Gadfly Bites 12/15/25—What about all those years of “academic blight”, eh?

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1. Just in case you had the silly idea that getting out of their massive budget hole was the guiding purpose of Columbus City Schools’ building closure and consolidation effort—18 months long and counting—here’s the proof that that is (mostly) not the case. It’s a long-overdue update on the four school buildings (and one optimally-located downtown office complex) that the elected school board voted to close more than a year ago. In it, we learn that the district plans to keep hold of all five properties rather than selling them…should any of them even close. As far as I can ascertain, the downtown office complex is still active (last board committee meeting held there on December 8 of this year) with no plans to shutter despite the 2024 vote to immediately do so—and the super high price it would fetch if put on the market. And now we learn if the four school buildings ever close—one will perhaps shutter in 2026, but the others have no dates at all—they will all likely be immediately demolished so as not to “contribute to community or neighborhood blight.” That is, if the lame-duck elected board votes to do so at its meeting tomorrow. So, rather than sell the buildings to charter or private schools—or non-education entities or deep-pocketed developers—to actually earn millions of dollars that would help to stop the fiscal hemorrhage, the district will instead spend more of taxpayers’ money to demo them all AND still more money to maintain the lots in perpetuity. Classic bait and switch, I reckon. When will it ever stop? (Columbus Dispatch, 12/15/25)
   
   

2. Some similar vibes in this op-ed from the Akron Beacon-Journal, in which retired magazine publisher Steve France laments the lack of institutional will for districts across Ohio to properly teach young children to read. Specifically, he talks about The Summit Education Initiative, which has been working for nearly 30 years (!?!) to “improve educational attainment in the various Summit County school systems”. France says he engaged with the group starting in September, 2024, the height of the state’s effort to instill the science of reading in all Ohio schools, in order to help improve third grade reading. He said the meetings were “tightly scripted” by the group, “focusing primarily on process, procedure and statistical information.” He goes on to say that they “never got to the hard work of examining the weaknesses in the county’s poorest performing primary grade school systems, including Akron, and to the even harder work of fashioning and recommending solutions then mustering the will and the resources to implement them.” The group’s meetings were canceled in April, 2025, with nothing at all to show for them. France longs for the day that “our local political establishment, business leaders and the community at large recognize” the danger that illiteracy represents and truly takes action to ensure that “the poorest performing school systems…make the hard changes needed to dramatically improve third-grade reading performance.” Sad to think that we’re still not on that road after all these years and millions of dollars spent. (Akron Beacon Journal, 12/13/25)

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