- In case you had forgotten, there is a hotly contested race for school board in Cincinnati City Schools going on, and I mean “Cincinnati hot”. Thank heavens it will be over by this time next week. The myriad candidates were asked this week their thoughts on the district’s apparently intractable transportation woes. Thoughts were duly expressed. (WVXU-FM, Cincinnati, 11/1/19)
- Speaking of Cincinnati, I don’t usually clip outright crime here in the Bites, but this story as written takes the biscuit. Over $25K was stolen from a booster club for one Cincinnati City Schools building (an entity entirely separate from the school and district, of course). Some of it was repaid by the thief, some of it appears to be still unaccounted for (and may have been taken by yet a different person), and an undetailed “policy change” was made within the organization to keep whatever happened from happening again. Make you feel safe in donating to them? Awesome! Because the newspaper actually decided to end the piece with the link to the organization so you can do just that! That is the definition of brassy, I think. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/1/19)
- Back in the real world, Ohio Excels’ Lisa Gray shared some thoughts on what makes for successful partnerships between businesses and schools, including several interesting examples of collaboration. (Columbus Business First, 10/31/19)
- Parma City Schools believes it has found a way to “change the game”, it says, by recruiting charter and private school kids to its high school via “Shadow Days”. I would say that Parma could change the game more effectively by participating in interdistrict open enrollment, but that would only change things for the kids. And who would want that? (Cleveland.com, 10/31/19)
- Finally this week, the Hechinger Report is “wild” about the “dramatic” efforts of PRE4CLE, the five-year-long effort to increase the number of kids attending high-quality preschools in Cleveland. (Yes! It IS hyperbolic!! Why do you ask?!) Seriously, though, I have a couple of questions based on data buried at the end of the piece. Such as: Sounds like we’re talking about nearly $6,900 per new student served ($14 million x 2046 kids). Isn’t that a little steep? But even if it’s not, doesn’t the stat of “sixty-five percent of PRE4CLE students…testing as approaching or demonstrating school readiness when they start kindergarten” a smidge disappointing for the price? (I mean, “approaching” and “demonstrating” seem like two very different things to me, and I wouldn’t mind knowing the breakdown of each.) But even if you think I’m being churlish with these questions, shouldn’t those stats temper the exuberance just a little? (Hechinger Report, 10/31/19)
Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox (in case you want to feel the heat by signing up for such a newsletter)? Subscribe by clicking here.
Policy Priority:
Topics:
