- Who’s that writing letters to the editor of the Boston Globe? Why it’s our very own Aaron Churchill, taking some exception to a previous Globe story on school closure. (Boston Globe, 4/14/16)
- I’m a bit late in getting to this, but here is a guest commentary from state Sen. Tom Sawyer urging action on e-school regulations in Ohio. (Akron Beacon Journal, 4/13/16)
- Negotiations between Dayton Public Schools’ board and Supt. Lori Ward concluded this week without agreement. Ward will step down in June. (Dayton Daily News, 4/13/16) Ditto for district Treasurer Craig Jones. (Dayton Daily News, 4/14/16) Anyone the DPS board interviews for the superintendent position will have to answer the question, “What will YOU do to keep us from having our own version of the Youngstown Plan enacted?” And don’t forget that a clock is ticking on Dayton in that regard and that any new supe may have as little as 2 years to fix a long-broken system to avoid takeover by an Academic Distress Commission. (Dayton Daily News, 4/14/16)
- Speaking of the Youngstown Plan, the first meeting of the new Academic Distress Commission in that district finally happened on Wednesday. Among other business, they outlined the process for selecting a CEO. They hope to have said CEO selected and in place by June 7. (Youngstown Vindicator, 4/13/16) Meanwhile, having run out of court challenges based on membership, folks went to court to try and stop any further meetings/actions by the ADC based on the argument that any actions by the ADC would perpetrate “irreparable harm” to children. You know: the “toothpaste tube” doctrine, predicated on the belief that future court proceedings will find the ADC unconstitutional in the first place. Any bets? (Youngstown Vindicator, 4/15/16) Meanwhile, in a parallel world, one member of the Youngstown school board suggested a novel take on the idea of pay-for-performance. No pay for board members unless and until the district’s academics improve. Now, this is worthy of discussion in itself (although I’m sure the rest of the board didn’t think so), but buried in this story is one of those “other shoes” that we see so often in following a story like this. Cast your minds back to last year when the previous ADC limited the number of meetings for which board members could get paid. The idea was to save some money for the district and, I suspect, to dissuade the board from meeting for trivial reasons. (They were meeting an average of 3 times per month, at $125 per member per meeting.) Well, when that ADC was dissolved in January the sitting board took it upon themselves (with advice of counsel of course) to reverse that decision. And with the subsequent four month delay in seating the new ADC, there was no limit on meetings or payments and no one to say otherwise. The so-called “Fourth Branch of government, ladies and gentlemen. (Youngstown Vindicator, 4/14/16)
- As we noted earlier this week, the full list of 44 candidates who applied for the job of state superintendent was made public. Some interesting names on that list from Ohio and across the country. Also included was the list of the top 5 highest-rated candidates according to the search firm. That list included Dr. Tom Lasley, executive director of Learn to Earn Dayton. The DDN chatted with him after the list was published. (Dayton Daily News, 4/14/16)
