Cheers

• Discredited reading programs are losing both prestige and money. —Emily Hanford, APM Reports
• “The narrow case against phones in school is clearly right.” —Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring
• Proposed legislation in Washington, D.C. would allow more aggressive prosecution of teens and their parents to resolve truancy cases. —Washington Post
• Auto-enrollment policies in North Carolina and Texas won a “March Math-ness” bracket of innovative education policies. —Jim Cowen, The 74
• One Brooklyn charter school is experimenting with twelve-hour school days. —New York Times
• In 1978, a teacher promised his class that he’d host a party for the solar eclipse in 2024. This week, he made good on that promise. —Washington Post

Jeers

• The Heritage Foundation released a plan to prohibit undocumented children from receiving free public school educations. —Chalkbeat
• Seattle hopes to phase out advanced schools by the 2027–28 school year. —Emma Camp, Reason
• “Disparate Impact Thinking Is Destroying Our Civilization.” —Heather Mac Donald, Imprimis

• “Plans for first religious charter school in the U.S. considered by Oklahoma Supreme Court” —Chalkbeat
• Researchers have highlighted the missing piece in many science-of--reading laws: content knowledge. —Education Week
• A documentary about Girls State reveals existing gender stereotypes and the wherewithal of the next generation. —Shirley Li, The Atlantic
• Two researchers debate the value of apprenticeships and the college-for-all models of postsecondary education. —Ryan Craig and Ben Wildavsky, Education Next

To gauge the magnitude of global learning loss during the pandemic, a team at the World Bank examined data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 2018–2022, which tests fifteen-year-olds in math, reading, and science. Among the report’s many notable insights is a counterintuitive finding about math outcomes: in countries with the longest closures, high-achieving students experienced larger learning losses than their low- and medium-achieving peers.

Harry Anthony Patrinos, one of the authors, explained it like this in a Fordham Institute piece last month:

In countries with school closures of average duration—about 5.5 months—learning losses were similar for low-, average-, and high-achieving students. However, in countries with shorter closures, the best students experienced minimal setbacks, with the learning losses mostly being incurred by average- and low-achieving students. In countries with longer closures, the largest learning losses were experienced by high-achieving students.

And these achievement drops were sizable. “In countries with the longest closures, the low-achieving students lost around 16–17 points [on PISA’s score scale] or 20 percent of a SD,” note the authors, “while those at the top of achievement distribution lost 25 points or more (29 percent of a SD).” One-quarter of a standard deviation is approximately equal to a year’s worth of learning. (See figure 1, from the report.)

Figure 1. Learning loss estimates depending on student achievement quantiles and the length of closures

The U.S., at least as a whole, avoided this outcome, despite there being very lengthy closures in some places. Our learning losses by achievement group match the OECD average, Patrinos told me, meaning our low achievers lost more than our high achievers. But perhaps that’s because decisions were so locally determined and politically charged, with, for example, big red states like Florida and Texas keeping kids in classrooms far more than big blue states like California and New York. Indeed, because of this state autonomy, the U.S. was only one of three countries in the report that had zero “full closures,” per UNESCO, which defined these as “government-mandated closures of educational institutions affecting most or all of the student population” and tracked them worldwide throughout the pandemic.

Whatever the causes are, however, they’re beyond the scope of the report and my powers of divination, and speculation has limited value. Some takeaways and consequences, however, are worth exploring.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that being in school appears to be quite valuable for the learning of high achievers. This runs counter to cynical assumptions that these students attain their level of achievement primarily because of out-of-school factors, like household income, parent education level, and various forms of evening, weekend, and summer enrichment. Of course these things play a significant role, but the report’s findings suggest that classroom instruction is integral to the magnitude of their achievement.

If what happens in school matters for high achievers even more than for others, it follows that these students will not be fine regardless of the type of instruction that they receive. If formal schooling benefits high achievers this much, then the quality of that schooling—teachers, curriculum, rigor, etc.—likely matters greatly, as well. This is another way of saying that advanced education programs designed to maximize the achievement of these students are worth pursuing, and efforts to curb or scrap them are quite damaging.

