Gadfly Bites 1/23/26—Yeah…no

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. Just sayin’.

1. There are a couple of ironies in this piece, which discusses with some testiness one of the nonnegotiable future requirements for teachers in Ohio’s pulling-out-all-the-stops effort to make science of reading the one and only way that they teach reading to their students. One of those ironies: The teachers union president saying that SoR implementation was “disjointed” yet insisting that the teachers who were responsible for that implementation need to be involved in creating the refresher courses state law requires in five years’ time. (Cleveland.com, 1/22/26)
   
   

2. All eight of my longstanding, long-suffering, and endlessly-forbearing Gadfly Bites subscribers (I’m sorry, y’all: After more than 10 years of sending you an “unsubscribe” button three times a week along with all my unsubscribe-worthy blatherings, your continued perseverance really has to be on you at this point) will no doubt recall that I am automatically dubious when a teacher leads with “I was a bad student” or “I hated school” and follows up with “That’s why I became a teacher.” Especially when it is (inevitably) followed by some variation of that teacher needing to “go beyond” some aspect of…you know…actually teaching kids stuff. In that spirit, I present to you this profile of a sixth grade teacher in Dayton City Schools, which checks all of those dreaded boxes for me. Her chief goal appears to be “fun”—in response to her own, negative school experience. That is especially clear around the debate project covered in the piece, but I suspect it is the case more broadly as well: “I think the biggest thing for teachers is meet the kids where they are and get silly with it.” She is also lauded for going “beyond the classroom” by the district’s academic chief--without any details provided, natch. IYKYK. I know this is a singular snapshot and perhaps I am reading too much into it, but take a look at the details provided here and double check me for yourselves: What academic skills do you see being learned or applied here? Did anyone perhaps do a cost analysis on the issue? Or maybe an opinion poll turned into a graph? Do you think there was ever even a possible answer to the debate question beyond mildly-informed opinion? I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see any of that vital teaching work going on here. (Dayton Daily News, 1/23/26)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.