Gadfly Bites 3/8/24—The math of reading

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. Just sayin’.

1. Following up, briefly, from Wednesday’s discussion of Disneyland Dayton, here comes news of even more competition for the district. Dayton Regional STEM School is on the grow again! They will be adding early elementary grades to their roster of awesome mastery-based science-y-ness this fall—just the second independent STEM school in the state to do so—and will be looking to build a brand new building soon to hold the expanded student population that is surely on the way. Not to be too negative about this very positive story, but I reckon there are probably some folks who will receive this news badly. (You know who I mean.) I wish I had a spoonful of sugar to offer them by way of solace, but I think they’ll just have to let it go for now while they re-think how to create a whole new educational world that local families might be interested enough to opt into in the presence of all the other options available. (Dayton Daily News, 3/7/24)
    
2. Speaking of school choices that some folks might prefer to be frozen (were we?), here is some coverage of a bill that would provide Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs) for families whose children attend what are known as “508 schools”—or non-chartered, non-tax supported schools. It’s interesting stuff to me, but the coverage is kinda lean for now. Not sure what the future of the bill is, but if it persists, hopefully we’ll get some interviews with the families themselves so we can really get a look at the issue in full. (Cleveland.com, 3/6/24) Kudos to Spectrum News for highlighting this family, for whom the recent EdChoice voucher expansion meant the difference between being able to access the school their child needed and…well…not. (Spectrum News 1, 3/8/24) Meanwhile, the editorial board of Cleveland.com chose (see what I did there?) to invoke the ECOT boogieman as the coup de grâce to try and make their already fiery anti-voucher opinion piece that bit more…piquant. (Clevleand.com, 3/8/24)
   
   

3. Finally today, we have a first look at responses to the reading curriculum survey requested of every district and charter school across the state. Not much usable data in this coverage, unfortunately. There’s a link to the deets if you want it, but the key finding is at least front and center: “About a third of school districts and community schools are using at least one of the initially approved curricula for kindergarten through fifth grade core reading instruction curriculum.” By using my reading skills, I interpret that to mean that many of those same schools are also using non-approved curriculum on a daily basis. And by using my math skills, I also interpret that to mean that two-thirds of public schools are using 100 percent junk. Putting those things together, it seems that a non-scientific estimate of a crap ton of schools across the state are going to have to scramble to ditch the bad stuff and get (and learn how to use) the good stuff in place between now and August. Seems tight to me, but what could this non-professional reading/math/science guy possible know about it? (Ohio Capital Journal, 3/6/24)

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