Think of what these learning losses among high achievers mean for them, their nations, and the world.

First, the students themselves. Each and every child deserves an education that meets their needs and enhances their futures. They have their own legitimate claim on our conscience, our sense of fairness, and our policy priorities. When ill-considered policies and adult preferences led to pandemic-related school closures in many countries that were far longer and more numerous than necessary, all students were harmed, but none worse than those who had been high achievers.

Other significant costs were levied against countries’ (and perhaps U.S. states’) long-term competitiveness, security, and innovation—which translates to global impacts, too. High achievers are the young people most apt to become tomorrow’s leaders, scientists, and inventors, and to solve our current and future critical challenges. Most economists agree that a nation’s economic vitality depends heavily on the quality and productivity of its human capital and its capacity for innovation. While the cognitive skills of all citizens are important, that’s especially the case for high achievers. Using international test data, for example, economists Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann estimate that a “10 percentage point increase in the share of top-performing students” within a country “is associated with 1.3 percentage points higher annual growth” of that country’s economy, as measured in per-capita GDP.

Recall that the World Bank’s PISA analysis focused on math scores. Considerable research suggests that “math skills better predict future earners and other economic outcomes than other skills learned in high school,” and as the Wall Street Journal has observed in reference to U.S. NAEP results, “math proficiency in eighth grade is one of the most significant predictors of success in high school.” This suggests that the huge drops shown in the PISA data may reverberate through the rest of these students’ lives, their countries’ futures, and even the fate of the globe.

Bottom line: We don’t dare minimize the importance of formal education, and by extension, the value of advanced programming for high achieving students. At a time when these opportunities are under attack, schools have lost their sense of purpose, and our relationship with education seems to have become optional, this is an important and sobering reminder of these truths.

Last January, during his 2023 state of the state address, Governor DeWine pledged to invest additional state funding in career and technical education (CTE) programs. These programs, which blend career training and academic coursework, provide students with opportunities to earn industry-recognized credentials and college credit and can be used as a pathway to a high school diploma. They are also an integral part of Ohio’s career pathways efforts, which aim to ensure that students are well-prepared for what comes after high school, whether it be college or career.

In his address, the governor noted that many of Ohio’s career centers lack the “modern, up-to-date equipment” and facilities needed to teach certain courses. He promised to address this by investing millions in one-time funding for CTE equipment and capital improvements, and he followed through in his budget recommendations for FY 2024 and 2025. The final budget, which was signed into law in July, allocated $100 million toward CTE equipment upgrades along with another $200 million for the Career-Technical Construction Program.

Over the last several months, the state has begun to distribute these funds. In November, Governor DeWine and Lieutenant Governor Husted announced which districts would be awarded funding under the Career-Technical Construction Program. Of the fifty-nine districts that applied, thirty-five were awarded funds. The majority (twenty-four) were Joint Vocational School Districts (JVSDs), which are independent school districts that primarily offer CTE programming. Four comprehensive districts (traditional districts that provide CTE programming at schools or career centers within their boundaries) and seven compact districts (groups of districts that collaborate and combine resources to offer students CTE programming) also received awards.

These dollars will be used to build and expand classrooms and training centers. And according to the state, this investment should result in 3,719 additional seats for students. The majority of these seats fall into three programs: construction and engineering, manufacturing and operations, and healthcare. Northeast Ohio will receive the biggest investment, with over $84 million being distributed to fifteen districts. Among the thirty-five grantees, the following five received the highest funding amounts.

More recently, the administration announced the recipients of the first round of funding[1] for the $100 million Career-Technical Education Equipment Grant Program. This program is designed to award competitive grants to schools for equipment, instructional materials, facilities, and operational costs. To be eligible, schools must plan to offer a qualifying CTE program that supports a career on Ohio’s Top Jobs list or a qualifying credential program from the Innovative Workforce Incentive Program list. Under the first round of funding, fifty-six schools will receive grants that total more than $67.7 million. The state estimates that this funding should expand CTE access to an additional 10,345 students. The following seven schools received awards of $2.5 million, the highest amount provided to recipients in this round.

