- Longtime Ohio education curmudgeon Bill Phillis found an outlet through which to express his distaste for a proposed new funding formula introduced in the state legislature last week by the chair of the House Education Committee. Phillis apparently told Patrick O’Donnell his top concern was that ending local funding and allowing all state funding to “follow the child” would make choosing schools too easy for parents and budgeting for districts too hard. There are other reasons given, but I’ll just stop there. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12/20/16)
- Speaking of school choice, Columbus City Schools is set to initiate all-online registration and management of its intra-district choice program. The district’s PR flack extols the virtues of quick and easy access to info and forms and the like in this brief piece and takes a second to mention that charter school students who live in the city can apply too (how generous). Anyone besides me concerned about who might not have easy access to/facility with the internet re: choosing? (Columbus Dispatch Education Insider, 12/21/16)
- Here is a nice piece about two nonprofit organizations which have for years provided out-of-school support for students in Cleveland. It is part of a year-end series about charitable organizations doing good work in the CLE. Open Doors Academy is largely an after school program but seems to have a robust roster of tutoring, learning, and enrichment activities. Rainey Institute is an arts-based program for kids who may not have the wherewithal or access to participate in school-based arts programming. Both host summer camps as well. Rainey, in particular, seems to me like a great model for communities to replicate and scale. Perhaps someday free community arts programs open to all comers could replace expensive and duplicative and insular in-school arts programs? Just askin’. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12/21/16)
- A three-year Spanish immersion pilot program in Oak Hills schools in suburban Cincinnati has been deemed so successful that the board voted this week to expand it to all of the district’s elementary schools, despite some expressed misgivings. It is optional for parents/students in those schools and seems to be attracting a fairly small percentage of district kids, but no hay que buscarle cinco patas al gato, as they say. It’s máxima velocidad adelante for Oak Hills (as they probably don’t say). (Cincinnati Enquirer 12/20/16)
