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- Ohio is front and center in this story about what is termed a “long, slow shift in formal authority” over education governance in many states “away from popular election and initially towards state boards of education, but more recently governors getting more directly involved.” Sadly, the discussion as to what has been fueling this shift focuses not on abysmal student achievement and stifling bureaucracy but on “hot button” issues and politics. You know what I mean. (Education Week, 11/2/23)
- I feel like this very small scale piece is actually related to the foregoing discussion, but it’s a thinker so stay with me. In it, we learn that some folks were really alarmed at the lowly one-star rating that Toledo City Schools earned on the early literacy component of their most recent state report card (at least they can’t get zero stars!) and are determined to spend some money to help students do better going forward. What’s the connection? The fact that the “concerned folks” are employees of a local law firm and that the funded “help for students” will be provided by a third party tutoring group. At least someone is reading and responding to report card data, I guess. But surely in a fully-functioning education governance model replete with thousands of skilled teaching professionals and awash in tens of millions of dollars—of the type supposedly nurtured and protected by the preferred elected state board model, as lionized above—the solution to low literacy ratings shouldn’t require lawyers paying out of their own pockets for outside tutoring services to support their neighbors’ children. Should it? (Toledo Blade, 11/1/23)
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