Given that these grants have only recently been awarded, it’s too soon to know what their true impact will be. But the state estimates that over 14,000 additional students will be able to access CTE, and that’s worthy of praise. Going forward, though, state lawmakers must shift their attention toward student outcomes. Significant taxpayer investment, along with the potential of high-quality CTE, make it crucial for the state to keep a close eye on the short- and long-term impacts of these programs. Adding more access and capacity is a great first step. But having more seats only matters if those seats ensure that more students master the knowledge and skills they need to secure in-demand, well-paying jobs.

A recent Columbus Dispatch article revealed stunningly low enrollment rates in several Columbus City Schools’ buildings. Columbus Preparatory School for Boys and Columbus Scioto 6-12, for instance, operate at less than 30 percent of their enrollment capacities. Six more schools are less than half full.

That’s alarming on a couple levels. First, maintaining severely underenrolled schools is a terrible use of public funds. The district is spending far more taxpayer dollars than necessary on staffing, utilities, maintenance, and transportation just to keep these facilities open. Airlines don’t operate routes that are routinely half-empty; manufacturers don’t keep factories running in the face of plummeting demand. If they did this, they’d go bankrupt. While school systems don’t go out of business, they shouldn’t be operating facilities at half capacity, either, as it consumes dollars that could be allocated to better uses or requires them to seek additional taxpayer funding.    

Beyond dubious fiscal management, the article also raises questions about whether Columbus City Schools is following a state law that requires districts to offer underutilized facilities to public charter schools. Under this provision, a district must offer—for lease or sale—a vacant facility or one that is at less than 60 percent of capacity to local charter schools.[1]

These provisions are perfectly sensible. Districts shouldn’t be hoarding taxpayer-funded classroom space that could be put to use by other educational entities. Columbus’s charter schools enjoy swelling enrollments thanks to booming parental demand—they’ve increased by 11.4 percent from 2018–19 to 2023–24—and many of them would benefit from having access to affordable, purpose-built facilities that allow them to meet rising demand.

Districts are required to offer these facilities in the year after they are identified as vacant or underutilized. So one explanation for this seemingly obvious violation of state law is that Columbus’s underenrolled schools this year were at more than 60 percent capacity in 2022–23 and not officially identified. As table 1 indicates, that isn’t the case. The underenrolled schools identified by the Dispatch for the 2023–24 school year were at less than 60 percent capacity in 2022–23, as well.

Table 1: Underenrolled school buildings operated by Columbus City Schools

Perhaps Columbus City Schools offered these schools behind the scenes to charters, but no one sought to purchase or lease them. Maybe so, but it’s also possible that the district is playing games, something that doesn’t seem far-fetched, given the anti-charter sentiment in the district and past efforts to keep facilities away from charters. Without much transparency, it’s hard to know what has or has not happened.

It shouldn’t be this way. Next school year, Columbus should make widely known that its underutilized facilities are available for purchase or lease to charters. State legislators—having seen a seemingly obvious violation of the law—should step up and revise the law in ways that leave no question that districts are actually offering such buildings to charters.

Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars means ensuring that publicly funded buildings are cared for and well used. When districts aren’t making adequate use of a building, they should offer the space to another educational institution. It’s the law. And it’s also the right thing to do, as communities benefit when charters have the capacity to serve more families and students.

The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) began in the mid-1960s as a direct result of school desegregation efforts in Boston. Originally christened “Operation Exodus,” 400 Black students from the Roxbury neighborhood whose families were fed up with foot-dragging from desegregation opponents enrolled themselves in mostly White schools with surplus capacity in surrounding suburbs. The entire history is worth reading, but the upshot is that the protest action eventually became a formal, structured voluntary interdistrict school choice program. Today, it serves 3,150 Boston students—nearly all of them Black or Hispanic—who attend 190 schools in thirty-three suburban districts. A January report from Tufts University researcher Elizabeth Setren examines the long-term impacts of METCO participation on student academic and behavioral outcomes.

