Gadfly Bites 11/6/20 – Yeah, there’s an app for that. But you don’t have to use it.

1. Just your regular reminder, in case you are not a parent in K–12 education in Ohio—that there’s still a whipsaw pandemic going on out there. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/4/20)
    
2. The whipsawing between in-person/hybrid learning and all-remote learning models that we’ve seen this fall are the result, we’ve heard, of needing a “balance” between safety and education quality. The point being that in-person models are “quality” and all-remote models are not. Here’s a long piece from Cleveland that attempts to make that point in some detail. However, there appears to be some deeper reality coming out too. An education professor at Plymouth State University (nope, me neither) said she’s worried that parents and schools are focusing on educational apps at the expense of personal interactions and play that are critical to early development. “Obviously, districts are going with these [app] programs because they’re cheaper” than intensive online interaction, she said, neglecting to mention that “intensive online interaction” means actual teachers doing actual teaching via computer. She worries that the low cost will be the deciding factor for schools choosing apps and that “there won’t be an exploration or experimentation with other ways of doing it.” And by “other ways of doing it,” she means actual teachers doing actual teaching via computer. Unless I’m misreading that. (Cleveland Scene, 11/5/20)
   
   

3. Columbus City Schools, which recently decided to remain all-remote for the rest of the semester (except for some CTE students), is somehow suffering from a substitute teacher shortage. To solve it, they are throwing money at the problem. This seems to me to be something of a contradiction to the previous piece--in a couple of regards--but again I could be misreading it. (Columbus Dispatch, 11/5/20)
    
4. And now we come full circle in our clips today (and probably other stuff too): Unable to find enough substitute teachers to cover quarantines and illness themselves, Milford High School in Clermont County is whipsawing back to fully-remote learning starting today. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/5/20)

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