ll start with the least satisfying possible answer—it might not have much at all to do with school policies or practices or governance structures. For example, it may simply be the case that charter schools are disproportionately located in labor markets with larger minority populations. This is a particular salient possibility when making aggregate (e.g., state-level) comparisons, as in North Carolina, or, perhaps, in large cities (especially those with smaller charter sectors, where a few schools might sway the overall averages). If, for instance, charters in a given city (or state) were concentrated in certain areas, and those areas were disproportionately black (or white), we might expect to find at least a somewhat larger share of black (or white) teachers working in charters due to little more than location. People tend to live closer to work.

But it is also more than plausible that concrete policies and practices matter, and could help explain any observed differences between sectors. This in turn could provide insight into improving teacher diversity in both sectors, since we’d have diversity variation in the same job, industry, and labor market. Put differently, if the same labor pool is applying for the same type of jobs in the same type of institution in the same place, why would one subset of employers exhibit more diversity than another?

Gershenson raises one possible explanation in the North Carolina context: the fact that charter schools in the state are allowed to hire non-certified teachers. The idea here is that passing rates on certification tests are lower for black teaching candidates, which may be excluding many potentially qualified black teachers from jobs in regular public schools. 

This is a compelling possible explanation, but if this were the major factor, we might expect to find a tendency toward overrepresentation of black teachers in charter schools in other states with laws permitting the hiring of non-certified teachers, all else being equal. The (admittedly scarce) evidence available doesn't support this possibility, though even if we had a large set of race and ethnicity distributions, by sector, all else is not equal—simple bivariate relationships could be misleading (the laws might boost diversity but not enough to overcome all the other factors that have an impact). In any case, it is possible that relaxing certification requirements might improve teacher diversity, but this outcome would of course have to be weighed against the possible costs in terms of teacher qualifications.

Similarly, I’ve heard charter opponents chalk up anecdotes about the lack of diversity among charter school teachers to their reliance on Teach for America and other alternative certification programs (which have been criticized for hiring disproportionately white cohorts of new teachers). This too would be a strong possible explanation if it were true, but I’m not aware of any systematic evidence supporting it (and TFA, to its credit, has reported improvements in the diversity of its teachers).

There may also be more informal institutional mechanisms at work here. For example, state-level oversight or authorizing entities may emphasize and monitor teacher diversity as an expectation, which could generate statewide improvement within charter sectors. But again, this is just a possibility, and such “pressure” is no less likely to be exerted similarly on regular public schools.

Beyond that, to the degree concrete policies and practices are having an impact on teacher diversity in any charter school sector, they are as likely to school- as they are sector- or state-level policies and practices. Part of the idea of charter schools is that they are more independent and autonomous. Districts can implement policies to improve teacher diversity, and these policies would presumably affect all (or at least most) schools in the district. This is less likely to occur within a charter sector, where each school (or chain) would maintain its own hiring practices. From this perspective, it might be as useful to compare teacher diversity within charter sectors as it is to compare between sectors.

(One more implication here: It’s possible that any charter/regular public school discrepancy in teacher diversity is as much about what regular public schools aren’t doing as it is about anything charter schools are doing.)

In any case, the first and most basic step is to compile a more comprehensive set of teacher race and ethnicity distributions, by sector, for more locations, particularly those with large charter sectors. Ideally, the U.S. Department of Education would collect the data for all states as part of its Civil Rights Data Collection. In the meantime, we recently published a report showing that most states do in fact collect teacher race and ethnicity data, including charter schools, so it’s entirely possible that the distributions are already out there for many locations. At the very least, we could get a sense of the situation beyond the highly incomplete evidence discussed above. And, perhaps eventually, we might find actual reasons why some charter sectors’ teachers are more or less diverse than others’ and more or less diverse than nearby regular public schools’.

This is really the question that matters—it’s the why rather than the whether. It’s kind of odd to use comparisons of charter and regular public school teacher race and ethnicity distributions to argue that one type of school is somehow better than the other. If there are concrete policies and practices that are responsible for why charter or regular public schools do better, whether in terms of diversity, test scores, or most anything else, then we’ve reached actionable policy conclusions, and that would be good news for everyone.

This article was originally published by the Albert Shanker Institute.