METCO supplied application and award data for K–12 students between the 2002–03 and 2019–20 school years. Applicants were matched to Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s administrative data for school enrollment, demographics, and K–12 outcomes (MCAS test scores, attendance, suspensions, etc.) through the 2022-23 school year. The National Student Clearinghouse provided college outcomes data, which include any matched applicants who were eighteen to twenty-two years old between 2002 and 2022. Earnings and unemployment data from the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance cover 2010 to 2023 and exclude individuals with federal and military jobs, those who are self-employed, and those in jobs located outside of Massachusetts. Additional applicant demographic data come from the Massachusetts Department of Vital Records. The sample includes approximately 20,000 students who applied to METCO and entered first grade in the state between 2002–03 and 2016–17.

Frustratingly, no specific number of accepted or non-accepted students is provided for either comparison group. However, Setren does give us lots of details on how she set up the comparisons between applicants who were offered a spot in a suburban school via lottery and those who were not. These include using a two-stage least squares analysis to estimate the effect of actual METCO participation (versus simply an intent-to-treat effect) and controls to adjust for the fact that some suburban schools pause acceptance in certain years which could limit the comparability of participant and non-participant cohorts in and after those pause years.

Almost 50 percent of Black students in Boston applied to METCO during the study period, and about 20 percent of Hispanic students did so, as well. The full sample of applicants is almost evenly split between boys and girls, but slightly more girls than boys ultimately participated. Setren tells us those with and without offers have similar neighborhood characteristics, health at birth, family structure, income status at birth, and parental education level. Most students apply in kindergarten or first grade, with a sharp fall-off after that, despite METCO applications being open to all grades. Just under 50 percent of those who receive K–1 offers remain in METCO schools until graduation.

Setren found substantial positive impacts for METCO participants almost across the board. By tenth grade, participants score 50 percent closer to the state average for math and two-thirds closer to the state average for ELA than their non-participant peers. Participating in METCO increases SAT taking by 30 percent and increases the likelihood of scoring 1000 or higher by 38 percent. Participation also significantly increases the likelihood students meet the state’s Competency Determination graduation requirement. However, students are not more likely to score above a 1200 on the SAT, and METCO participation showed no impact on AP exam taking or scores. Impact patterns are similar in all thirty-three suburban districts that accept Boston students.

As far as non-academic outcomes, the program lowers the likelihood students are suspended by about one-third for middle and high school grades and two-thirds for elementary grades. METCO participation increases attendance by two to four days a year (despite the farther travel distance to school every day), halves the high school dropout rate, and increases on-time high school graduation by 10 percentage points over non-participants. Long-term, attending suburban METCO schools increases four-year college enrollment by 17 percentage points, though it has no impact on enrollment in the most competitive colleges. METCO participation also results in a 6-percentage-point increase in four-year college graduation rates and leads to increased earnings and employment in Massachusetts between ages twenty-five and thirty-five.

Additionally, Setren finds no disruptive effect of having METCO participants in the grade cohort on suburban students’ MCAS test scores, attendance rates, or suspension rates. Having METCO peers does not change the proportion of a suburban student’s classmates that are suspended, regardless of the concentration of METCO students in a given grade or class. These findings are also consistent across all thirty-three suburban districts.

Do these findings indicate that suburban schools are clearly “better” than Boston Public Schools, and that METCO families are accessing “stronger” options outside the city? This and other research show that METCO students are doing far better than their peers who remain in Boston. But they do not appear, as a group, to be reaching the same performance levels as their suburban-resident classmates. Setren doesn’t look into the usual suspects like per-pupil spending, teacher pay, or teacher quality, but she does provide some interesting evidence off the beaten track. She notes that METCO participation moves students from schools where about half of graduates enroll in a four-year college to schools where about three-fourths pursue a four-year degree, and posits that this could be a key mechanism. It is likely that a strong college-going culture permeates these suburban districts—from solid literacy and numeracy foundations in elementary school, to systematic math pathways and strong extracurriculars in middle school, to ACT/SAT prep, transcript burnishing, and FAFSA support in high school. If one or more of these factors is missing or de-emphasized in a non-METCO student’s urban school, this could account for some of the outcome gaps observed.

