Gadfly Bites 10/16/24—Overcomplicating things

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. Just sayin’.

1. Chad Aldis, J.D., is in the house! He discusses various aspects of the rhetorical dust up (not yet a legal one, but highly likely) over state funding recently awarded to religious private schools for facilities projects. Was the move unconstitutional? Chad doesn’t think so: “The long-time purpose of capital budgets is for community projects and things that benefit individual communities. And regardless of one's position is on private schools or religious schools, I think these institutions do play very important roles in their communities.” Does he think a formal legal challenge to the awards will come anyway? “People are questioning whether it’s legal and they have every right to do that.” So…yeah. (Gongwer Ohio, 10/14/24)
   
   

2. Aaron Churchill, S.R.C.G.*, is also in the house! He discusses Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s report card results for this year. This includes his preference for data-based accountability systems over a “vibes-based” version and the importance of the Progress Component for really showing how most Cleveland schools are performing. Good stuff. (Signal Cleveland, 10/16/24) *State Report Card Guru™
    
3. We learned in yesterday’s meeting of the Columbus City Schools’ board that they have hired an outside consultant to help them move forward on their school closure process. The Dispatch article is concerned about how much he’ll be charging (whatever it is, it’s too much; I would have done it for you for bus fare). Of more concern to me are the wishy-washy comments of several elected board members regarding the process writ large—which has already gone on too long with nothing to show but a list of school names on paper and a whole lot of electronic ink spilled. They are making things too complicated, I reckon, and I get the impression it’s being done that way on purpose. (Columbus Dispatch, 10/16/24) Speaking of overcomplication, the elected board that runs Dayton City Schools has engaged some outside folks for a project—at what seems a reasonable price, given other recent district spending patterns—but this still feels like a waste of time and money to me for several reasons. The stated goal is “creating a space where students in the district can graduate ready to work in well-paying jobs in the area” which, if you ask me (they did not—no one ever does) actually has a very simple solution that can be implemented without spending any additional money: Teach your kids to a higher standard. Take it from me for free—if your high schoolers are good at math and writing and science, they’ll find colleges and employers clamoring to claim them before they even graduate. The other problem is that the actual goal—what their consultants will be producing for them—is some kind of “durable system” (of…something) that is intended to stay in place even as boards and superintendents and central office staffers change. As the current supe explains it, “[W]hat can we put in place that outlasts people?” To which I say: All the money in the world will not Dayton City Schools anything like that, sir. And even if you get it, it will have no positive impact on your students whatsoever. (Dayton Daily News, 10/15/24)
   
   

4. Here’s a brief but very nice profile of Lorain Bilingual School and one of the charter school’s teachers. Not that you’d know it was a charter school based on this piece. But I know you know, and that’s all we can hope for for now. (Spectrum News 1, 10/14/24)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.