Gadfly Bites 1/27/21 – Celebrating National School Choice Week with clips

1. Our own Aaron Churchill had an op-ed in the Enquirer yesterday, discussing the findings of our recent report on interdistrict open enrollment and how that venerable and widespread school choice program could be adapted to serve even more students across the state. A nice way to celebrate National School Choice week, if I do say so myself. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/26/21)
    
2. And how about some love for Ohio’s voucher programs to follow up? A national report from EdChoice (the organization) finds that the Ohio Autism Scholarship ranked number one and the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship ranked number ten in the country in terms of purchasing power. In fact, the autism scholarship program spends $23,844 per pupil, providing families something like 162 percent of the average per pupil spending in the state’s public schools (that’s gen ed and special ed combined, y’all—don’t let your mental math get ahead of you) with which they can access the educational services that they determine best serve their children. Amazing! (The Center Square, 1/26/21)
   
   

3. Here’s a national story with an out-of-this-world Ohio charter school tie-in. One of the three people who will comprise the first all-civilian spaceflight crew is Ohio-based Larry Connor. Among his plans for his extended stay on the International Space Station are science experiments in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic and teaching science lessons to students at Dayton Early College Academy. Wowza! (Washington Post, 1/26/21) We learn from the Dayton Daily News that Mr. Connor has been a long-time supporter of DECA, including some very generous efforts to help support the charter school’s students and families with their remote education and more during the pandemic. Bon voyage, sir! (Dayton Daily News, 1/26/21)
    
4. In other news, here are two interesting findings contained in a new K-12 education report from Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber. First up: There appears to be a low correlation between per-pupil spending and success on the Performance Index. In a number of cases, higher spending was correlated with a lower index score, especially in large urban areas such as Cleveland and Cincinnati. Second: While local school officials told researchers that too much time was spent on state testing, the report found that less than one percent of total instructional hours was being spent on testing. This appears to be one more piece of evidence that could be used to inform future work on a school funding revamp. The full report is here if you’re interested in more details. And why wouldn’t you be after that little preview, eh? (Cleveland.com, 1/26/21)
   
   

5. Meanwhile, in ‘rona news: It begins… Tiny Jefferson Township Local Schools in suburban Dayton is the first in Ohio, to my knowledge, to announce that it will remain in a remote-only learning model for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. Students have not had any in-person learning since March 2020 and likely will not until at least August 2021. (Dayton Daily News, 1/27/21)
    
6. Elsewhere, Cleveland Metropolitan School District is moving forward on their efforts to get kids back into buildings, starting with their staff vaccination master plan. (Cleveland.com, 1/26/21) At the same time, though, CMSD has agreed to allow a regional nonprofit to place WiFi “antennas” (surely there’s an actual name for that which does not hark back to 19^th century tech) on 12 district buildings in an effort to boost internet access in the various neighborhoods. Feel free to call this either future proofing or hedging, as you prefer. (Cleveland.com, 1/26/21)

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