- Arne Duncan was in Columbus yesterday. Before the main event, he answered a couple of quick questions on Common Core from Cleveland public media. (IdeaStream)
- The main purpose of Secretary Duncan’s visit was addressing the second Rural Education National Forum. Seems that the concerns of the group haven’t changed much since last year (lack of resources, high teacher turnover, insufficient access to technology, etc.) but through the work of the Ohio Appalachian Collaborative and the Straight-A Fund, some strides have been made. (Columbus Dispatch)
- Newark is not exactly rural, but neither is it suburban. It is a small city with big-city issues, and it is one of many in Ohio. One out-of-the-box effort in Newark City Schools to serve students at risk of dropping out is the district-sponsored charter e-school Newark Digital Academy. NDA was one of four Charter School of the Year winners from the Oho Alliance of Public Charter Schools, based on some very good report card numbers last year. Nice. (Newark Advocate)
- We first told you this strange tale a few weeks ago: the School District who Wouldn’t Sell. Despite a solid offer, Monroe Schools’ board would not sell their mothballed high school to a local church. They instead opted for an auction…in which the church was the highest bidder. The results were nullified. This has gone on for several years. Now another offer from the church to buy the building, demo/renovate, and offer swing space to the district as needed has come under the scrutiny of a DC-based organization on church-state grounds. Sounds like a giant mess getting messier. (Middletown Journal News)
- Man, I thought they got the message on this one already! There was a student walkout at West Geauga High School yesterday – 300 students in support of the district’s current open enrollment policy, which is being reviewed, again, by the board. As you may remember, the district had a twinge of conscience at the end of last school year, concerned that they were taking students (and money) from neighboring districts via open enrollment…despite the fact that it’s the parents’ choice. Initially, the board voted to put a cap on the number of students who could use open enrollment, but when that resulted in current students being kicked out of their school, the resulting protest convinced the board to relent and let everyone back in. I said at the time that parents should ask whether they actually felt welcome in their adoptive district after all this. And here we are again six months later. The three options under consideration by the board are: stop open enrollment all together (as in, kick out everyone), stop new open enrollments but let all current students stay (oh, thank you sooo much), or keep on keepin’ on (grudgingly, I assume). Oy vey. (Willoughby News Herald)
