Gadfly Bites 3/22/23—Let us count the ways

1. Governor DeWine was talking education policy on the TV news earlier this week. His strongly-held priorities right now: Making the science of reading the law of the land (“If we really want to increase the proficiency of reading, which we have to do, we need to take this dramatic move and we need to do it now.”), and combining school choice expansion with traditional school support (“Our bill is a balance and it’s a good balance.”). Nice. (NBC4, Columbus, 3/21/23) I am very glad the TV news folks are getting straight talk like that from the governor. Because the “Columbus parent” they talked to the other day about school funding was laying down unfiltered, unchallenged nonsense from some Bizarro World where Ohio’s Fair School Funding Plan never passed. (NBC4, Columbus, 3/20/23)
   
   

2. The governor also talked to NBC4 about the potential for sweeping changes to the structure of education governance in Ohio. That topic was also on the minds of the state board of education during their meeting this week, during which they voted against hiring a search firm to look for a new state superintendent. Largely because of the probability that it would end up being moot at best or a huge waste of money at worst. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/20/23) After they were released from their windowless basement chamber at ODE done with their meeting, four members of the state board of education popped on over to the Statehouse to complain to legislators about the very bills that could ultimately render their votes—and their debates, and their squabbles, and their endless reviewing, and their penchant for inaction—moot. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/21/23)
   
   

3. Speaking of education boards doing their thing (were we?), the elected board that runs Columbus City Schools voted this week to approve a resolution urging the state to fully fund the Fair School Funding Plan, rather than continuing the phase in of this new-ish education funding mechanism. (Which does, in fact, exist, despite what some parents in Columbus might think…or even say—confidently—on the record.) The elected members also expressed their opposition to school choice expansion bills pending in the legislature. Whew. I sure am glad our big city district leaders are getting the important stuff done, aren’t you? (Columbus Dispatch, 3/21/23) Staying on the topic of Ohio’s big city districts for a moment: More complaints against Cincinnati City Schools’ superintendent are coming out from behind closed email boxes. While the gripes coming from district parents here are quite different than those we heard coming from staff members on Monday (seriously, you should read them; extremely enlightening), they continue upon the previously established theme of “District leadership is not currently doing what we want them to. Waaaaaaa!” (Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/20/23) Despite all the sideshow stuff going on, elected board members in Cincinnati did seem very serious in their discussion of possible transportation changes for the 2023-24 school year. However, it feels to me like they have placed the most disruptive such changes at the top of their list while relegating the more innovative possibilities (smaller vehicles and Metro passes for older students) to the bottom. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/21/23) Meanwhile, here’s a look at how Cleveland Metropolitan School District is embracing AI teaching and learning tools, rather than running away from them as other large districts have done. “Instead [of blocking these technologies], the District is focused on helping students and adults recognize and use these tools as productivity tools, knowing they will exist in the world our graduates will be living in,” CMSD leaders said in a statement. “It is going to happen. And so the question is, how do we responsibly get in front of it?” Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything. Lots of details in the piece if you are interested in checking them out. (Signal Cleveland, 3/22/23)
   
   

4. And in the bougie burbs of Cleveland: Expanded STEM courses are causing some parents in Lakewood City Schools to worry about a loss of art and music time for their kids. (News5 Cleveland, 3/20/23)

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