Gadfly Bites 2/15/19 – Perhaps deconstruction is the sincerest form of flattery

1. In case you haven’t been following it (and who can blame you with everything else going on here?), a battle royale has been raging in neighboring West Virginia. A battle over education reform the tenor of which, as I understand it, could make even a coal miner’s daughter blush. Ohio’s charter schools – and particularly a Fordham-sponsored school in Sciotoville, Ohio – got dragged into the discussion this week by a Charleston television station. I may be biased, but I feel that Sciotoville Community Schools Superintendent Rick Bowman really managed to get across what makes his educational model work for his students and how the charter school framework helps in this effort. Nice. (WVAH-TV, Charleston, WV, 2/15/19) In the end, the WVAH piece was too little, too late, it seems, as a scaled back version of the bill which (among other things) reduced charter schools to a two-building pilot program passed the West Virginia House yesterday. (WOWK-TV, Huntington, WV, 2/14/19)

2. Enough about charter schools in the Mountain State. How are charters faring right here in the good old Buckeye State? The CEO of NACSA put pen to paper in a Dispatch op-ed this week in which he declared the era of Ohio’s lawless charter sector to be over, thanks to the work of our General Assembly over the last few years. Nice. (Columbus Dispatch, 2/13/19)

3. You can also be forgiven for missing the fact that the state board of education met this week, so inconsequential did their deliberations seem. Nothing of note in any media outlet. Until today. The board took the time to deliberate on and then to vote (10-7) to deny a group of families their request to transfer their property from one school district to another which they would prefer their children attend. The vote sucks for those families, of course, but a couple of points of deliberation suck for us all. First up, board member Linda Haycock called it “a crime” that a district would lose $450,000 in property tax revenue should the transfer be approved. When the children and families who are supposed to be benefitting from that educational funding are emphatic that they are not, in fact, benefitting, I think the “crime” clearly lies elsewhere. Second, the same Right Honorable Member also suggested that the families in question should use open enrollment to change schools to the new district. Unfortunately, the desired district, like so many higher-quality districts around the state, does not offer open enrollment to students outside its boundaries. Oops. Finally, board member Antoinette Miranda is quoted as saying (on the record!), “If they want to move and go to another district, then they should buy a house in that district.” I’m sure that this is exactly what Dr. Miranda would do should the need arrive, yes. But to assume that this course of action is readily available to everyone seems to me the height of blinkered blindness. Shameful. (Dayton Daily News, 2/15/19)

4. Finally this week, we have a lesson in deconstruction. As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Ohio’s standalone STEM schools: public, but not part of a district; and focused on science, technology, engineering, and math throughout its curriculum. They are also mastery-based (students must earn 90 or better on all assignments/papers/tests or must redo portions of them), accelerated (traditional year-long course material is often covered in a single semester), and geared to early college access (as early as 7^th grade if kids are ready). And I love this crazy model – it is what I would have wanted for myself as a kid, it has benefitted my own children enormously, and I have seen it rocket many previously-underserved students into the academic stratosphere over the years. And while this odd kitchen sink model has been replicated fully in a handful of other such schools across the state, I fear that there is something afoot to try to “deconstruct” the vital interlocking pieces of this school and to try and build success upon one or two of them. This ignores everything that clearly works in these schools and is a recipe for disaster if you ask me (which, of course, nobody ever does). First up, disconnecting mastery from, well, everything else. The Hawken School, a high-dollar private school with a long history in Cleveland, this week unveiled an ambitious plan to expand both physically and programmatically. They are promising a new school which couples “experiential learning” —already in use in their system – to something called “ungraded mastery”. Somehow, they are going to develop a way of evaluating students that does not rely on pesky letter grades or ratings or numbers which can damage (I gather) kids’ self-esteem. It is a work in progress and much still needs to be worked out, but there are some building blocks of the new paradigm explored in this PD piece. I am 100% certain (speaking of mastery), that I will find ridiculous whatever they come up with. I hope that doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/15/19) Second, we have what appears to be Rent-a-STEM. That is, a private company whose MO is to truck small STEM lessons to schools across the state which do not have established STEM academics. For a small fee, of course. Leaving the profit motive aside, gang, if STEM is as great for kids as you say, it should be all day, every day. Shouldn’t it? Otherwise, it’s just an hour of Legos and coding. Sadly, some of the good folks behind the birth of Ohio’s standalone STEM schools are wasting their money on these mechanical dogs and VR ponies. Less deconstruction, y’all, and more standalone STEM/mastery/acceleration/early college schools. (Columbus Dispatch, 2/15/19)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox (in case you want to deconstruct the news and sign up for such a newsletter)? Subscribe by clicking here.