Even more interestingly, positive outcomes for METCO students—including MCAS performance and college enrollment—occur even though they are more likely to be tracked into lower-performing classes than their non-METCO peers. It seems likely that high expectations for all students, including mastery of lower-level material before moving on to the next academic challenge, is also baked into the culture of these suburban schools. More research is needed to get to the bottom of this, particularly comparisons between METCO students and their suburban-resident classmates as well as the specific school factors that might be at play. But the fact remains that decades after the bold individual action that created METCO, Black and Hispanic parents in Boston are seeking out this systemic option in large numbers today—and students lucky enough to win the lottery are reaping quantifiable rewards.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Setren, “Impacts of the METCO Program,” The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Tufts University (January 2024).

Last year, the state budget set aside $20 million for the Governor’s Merit Scholarship. This program, which officially launched in December, aims to incentivize Ohio’s top high school graduates to remain in Ohio to attend college rather than enrolling in universities out of state. State leaders designed the program in light of data indicating that more than a third of Ohio’s highest-achieving high school graduates attend college in another state each year, and roughly two-thirds of all college students stay to work in the state from which they graduate. This scholarship could help convince talented high school grads to stay in the Buckeye State. But with a little tweaking, it could also help bolster Ohio’s teacher pipeline.

Under current law, the Governor’s Merit Scholarship provides up to $20,000 in financial assistance over four years to seniors in Ohio’s public and private high schools[1] who graduate in the top 5 percent of their class.[2] The scholarship can be used to cover not just tuition and fees, but also other educational expenses, such as books, room and board, or transportation costs. By expanding it to provide an additional $5,000 per year—making the scholarship worth $40,000 total over the course of four years—to students who pursue teaching degrees at an accredited college or university in the state, Ohio could incentivize its best and brightest to teach.

Limiting eligibility to high-performing students is important, as research indicates that teachers who were excellent students produce high student achievement. But there are several other reasons why policymakers should consider this expansion.

First, research indicates that having student debt can motivate graduates to choose substantially higher-salary jobs and, as a result, reduce the likelihood that they will choose to work in “low-paid, public interest” jobs like education. Establishing a statewide scholarship program aimed at making college more affordable for prospective teachers could help, as it would cover the majority of tuition and fees at several public colleges and universities—including Kent State University, Ohio State University, and Wright State University. Students would still need to cover the cost of room and board. But with other financial-aid options available (like the federal TEACH grant, Pell grants, the Ohio College Opportunity Grant, or college-specific scholarships), future teachers could have a significant chunk of their college education paid for.

Second, making college more affordable for prospective teachers could help address teacher shortages. It’s difficult to grasp the true size and scope of Ohio’s shortages because the state doesn’t (but should) collect data on teacher vacancies. But the data that are available point to several problems, including that fewer young people are entering the profession. A host of possible reasons explain this decline, including concerns about low pay that are compounded by the looming specter of student loan debt. An increasing number of teenagers are deciding to forgo college, and nationally representative surveys of high school students indicate that cost is the primary reason why. Mitigating some of those costs is crucial for talented students who could succeed in college but are choosing to steer clear because of student loans.

Third, there’s evidence that state-funded scholarship programs like this can have a positive impact. The Choose Ohio First scholarship program was created in 2007 to help strengthen Ohio's competitiveness within STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. It does so by awarding funding to Ohio colleges and universities, which then provide competitive scholarships and work-based learning experiences to students who are seeking a certificate or associate, bachelor’s, or graduate degree in eligible STEM disciplines. Thanks in part to this program, the number of STEM degrees awarded at Ohio’s public colleges and universities has increased from over 26,000 total students in 2008 to more than 39,000 total students in 2023.

