- The first pieces of Ohio’s state report cards – which will be incomplete anyway due to “safe harbor” requirements – are due this week, many months late thanks to the switch to PARCC tests last year. The remainder of what information we do get will arrive late in February. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1/10/16)
- No news on the Youngstown Plan this weekend – the definition of “teacher” remains unsettled and therefore the entire Academic Distress Commission mechanism remains stalled. But in Lorain City Schools, the only other Ohio district currently under the old-style Academic Distress Commission, they have a different conundrum around a definition. They know that they don’t want the “Youngstown Plan” to become the “Lorain Plan”, and they know that a clock is ticking on them to make that happen. But why exactly do they oppose the Youngstown Plan? Because the district supe defines the plan as the death knell for the public common school in Lorain (i.e. a problem for adults) and not as an effort to actually fix the schools there (i.e. a problem for kids). While the article is ostensibly about some efforts to avoid a new-style ADC in Lorain via business, community, and Medicaid intervention, there’s a quick mention of some impending legislative lifeline that they really seem to be hanging their hats on. The adults, I mean. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 1/9/16)
- More editorials than actual journalism this weekend – although it is often hard to tell which is which is some news outlets. First up in the “most definitely an op-ed category,” editors in Canton opined on Ohio’s placement in the new Quality Counts survey. It’s all about the “viscous cycle of poverty” for them, although it’s probably a slippery concept. (Canton Repository, 1/8/16)
- Editors in Toledo opined pessimistically on charter school reform efforts in the Buckeye State over 2015. While they have a couple of local charters that they like, they are not generally fans. (Toledo Blade, 1/11/16)
- The formerly-Big D published dueling guest commentary pieces on the Supreme Court’s Friedrichs. One is ostensibly by “a Marietta school teacher” (Columbus Dispatch, 1/9/16) and the other is by the head of the state teacher’s union. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/9/16) But there’s a crap ton of political backstory around both of these that is elided or simply left out. Luckily, the online comments on both pieces help to fill in some of those pesky blanks.
