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- It’s good to see that, despite all the other possible distractions that could be taking up electronic column inches these days, some journalists are still bravely talking about the dismal NAEP data released last week. Aaron is among those lamenting the raft of low scores for Ohio students in math and reading with the Dayton Daily News in this piece. (Dayton Daily News, 2/6/25) In case you didn’t know, Cleveland Metropolitan School District students are part of a more-detailed analysis of NAEP test scores among a group of the nation’s largest urban school districts. They fared particularly poorly in the most-recent administration of testing. In this piece, officials from CMSD offer us some (IMO) odd reasons for their district’s extremely poor performance. These include the fact that Covid-impacted students are just “different” now on the other side and the professional educators serving them still have yet to figure out how to reach/teach/boost them up, and the fact that “stripping back” curricula to just the basics (math and reading) during remote learning was actually a harmful move that ended up depressing math and reading achievement even more. See? Odd. Luckily for all of us, Aaron Churchill is on hand to offer two important rebuttals to this view: time and money. “We as taxpayers invested so much to try to recover after the pandemic,” he says. “Ohio received five or six billion dollars in pandemic relief aid that was really designed to help students recover after the closures and the disruptions that happened in 2020 and 2021.” It’s been almost five years, y’all. So many kids have already graduated or just stopped out of school. It’s way past time to stop the excuses. (Ideastream, 2/6/25) Among the possible options to finally address these seemingly-insurmountable problems is a bill in the legislature that would require math achievement improvement plans for schools that have less than 52 percent of students receive a proficient score in math comprehension. The editorial board of Vindy.com are—mildly, it must be said—enthusiastic about this proposal. (Vindy.com, 2/6/25)
- Lakewood City Schools in northeast Ohio has been steadily losing students for at least 10 years. Despite the fact that their seven (!) elementary schools are currently at a collective utilization of 65 percent, Lakewoodians (for that is surely what residents there are called) are signing a petition in droves to oppose the closure/consolidation of any of them for any reason. (Cleveland.com, 2/6/25)
- Speaking of community spirit (were we, really?), this voucher groucher decided that crapping on his unsuspecting neighbors was the best way to make his published opinion as clear as possible. Ugh. Awkward. I don’t think he’s going to be invited over to seder this year. (Cleveland.com, 2/7/25) And to make our closing moments this week just that little bit more awkward, here’s a piece where several private school teachers—including two from Columbus Torah Academy—talk glowingly about their jobs, the students, and the communities they serve. (Cleveland Jewish News, 2/6/25)
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