- How complicated is school funding in Ohio? According to the legal arguments in this state Supreme Court case pitting a group of local taxpayers vs. their Cincinnati-area school district, very complicated. (Gongwer Ohio)
- How complicated is verifying student data in Ohio? According to the conflicting responses to a fairly simple question about superintendent sign-offs across the state, very complicated. (Columbus Dispatch)
- Speaking of school funding, last week there was a flurry of stories about a new study (of oddly mysterious provenance) which showed that students in rural areas around the state had less access to AP classes than their urban and suburban counterparts. This was attributed mainly to funding disparities between rich and poor local tax bases. The Vindicator takes on the same study today (with even less detail about where it comes from), but focuses straight-up on the DeRolph rulings of two decades ago and that good old “thorough and efficient” bugbear. (Youngstown Vindicator)
- CRPE last week released the results of a survey of “public school choice” parents in a number of cities, including Cleveland. The PD took up the story and focused on affect: more of the surveyed parents in Cleveland believe their schools are getting worse than believe they are improving. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
- The Beacon Journal also took a look at CRPE’s report and noted, with their usual doggedness, that 83 percent of the Cleveland parents surveyed sent their children to charter schools. Now, it makes sense in a “public school choice” survey (i.e. – excluding voucher recipients) that charter school parents would be highly represented, but the ABJ decides to make that the story. And they focus on the question of why the surveyed parents chose charters. Answer – safety and quality. Not exactly news. (Akron Beacon Journal)
- OAPCS’ Darlene Chambers had a guest commentary in the Blade this weekend, extolling the virtues of charter schools. (Toledo Blade)
- In case your social media feeds didn’t pick this up – and if they didn’t, shame on them – the State Board of Education will be talking about (and likely voting on) the removal of Ohio’s so-called “5 of 8” rule during its meeting this week. The Repository wants you to know and lays out both sides of the debate. (Canton Repository)