Legendary actress Meryl Streep recently garnered a considerable amount of media attention during a Vanity Fair panel about the second season of HBO’s series “Big Little Lies.” Much to the surprise of many, Streep was highly critical of the phrase “toxic masculinity,” asserting that the use of it actually “hurts our boys.” She went on to explain that as far as she is concerned, “women can be pretty f—ing toxic,” too.

I’m all in with Meryl on this one. Sure it might be fun to don t-shirts that proclaim “The Future is Female” and Chant “Down with the Patriarchy,” but all of that ignores the very serious red flags—some say crisis—we see among our nation’s boys, especially in school. 

There was a time decades ago when girls trailed boys in math and science and we as a nation deemed that to be unacceptable. Starting in the 1970s, initiatives and organizations sprung up all over the place to help girls catch up. And they did. But as girls began improving in math and science, boys were on a decline that people either ignored or, worse, scoffed at as “just desserts” for those who had unfairly benefited from The Patriarchy.

Girls currently outperform boys academically in virtually every way, starting in elementary school with reading scores that are consistently higher by double digits and the trend persists all the way through high school and college. More girls graduate in the top tenth and second tenth of their classes. They are far more likely to have GPAs equivalent of an A, while far more boys than girls have GPAs that equate to a C or below. There are more girls than boys in AP and honors classes. And women currently outpace men in obtaining associates degrees, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and Ph.D.s.

But none of these remarkable and hard-earned gains by women do anything to mitigate what we have allowed to happen to our boys.

• Boys are more than twice as likely to get suspended from school and almost three times as likely to be expelled. 
• Boys represent two thirds of the special education population. Almost 80 percent of these boys are black and Hispanic.
• Sixty percent of high school dropouts are male. Ninety-three percent of prison inmates are male, and 68 percent of them do not have a high school diploma.
• Eighty-five percent of juvenile offenders are functionally illiterate. Seventy percent of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

These gender disparities in educational outcomes are significant for middle income and white boys, but they are jaw-dropping among black, Latino, and lower-income boys. Black boys are in the direst of straits—nationally, only 10 percent of eighth-grade black boys read at grade level. Black boys are more likely to be suspended and drop out than all other demographic groups. A black boy is six times more likely to end up incarcerated as a white boy and five times more likely than a black girl. 

So where is the outrage from the equity crowd over what is happening with our nation’s boys? If it made sense in the 1970s to begin investing in girls so they could catch up in math and science, it certainly makes sense to do the same for boys in reading and writing, especially considering the indisputable correlation between illiteracy and incarceration.

The pervasive narrative that victim status is reserved for girls may explain the lack of outcry and action to help our boys. Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “The War Against Boys,” wisely warned in 2013 that the “proper corrective to chauvinism is not to reverse it and practice it against males, but rather basic fairness.” She goes on to say that “fairness today requires us to address the serious educational deficits of boys and young men. The rise of women, however long overdue, does not require the fall of men.”

Meanwhile, if we don’t take urgent action, those who proudly proclaim that “the future is female” may just get their wish as they passively sit by and watch the futures of our most marginalized boys destroyed before they’ve even made it out of elementary school.

I dare them to put that on a T-shirt.

This piece originally appeared on the author’s blog, Good School Hunting.

1. Following on with our theme from yesterday, little birdies in the Statehouse are apparently suggesting that changes to the state’s intervention efforts into chronically underperforming schools (a.k.a. ADCs) may be limited in the final budget bill—to a simple moratorium on new declarations of academic distress with no efforts to alter the existing paradigm included. Since this is of primary interest to Dayton City Schools, we’ll let the Daily News tells us about it. (Dayton Daily News, 6/26/19) If this moratorium idea comes to fruition, the three existing ADC-based turnaround efforts would likely continue unchanged until a standalone bill could be put in place to make whatever changes can be decided upon. As you might expect, representatives of at least three of those three ADC districts have concerns about this idea. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/26/19) Meanwhile, the editorial board of the Blade seems to be of two minds on the topic. Which is it you want, gang: Repeal or moratorium? (Toledo Blade, 6/27/19)

2. Certain parts of the I Promise School model are spreading to other buildings in Akron City Schools. Specifically, the family support center providing wraparound services for other members of students’ families along with the students themselves. Staffed and largely funded by the local United Way. Nice. (Akron Beacon Journal, 6/25/19)

