Gadfly Bites 11/25/20 – The tater trove

NOTE: Gadfly Bites will be off on Friday for Thanksgiving break. Back on Monday, November 30. 

1. Like mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, I cannot get enough of coverage of the new bill that would make loads of changes to the EdChoice voucher program. Both the DDN…  (Dayton Daily News, 11/24/20) …and Gongwer are on the case. (Gongwer Ohio, 11/24/20) And like the golden melted butter that I love on top of those fluffy whipped spuds, this Dispatch editorial thumbs-up for the changes (at least as a first step, they demur) is a sweet and delicious capper. (Columbus Dispatch, 11/24/20) Who doesn’t like a second helping, perhaps even larger than the first? No less august an outlet than the Wall Street Journal also opined in support of what they called the “Buckeye voucher victory”. Yummo. (Wall Street Journal, 11/24/20) Personally, I’ll always remember that one Thanksgiving when my bratty cousin decided I’d had too much of a good thing and switched out the pepper for the salt, thus ruining my tater trove. That memory came to me unbidden while reading this coverage of the Ohio Education Association hating on this new bill and everything to do with vouchers. Blech. (The Center Square, 11/24/20)
    
2. On a related note, here’s a great piece about Seton Blended Learning Network, a national effort attempting to connect 14 Catholic schools around the country (including in Dayton and Cincinnati) with teachers and curriculum via electronic means. That is, a way to boost education quality thoroughly and efficiently across schools using the interwebs. Nice! And timely. (Education Next, 11/24/20)
   
   
3. And speaking of which, the Dispatch tells us this week that colleges of education in Ohio are just now teaching teachers to teach online. My reaction, like my Thanksgiving dessert choice, is threefold. First, pie as much as I love them, if the Catholic schools beat you to this, you should probably crow just a little quieter. Second, cake I assume this “clever pivot” is actually non-optional and born of necessity since student teaching has got to be online at least in part these days. And third, cookies I imagine this will work out just as well, proportionally, as previous teacher training did. (Columbus Dispatch, 11/24/20)
    
4. And continuing with the turkey day theme, former Toledo charter school Escuela SMART Academy—now “absorbed” into Toledo City Schools—continued its Thanksgiving meal tradition with Covid-mitigation (and probably district-required) adaptations. “We’re always looking for ways to help our families,” said the principal, adding that the school would not exist without those families. Her heart is clearly in the right place, but she is just as clearly new to the whole being-a-district-school lark. From Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati and everywhere in between, there are plenty of district school buildings where a majority of kids and families are long gone and they are still cranking along like nothing’s changed. (Toledo Blade, 11/25/20) Not to end today’s clips on a downer, but more than 1,500 laptops and other devices issued to students in Akron City Schools have come up missing since the spring. This is a higher number—and percentage—of loss than in many other districts nearby. Depressing, I know, but it sounds just about right for Thanksgiving 2020, doesn’t it? (Fox8 News, Akron, 11/24/20) 

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