Given the outsized importance of teachers to Ohio’s future, state policymakers should consider adding one important caveat to the program: Students who receive a teacher scholarship must work in an Ohio school for at least five years once they’ve graduated. As the U.S. Department of Education does with TEACH Grant recipients, those who leave the classroom prior to meeting their obligation will have the teacher portion of their scholarship converted to loan. In Ohio, the converted loan could be prorated according to how many years the individual spent in the classroom. For example, a teacher who taught for three years before leaving the classroom would only be required to repay 40 percent of their scholarship amount.

To bolster Ohio’s teacher pipeline, state leaders and lawmakers need to develop a comprehensive package of incentives and initiatives. Establishing a teacher scholarship program is an important first step, as it could help encourage Ohio’s best and brightest students to pursue teaching careers. Moreover, it would send a clear message that policymakers are paying attention to the teacher pipeline—and that they’re willing to invest in it because they recognize the value of teachers.

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1. Let’s just start Eclipse Day with a bang, shall we? Lucy Calkins, professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College (among other things, ahem) had a bone or two to pick with our own Aaron Churchill’s recent editorial on Ohio’s science of reading efforts. So she dropped her own op-ed in the Beacon Journal yesterday doing just that. (Akron Beacon Journal, 4/7/24) Meanwhile, on a bonus episode of the podcast Sold a Story, dropped over the weekend, this very situation was dissected in quite a bit of detail…including the pivotal Ohio connection. (Sold a Story podcast, 4/7/24)
   
   

2. Two STEM educators from Steubenville City Schools were rockstar guests it seems at the National School Boards Association conference over the weekend. Why? Because they were presenting, among other things, the popularity and success of their district’s long-standing aviation program. This includes, ultimately, drone pilot certification and actual pilot’s licenses for interested students, but it starts in pre-K and infuses math, science, physics, and aviation basics throughout the curricula. “They need to know the math,” said presenter Natalie Campana, “or they know it won’t turn out very well.” And she should know, since she’s the district’s aviation instructor and a certified pilot and flight instructor herself. Awesome! (GovTech, 4/7/24) Meanwhile, down on the ground, the tiny local newspaper tells us that three of the district’s buildings and the Steubenville district itself have all earned five-star awards for their high-flying state report cards in the 2022-23 school year. (Steubenville Herald-Star, 4/8/24)

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Credit enhancement is necessary

Charter schools in Ohio have long had difficulty accessing purpose-built school facilities—purchasing unused district buildings, retrofitting other spaces, or building new spaces from scratch—despite many years of effort. Several other states are way ahead of Ohio in providing affordable financing options for supporting charter facility creation and expansion. Fordham’s Aaron Churchill looks at five of these states—Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Texas, and Utah—and distills some lessons Ohio should take from their successful approaches.

Going to court in California

The California Charter Schools Association this week filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), challenging the district’s new policy aiming to limit charter co-locations within hundreds of district buildings. “Families choose to send their children to LAUSD charter public schools because they have found programs uniquely tailored to their needs,” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the Association. “This policy limits options for those parents among the most vulnerable” all across the city.

Business as usual in Michigan

West Bloomfield Public Schools’ Roosevelt Elementary in suburban Detroit is 104 years old, unused for the last two years, and in dire need of repair. No schools want to buy it, but the elected school board voted last month to demolish it rather than sell it to anyone else because, as the district treasurer told a state legislative committee, “there is a chance” that developers “could flip it to a parochial school, to a private school, Montessori or a charter.” She concluded that “we simply cannot afford to have it become a competing school.” Very familiar rhetoric to Ohioans—the quiet part out loud. Preservationists immediately filed an injunction to stop the demo, but that was lifted by a judge yesterday. Demolition will likely begin soon.