3. The legislature’s Joint Education Oversight Committee (“Those guys are still around?” I hear you ask. Yes. They are.) met this week to discuss the Prepared for Success measure on state report cards. As I read this coverage of the testimony, many district school types (no charter or STEM schools are included in testimony, of course) and the legislators agreeing with them are asserting that the measure is “wrong” because very few districts got an A on it. It should therefore either be removed or altered to provide a “more accurate picture”. But it seems to me that the measure is pretty accurate as is; the districts doing well in preparing kids for college are rightly getting As. And if you’re getting an F, you are not preparing enough of your graduates for college. Seems like a quick fix would be renaming the measure “Prepared for College Success”. Then the districts still unhappy could help create a “Prepared for Military Success” or “Prepared for Hospital Porter Success” or “Prepared for Artistic Success” or whatever it is you value instead of college. And then you can make them as accurate as you need to and parents can work out whether they want that kind of success for their kids. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/27/19)

4. Finally today, you all know that I rate Gadfly Bites’ level of influence on a scale of -1 to Abysmal. So it is clearly only a hilarious coincidence that a week after I suggested the elected board of Dayton City Schools might want to throw in the towel if they could not successfully spend down the $100 million surplus upon which they are currently sitting, three sitting members announced they would not run for reelection. (Dayton Daily News, 6/27/19) Luckily for everyone, there is someone in the administration who does know how to spend. Can we demo it? Yes we can! (Dayton Daily News, 6/28/19)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox (in case you want to join the abysmal parade and sign up for such a newsletter)? Subscribe by clicking here.

Real estate agents to the rescue?

Gone, apparently, are the days when everyone “just knew” which schools were good and which were to be avoided. A new piece from Education Dive documents the ways in which traditional districts are attempting to combat the expansion of choice—charters, private schools, interdistrict open enrollment, and the like—by enlisting realtors as direct conduits between their schools and potential home buyers. The Akron suburb of Barberton is put forward as an exemplar of these hard-sell practices. Wonder what you sell if you’re not as good a district as Barberton?

Charter funding in the budget…and under the bright lights of television

Statewide news channel Spectrum News 1 covered the topic of the proposed funding increase for charter schools being debated in the state budget. Chad Aldis’ on-camera interview attempted to make the rather complex nature of charter school funding understandable and communicate the need to provide more support for charters. It wasn’t an easy task.

 Dropout recovery success story in Middletown

Brooklynn Herald’s young life was in shambles. In and out of school, addicted to drugs, living alone, and pregnant as a teenager. Even after getting help for her addiction and safely delivering her baby, she knew her lack of education would hold her back. When she found Marshall High School—a charter school in Middletown—that fear was gone. She found a place where she felt supported and able to succeed in school. Brooklynn recently earned her high school diploma and has a steady job with advancement now in her sights. “A weight has been lifted…” she told The Journal-News. “All of those people who said I couldn’t do anything with my life. We can put that to rest.”

Mini Edisons

The Mohan sisters may be rising sixth graders, but they seem to have a future as talented inventors already in their sights. The Menlo Park Academy students recently displayed their prototypes—one an app-driven water conservation technology and the other an LED traffic safety system—at the National Invention Convention and Entrepreneurship Expo in Dearborn, Michigan.

Constructing a hands-on education

Some confusing information here from a reporter who could use a bit of education on charter schools, but there’s no denying the important alternative illustrated in this story about the Ohio Construction Academy. The charter high school in Columbus, which also includes students up to age 22, currently provides carpentry and electrical training along with its more traditional school curriculum, but its leaders want to expand to include masonry, plumbing, and HVAC as its student body also expands. Kudos, too, to the positive example shown by principal Jennifer Johnston, making personal visits to prospective students to sell her program. No realtor intervention required!

Legislative update

Ohio’s next biennial budget has reached its penultimate phase. Conference committee is in full swing as we publish this and education advocates are eagerly awaiting word on their priority policies. Here is a brief summary of the biggest issues we still would like to see resolved before the bill is completed.

Angélica Infante-Green did not pull any punches when answering questions about a devastating report released yesterday by Johns Hopkins University Institute for Education Policy. When asked to describe the report in a word, she said “heart-wrenching.” And anyone who has read the 93-page report likely knows exactly why she landed on that word.

