Gadfly Bites 3/15/23—I’m not sure that this particular struggle is even necessary, man

1. Let’s revisit a few previous stories to start the day. What was in the new contract agreement that ended the bus driver strike in Morgan Local Schools? Money, and lots of it. A 6 percent raise in year one and 4 percent each in years two and three of the new contract. In addition to yearly step wage increases. I guess everything really is back to normal down there. (Marietta Times, 3/13/23)
   
   

2. Here’s another piece from the embedded reporters at one elementary building in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Just like the piece we looked at Monday, this is focused purely on academics. And it isn’t pretty. It may be OK for kids to struggle at math in fifth grade, as the teacher asserts, but it’s not OK that any of them are still struggling on second grade concepts while in fifth grade. Especially when, as Mr. Whelan tells us, a precipitous drop in math scores from fourth to fifth grade “has happened for years and is not new”. Pandemic disruption is trotted out as a somewhat incongruous explanation, although it would hit a little differently if there was at least admission of the fact that it was CMSD’s decision to stay closed longer than any other district and to limit remote education to ungraded paper packets for most of that time. As to the phenomenon’s incarnation prior to the advent of SARS-CoV-2? That appears to be the tests’ fault. (Cleveland.com, 3/15/23) Of course, not being on grade level in reading is probably also affecting math learning for many of those putative fifth graders, as we noted on Monday’s visit to Cleveland. Mercifully, the retention provision of Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee looks to be returning from its pandemic-era hiatus, the “I guess there’s no way to stop this” nature of this piece notwithstanding. (Spectrum News, 3/13/23)
   
   

3. There was a press conference at the Statehouse yesterday in support of the so-called backpack funding bill. The bill’s sponsors gave their thoughts on how much they think it will cost (considerably less than opponents were predicting in Monday’s clips, especially in year one as you might imagine). Ohio’s own rising star Walter Blanks, Jr., was among the voucher recipients sharing school choice success stories. As a side note: congrats to journalist Megan Henry on her move from the Dispatch and kudos on an excellent first piece for the OCJ. (Ohio Capital Journal, 3/15/23) On a related note, education officials in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland are focusing on SB 11, a more-traditional effort to boost eligibility for EdChoice Scholarships in the state. They are, as you also might imagine, fully in support of it. (Diocese of Cleveland, 3/13/23) Here’s something new to talk about regarding vouchers in Ohio: An anti-voucher group released a research report that, unsurprisingly, makes private school choice sound really bad. I look forward to some in-depth analysis of the work, but what does it mean when an anti-voucher group finds that Ohio’s programs actually come off looking better than every other state? To wit: As voucher spending increased by a crap ton between 2008 and 2019 (you know what they mean), public school funding also increased during that time. Not by as much, obvs, but more than three percent higher than the mean of 49 other states. Feels important, eh? (K-12 Dive, 3/14/23)
   
   

4. Speaking of new stuff, here’s what’s up in two of Ohio’s largest school districts. Dayton City Schools will be closing its sole girls-only magnet school at the end of this school year and making it a traditional, co-ed, neighborhood-assignment school. Supposedly due to low enrollment. Current students are allowed to reapply to the new school if they want, whether they live in the area or not, but why would they do that when a) it’s going to be exactly the same as the school near their house, and b) transportation will likely be an even worse issue for them than it is now. In fact, I’ll just go out on a limb and suggest that transportation is at least part of the reason for this change and predict that we’ll see other magnet schools in the district making such transitions next year for #reasons. Stay tuned! (Dayton Daily News, 3/14/23) Meanwhile, the interim superintendent of Columbus City Schools addressed a gathering of the local NAACP this week. There’s way too much talk about air conditioning in both the speech and this coverage of it, if I do say so myself. But I would draw your attention to Her Honor’s discussion of the status science of reading in district classrooms. It’s waaaaay down at the bottom of the piece, naturally, and seems to be equated with other “tools” still available to teachers to use as they see fit. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/13/23)
   
   

5. Meanwhile, over in Nero’s palace (a.k.a. the sad subterranean basement meeting room at ODE), our state board of education got a report earlier this week from interim state supe Stephanie Siddens and several of her erudite colleagues on the data they have around the status of the teacher corps in the state. It’s an important issue which deserves serious attention. I’m sure that’s why two of our elected board members pressed the data folks on why there are no boxes for departing teachers to check to indicate “bills coming out of the General Assembly” and “lack of joy” as the reasons they are leaving. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/13/23)
   
   

6. And finally today: Despite copious evidence that the practice is a wash in terms of cost and an across-the-board disaster for academic achievement, the elected school board of North College Hill City Schools voted this week to approve the adoption of a four-day school week districtwide starting next fall. Superintendent Eugene Blalock told the Enquirer that the move wasn’t about saving money (because he knows it won’t) but about “saving teachers”. “We know our teachers are underpaid and undervalued,” he explained. “We’ve assumed for the past 200 or 300 years [!] that this is how education is. The pandemic showed us we can do things differently.” Which is great news for these lucky kiddos, because there will be a regular element of online school in the plan as well. Since the pandemic showed us just how effective remote teaching can be in the hands of those who disdain it. Go Trojans, indeed. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/14/23)

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