Gadfly Bites 10/17/22—Let’s face it

We’re back after a Friday break and covering a plethora of news from 10/12 – 10/17/22.

1. Let’s start with the good news. Editors at Vindy.com have some pointed words for legislators and agitators who want to eliminate mandatory retention for third graders who are not proficient readers as measured by state testing. To wit: “We fear without serious repercussions, less and less value will be placed on the results of state testing. Frankly, moving the goal posts is not the correct answer when it comes to educating our children. Let’s face it, in life, performance always is measured. If students aren’t measuring up — even at such an early age — pushing them along to the next grade would do little to prepare them for more arduous work in the future. Doing that certainly would only set them up to fail down the road. Too often, we fall short of maintaining a high bar for our children to surpass in their studies. We firmly believe if expectations are high, children will meet them.” Fantastic! (Vindy.com, 10/16/22)
   
   

2. There are several great features in this extensive piece looking at report card scores of districts across Geauga County. First up is that officials in all districts are quoted in describing the results for the reporter. Second is that several districts have boosted their performance over the last few years and are happy to explain the concrete steps they have taken to get there. (Hint: it involves actually teaching all students to higher levels.) Third is that those with gaps—and even some without—spend time explaining what they are already doing to score better next year. But best of all: the news outlet actually uses stars in showing the report card outcomes! (Geauga Maple Leaf, 10/13/22)
   
   

3. A number of Dayton-area professionals are featured on the first episode of an upcoming PBS series called “WunderSTEM”. While I like this in general, I still have to ask why STEM always has to “look like” something else—escape rooms, murder mysteries, or an episode of “Dirty Jobs” in this case. Why can’t science and math just look like science and math? (Dayton Daily News, 10/14/22)
   
   

4. A very brief note, here, but it seems that charter school Utica Shale Academy is on the grow again! And that’s very good news. (WTOV-TV, Steubenville, 10/13/22)
   
   

5. And this is where the good news ends. This piece is about a classical education charter school proposed for Athens, Ohio, and has so many axes it wants to grind it needs more than 1800 words to do so. But we can get the gist within the first 260 words, stopping when we are told that charter schools were “legalized” in Ohio in the 1990s. As if they were happening on the sly before some dastardly legislative maneuver occurred to give them legitimacy. It goes on predictably from there. (WOUB-TV, Athens, 10/12/22)
   
   

6. Here’s another rib-tickler. At the same time that the Columbus Dispatch was busting the big scandal of school safety problems in Columbus City Schools (like the scourge of theater stages without glowtape)—published just ahead of (and a little during) the teachers strike—it turns out that they were also collecting the same data on other area districts as well. Turns out that Columbus is not the worst of them all—quelle surprise—but apparently we didn’t need to know that until now. Wonder why? (Columbus Dispatch, 10/13/22)
   
   

7. Speaking of strategic timing of stuff (were we?), South-Western City Schools appears to finally have a process in place to get every student a laptop. Only the tiniest bit late. (ThisWeek News, 10/13/22)
   

8. Honestly, it feels like the folks at South-Western needed all those additional years to create the most complicated and bureaucratic version of a 1:1 laptop program possible. A similar vibe permeates this saddest of stories for today: The Ohio Department of Education reports that parental uptake of Afterschool Child Enrichment Educational Savings Accounts continues to lag far behind expectations. The extra-long rollout is partially to blame, but I reckon the layers of bureaucracy and hoops can’t have helped. (Gongwer Ohio, 10/14/22)

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