Gadfly Bites 1/16/26—Here’s why not to go “government-to-government”

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1. Here’s some brief but interesting coverage of the state of career-technical education in Ohio, citing Fordham’s recent report on the topic and quoting our research guru Aaron Churchill. “We’re seeing a lot of incentives from state leadership to promote career and technical education across the state,” Aaron says. “As a state we spend $700-800 million per year on career technical education for students, and we are making significant investments in upgrading CTE.” Which would explain the enrollment boosts being seen in programs all across Ohio. Nice! (Spectrum News Ohio, 1/13/26)
   
   

2. The leaders of Youngstown City Schools would like everyone to remember that they are the only school district in Ohio still in a state of academic distress and, nominally, still under state oversight for same. This piece says that superintendent Jeremy Batchelor was recently pleading the district’s case for removal from academic distress, although it sounds more like “Waaaa! You’re unfair!” to me. Why? A) The district has underserved its students academically for decades, even before Academic Distress Commissions were a thing. B) The state has lowered the bar to emerge from academic distress many times in the last ten years, and Youngstown has continually failed to clear it. C) This includes the current bar, which consists entirely of the goals Youngstown set for itself, which Batchelor freely admits to not being able to reach at even 51 percent. D) Lorain City Schools was let off the hook a while back without meeting their goals and its students have reaped the bitter harvest thereof. E) We have a brand-new, shining example of a district that actually worked to improve student outcomes and truly earned its release from state oversight in East Cleveland City Schools. All of that together adds up to an F) No one should take their whining seriously and the state should hold the line. (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 1/14/26)
   
   

3. Been doing some research recently on how Ohio school districts have managed to work around the spirit (if not the letter) of state law that intends for unused and underused district school buildings to be made available to charter, private, and STEM schools with a right of first refusal. There are actually several mechanisms in play, including the “eyesore” declaration (Cf. Columbus City Schools) and my personal least favorite: the “swap” between two “taxing entities”. I smell just such a “swap” in the making via this early warning piece from Youngstown City Schools (ugh, not them again). Kirkmere Elementary School is currently being used to educate students, but as in a lot of other districts across Ohio, it is far under capacity due to enrollment losses in Youngstown over many many years. Financial realities are soon going to force them all to close and consolidate numerous buildings and right-size their footprints to match the actual population of students they serve. But, closed schools must be first offered to “the competition” by state law—a fact which is actually (and laudably) acknowledged in this piece—but instead of discussing that as a foregone conclusion, the focus of this piece is instead a way-too-premature proposal to “swap” the Kirkmere building with Mahoning County, which would be exactly as it sounds: a way to thwart the law. “It’s a good location, and if it is, in fact, going to be open and vacant,” says County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti, “Why not go government-to-government?” To which I say: Why not go school-to-school instead, eh Commish? Like the law requires, and which would relieve the cash-strapped district of a financial obligation while also likely bringing in millions in revenue from an open-market sale. Rather than you getting a free building, the district getting whatever white elephant property you want to offload, them having to take on all financial obligation for that property, and district taxpayers realizing zero financial benefit from the deal. Eh? Why not that instead? (WFMJ-TV, Youngstown, 1/15/26)

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