- Both Fordham and the Ohio Education Association are thinking about how to strengthen the teacher workforce in our state—both in terms of retaining current teachers and recruiting good new ones. Here’s a look at the two sets of recommendations side-by-side in an excellent Gongwer review. (Gongwer Ohio, 9/30/22) The full Fordham report is available here for your perusal. Personally I feel the ¢ontra$t between them i$ very ¢lear, but if you simply must take your own look at the union’s re¢ommendation$ on their own without Fordham’s Jessica Poiner stating her case at the same time, Ohio public media’s got you covered. (Ideastream, 9/30/22)
- Officials at Akron’s I Promise School and the LeBron James Family Foundation discussed its recent report card data… (Akron Beacon Journal, 10/2/22) …as did officials at Greenon Local School district. I feel like both of these reports could use a bit more detail re: problem, solution, timeline, and responses to that data. This is important stuff, folks. (Springfield News-Sun, 9/29/22)
- Here’s an update from the field on Ohio’s effort to boost computer science learning for students. While the student quoted here seems happy with it, the 23-year veteran computer science teacher (a contemporary piece on the state of the art in 1999 can be found here and includes the words “America Online”, “Prodigy”, and “Compaq”) seems more skeptical. Given that these are the same folks who by and large did not do well in a pivot to online learning for more than two years, I think we should probably listen to Dubious Dr. Dave and not expect too much from the effort just yet. (Dayton Daily News, 10/2/22) Speaking of which, here’s an update on some of the new technology being rolled out in Cleveland Metropolitan School District over which we were tee-heeing on Wednesday. While being able to keep track of students swiping on/off buses seems like a huge improvement (albeit a little late in coming IMO), this piece focuses on the “it can also check books out of the library” functionality a bit too much for
me2022. Don’t get me wrong, I love libraries and books. But my point here is the same as above: the old fart’s approval of a given technology is probably not the one to focus on. (Ideastream, 9/30/22) - Speaking of new vs. old, here’s a bit more on the “flexible seating” thing at Tallmadge Elementary School, which we first learned about last week. Even without the controversy angle, I still don’t see the problem that was needing solved here, nor indeed how the “new seating situation” works. Who chooses the chair? When? For how long? While doing what activity? Can they change chairs? Maddening. (News 5 Cleveland, 10/3/22)
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