Gadfly Bites 2/24/23—A hot mess

1. We start today with student transportation problems both old… (10TV News, Columbus, 2/23/23) …and new. Well, I say “new”, but really the current disagreement between Dayton City Schools and the Regional Transit Authority about the issues around transporting high school students using RTA bus passes appears to be a culmination/continuation/public airing of some longstanding beefs between these two august public entities. With students caught in the middle. I don’t know who’s going to win here, but I know who will end up on the losing side no matter what. (Dayton Daily News, 2/24/23)
   
   

2. Speaking of august public entities (were we?), how exactly does an elected school board get approval for a $74 million school building project, let alone vote to add $6 million more in bells and whistles, without needing to tell the public where it will be built? I thought only evil empire builders like Amazon and Intel could get away with stuff like that. (Toledo Blade, 2/26/23)
   
   

3. We continue today with eyebrow-raising opinion pieces both old (so old that it barely even references Ohio in its voucher grouching)… (Columbus Dispatch, 2/23/23) …and new. This latter one, written by a first year substitute teacher in Columbus City Schools, contains information and opinion so new that I haven’t even figured out what it means yet. But I will. (Columbus Dispatch, 2/22/23)
   
   

4. Two interesting views on legislative testimony this week (both from the same source—go figure) to end our Bites: Three elected state board of education members testified in opposition to a bill which would curtail their power revamp education governance in Ohio. I guess it is nice to know that our state board can come together these days and laser focus on something. (Ohio Capital Journal, 2/22/23) Representatives of multiple religious entities then testified in favor of a bill which would create backpack education funding for Ohio families. Like that old Benetton ad, right? (Ohio Capital Journal, 2/23/23)

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