Editors speak

The Editorial Board of The Detroit News include the Roosevelt situation among their long list of “anti-charter” activities happening at the local and state level across the Wolverine State. They note the enduring—and growing—popularity of charters among Michigan families and all around the country and that “anti-charter bias is in conflict with [Gov.] Whitmer’s stated goal of attracting more families” to the state. “Parents of school aged children,” they conclude starkly, “won’t come to a state where the only choice they have for educating their children is a poorly performing public school system.” Wowza!

Lawsuit settled in Florida

As we discussed last week, Florida’s Palm Beach County school board voted this week to approve a settlement ending a lengthy legal fight over money raised by a 2018 property tax increase that was not shared with charter schools as required. The settlement will distribute $54 million, divided among 45 charters, after five long years.

In the Oklahoma Supreme Court

This week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the constitutionality of a proposed virtual charter school created by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa—what would likely become the nation’s first religious charter school. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School is scheduled to open its electronic doors to students in August and supporters hope the court will render its decision very soon so that progress toward that opening won’t be slowed.

*****

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• Now this is more like it: Lots of clips today and, better yet, lots for me to say about them. First up is the announcement that an arts magnet school student won the Lima area Civics Bee competition last week. She probably had to design her own victory certificate too. (Lima News, 4/3/24)
  
  

• This seems OK, I guess. I mean, kids getting fresh (and free) new hairstyles ahead of state testing isn’t a bad thing. But surely the district’s slogan for the event should be the grammatically correct “test well”. Shouldn’t it? (Springfield News-Sun, 4/3/24)
  
  

• Per their desperate request, the State of Ohio has placed Mt. Healthy City School District under “fiscal emergency”—the highest level of financial oversight possible—effective immediately. We have noted previously that their projected deficit amount keeps changing (it’s $10.8 million today), but the bleeding stops now. (Well, within 120 days or so, given bureaucracy’s pace.) But if anyone in charge in that district thinks that “float a levy” is going to be the first, or even the 29th, option the oversight commission will recommend to solve the problem, I have some cryptocurrency y’all might be interested in. And it would be just as likely to come out to your benefit as another try at the ballot box would. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 4/5/24)
  
  

• OMG! Did you know there’s a public affairs program on TV news in Cleveland called “Ohio Has Issues”? (I know, right?!) The only thing more delightful than its title is its quirky format. The normally-authoritative news anchors are recast in the mold of Joe Regular and Jane Random, two normal folks (are they a married couple? neighbors? coworkers around the water fountain at Sherwin Williams?) chatting about something they read in the local print news. (In this case, it’s Laura Hancock’s recent pieces on the EdChoice voucher expansion from the PD/Cleveland.com.) The “so tell me all about X, of which I clearly know nothing,” interviews that follow are supposed to provide answers to whatever questions our proxy normals had after reading and discussing the perplexing news. I didn’t learn anything new from the interview with School Choice Ohio boss Eric “Yitz” Frank (except the origin of his nickname, which was revealed as part of a cringey ad-lib once Joe and Jane were back live), but Jane sure did: “Cleveland schools have had universal voucher eligibility for decades.” “Really?!” “And East Cleveland has too, for many years due to poor academic performance.” “Huh!” I could go on, but I think you know enough to either want to watch it all immediately—including the follow-up interview with Voucher-Groucher-in-Chief Bill Phillis (which was set up the same way but turned out very differently)—or to simply move on and try to forgive me for shattering your blissful ignorance of this show up until today. (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 4/3/24)
  
  

• Boss Groucher is also on the opinion page of the Dispatch this morning, touting some of the same points against vouchers as above (the only ones they have, I think), but veering off on several other topics as well. (Columbus Dispatch, 4/5/24) I assume Bossman was at this in-person voucher groucher event too—held earlier this week in the highest-dollar, highest-performing school district in central Ohio (just sayin')—but he was not included among the interviewees. Don't worry though. They produced the proper talking points just fine on their own. (NBC4i, Columbus, 4/3/24)

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