Just when we thought the week couldn’t get any better, Governor John Kasich gave all of Ohio’s education reform groups an early Christmas present, pledging to “fix the lack of regulation on charter schools.” Nice! There was quite a bit of coverage of this pledge across the state, in three distinct flavors:
- First were the reports that explicitly linked Kasich’s comments to the two reports (CREDO and Bellwether) which Fordham commissioned and released in the last two weeks. Best examples are Gongwer Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch (who first broke the story), and the Cincinnati Enquirer. The latter piece also ran in other outlets in their network.
- Next up are the folks who trumpet the good news from the governor and reference “recent reports” without talking directly about Fordham. These are the Cleveland Plain Dealer (not namechecking CREDO or Bellwether either for that matter) and the Canton Repository. But good news is good news, so let’s not quibble.
- And then there’s the Youngstown Vindicator, whose version of the story is a) self-contained and b) devoid of mention of any catalyzing event. You know what? We’ll take that too.
- The Beacon Journal was conspicuously silent on the governor’s comments yesterday – about charter schools or anything else. What were they talking about instead? A “mass exodus” of teachers in Ohio due to changes in pension rules a couple of years back. It’s an interesting piece – both the downsides and the upsides are covered pretty well here. (Akron Beacon Journal)
- The first round of third grade reading tests for this school year were administered in October and some media outlets are reporting results. In Stark County, about 60 percent of third graders tested scored proficient or higher with only a couple of months of third grade instruction. I would be curious to know how many of those students were one retained in third grade reading because of their lack of proficiency last year. (Canton Repository)