When asked directly if she would send her own children to a Providence school, Infante-Green was emphatic in her answer: "No. Very clearly, no."

I applaud her for her honesty and my answer would be the same as hers. But what does that mean for the thousands of Providence mothers who have no other choice but to send their children to the school to which they are zoned? We are asking them—actually, the law is forcing them—to do something that we would not do ourselves.

When I asked the question on Twitter, albeit rhetorically, Commissioner Infante-Green responded:

We are going to fight and work hard to change decades of neglect.

— Angelica Infante (@AInfanteGreen) June 26, 2019

Decades of neglect. Say it out loud and then picture the faces of children. That is what has been allowed to happen in our capital city. Unconscionable is another word that comes to my mind. And criminal.

I have long said—and written—that if you aren’t going to ask me to accept an unsafe or chronically underperforming school, then it is wrong to ask any mother to accept it. But the powers-that-be disproportionately expect low-income parents and parents of color to accept conditions that they wouldn’t abide for their own children for one single day.

And we as mothers are complicit by not speaking out on behalf of our fellow mothers (and yes, fathers and other caregivers too!) who are forced to accept deplorable conditions and substandard instruction in the buildings to which they are compelled, by law, to send their children 180 days a year. It’s enough to make any decent person want to throw lifeboats to the 25,000 students quite literally trapped in schools that are failing them. Schools that have failed their communities for generations. Schools that have graduated generations of students who are only partially literate. And barely numerate. Schools that have knowingly set their graduates up to fail.

But where are the lifeboats? Powerful people, largely owned by the teachers unions, will fight to the death to make sure that the parents in Providence have no other options. They will do everything in their power to ensure that new charter schools don’t open and existing ones can’t expand. The higher performing the charter school, the more they lie and the harder they fight against it. Strong student outcomes don’t sway them. Emotional and brave testimony from parents falls on deaf ears—they are faithful to a system no matter how broken it may be, a system in which they would never enroll their own children.

The constraints imposed by the collective bargaining agreement comes up repeatedly throughout the report. But when we talk about moving to a “thin contract”—no more than ten pages, as opposed to the seventy-plus pages we have now—the unions say no way. This far more student-friendly contract that would allow for much greater flexibility around hiring and firing as well as determining the length of the school day and the school year is dead on arrival because way too many of our elected officials live in the pocket of our teachers unions. (Let’s remember that these are the same people who still haven’t gotten a bill passed to make it a crime for teachers to have sex with their students because the NEA and AFT opposed it.)

And let’s all be wary of those elected officials and community leaders who are quick out of the gate to call this a “wake-up call”—while they may not have understood the problems with this much granularity, they certainly knew that PPSD was in crisis and it was allowed to continue on their watch.

Providence is an example of generational failure and for anyone to pretend otherwise is self-serving and dishonest.

The first and hopefully only “wake up call” cliche from a mindless elected official. Disappointing because if ⁦@Jorge_Elorza⁩ did the right thing and quit..this is the successor. pic.twitter.com/JPTLjL96e5

— Dan Yorke (@DanYorkeShow) June 26, 2019

And to all the others who are saying they aren’t surprised by the findings in the report, one must ask: Then where the hell have you been? As Infante-Green pointedly says in her interview with Steph Machado of WPRI, “How can everybody not be surprised and be OK with it?” She goes on to say that, “Everybody here has looked away.” And then she promises that moving forward, “We will not look away.”

And she is right. Those who could have changed this didn’t have the courage to be disruptors. Those who knew children were languishing in failure factories year after year made the calculated choice to play nice for the grown-ups instead of stand up for the kids.

We see you. All of you. Either hang your heads in shame and resign or commit to being part of the solution no matter which special interest groups you upset in the process.

Over the next days and weeks, Good School Hunting will offer commentary on the Johns Hopkins report and we certainly invite guest commentary as well. Twenty-five thousand students’ futures hang in the balance—we are committed to putting what’s best for them at the forefront of every conversation.

Until the next installment on the report, the summary below will give you a sense of the report’s findings.

To read the report in full, click here.

This article was first published on the author’s blog, Good School Hunting.