Gadfly Bites 3/17/21 – Heads in the sand

1. As we noted here in the Bites last Friday, there is a legislative effort clanking to life which would, if successful, pretty well gut Ohio’s school report cards. Fordham’s Aaron Churchill is quoted among the voices in the Dayton Daily News pointing out the many flaws. To wit: “This report card (proposal) is great if you want to make schools look good, and in a sense paper over challenges students are having.” (Dayton Daily News, 3/16/21) And indeed that seems to be the point. HB 200 got its first hearing yesterday in the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee, which means the bill’s sponsors got to state their case. Gongwer’s coverage of the hearing hits several low high points (including the assertion that somehow report card letter grades have been “the root cancer” leading to the deterioration of many Ohio schools) but unfortunately missed out on a key argument from the sponsors’ written testimony: “We believe that it should automatically be assumed that our schools are good enough that if an Ohio student receives a diploma, he is prepared for success.” I mean, if that’s what you believe…. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/16/21) Meanwhile, Fordham’s Chad Aldis was himself testifying in the Senate Primary and Secondary Education Committee on HB 67. That’s the bill that was going to eliminate state testing this year (until it couldn’t) but now seeks to further soften graduation requirements (if it can) due to the pandemic. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/16/21)
    
2. Cincinnati City Schools this week reported a nearly four percent drop in enrollment from last school year to this one. What’s interesting is that, unlike some other districts which have raised similar alarms, Cincinnati seems pretty clear on where nearly every one of those 4,825-odd kids (!) has gone. And while 900 or so are pre-K and K students who might conceivably return after a redshirt year, the other 4K could just as conceivably be quite happy to stay where they are next year. (WVXU-FM, Cincinnati, 3/16/21)
   
   

3. Cleveland Metropolitan School District is mentioned in this detailed national piece on schools’ Covid responses, under a section header titled “silver linings”, which looks at lessons learned for the future. While CMSD officials may have provided some evidence that they will attempt to improve teaching and learning for students next year (at the earliest), I am reasonably certain that the available evidence shows CMSD exemplifying not that subhead but the main headline of the piece: “Schools Squandered Virtual Learning”. (EdNext, 3/16/21) Meanwhile, a math teacher in bougie Beachwood City Schools says that she is three to four weeks behind in her teaching. Thus, state testing should be cancelled to give her time to catch up. Yep. I’m sure that’ll do it. (WOSU-FM, Columbus, 3/17/21) Meanwhile, Dayton City Schools gave us a look at their similarly-blinkered 2021-22 school year calendar. It is called a “back-to-normal” schedule—in that it is the same length and has the same start/stop dates as a traditional year—but it seems like it could also be called an “amnesia calendar”. No additional summer school or academic camps are planned beyond the usual. Like nothing ever happened. (Dayton Daily News, 3/17/21) Additionally, Dayton City Schools seems to have decided that the proper response to a failed school turnaround effort (they cancelled the remainder of a prior $425,000 contract back in April due to “lack of return on investment”) is to throw more money at the problem—indeed to septuple down on the plan. The elected school board signed a contract worth $3.2 million to a different third party entity to help boost test scores in six district buildings which have registered “pretty significant numbers of F’s” over the years. The full contract is for three years, but it has at least one get-out clause along the way. Phew! (Dayton Daily News, 3/17/21)
    
4. Meanwhile, in this rather long retrospective (prom) of the harm supposedly wrought upon Toledo area students (prom!) during the Covid year (prom!!) seems inordinately focused (prom!!!) on non-academic stuff (prom!!!!). Especially for kids in Toledo City School District. Did I mention that the district’s prom appears to be back on this year? (Toledo Blade, 3/16/21) In other Toledo-area education news (choice), the Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund (choice!) is holding its annual fund-raiser (choice!!) to help boost the number of private school scholarships (choice!!!) it can give out to eligible and interested families (choice!!!!). Can’t think why school choice might be on folks’ minds these days. Can you? (13ABC News, Toledo, 3/16/21)

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