- Is Springfield City Schools’ School of Innovation a choice? A punishment? A diversion? Current principal says choice: “I do not have kids that are here because of trouble. These are kids that just don’t want to be in a school with 1,700 kids.” Is it all about hands-on learning with a career track toward welding or drone piloting? We are told that SOI has “normal classes” in all of the core areas, but also provides programs for students to get experience and to work with local employers. Is it just about acquiring seals and credentials from a list or is it more targeted than that? We hear that SOI came about when the district asked the current principal to start some programs where kids can earn points for state seals that are part of current graduation requirements. Is this an example of proper intradistrict school choice in Springfield or a new package for the same old “dropout recovery” model? Read the description and decide for yourself, because I’m stumped. (Springfield News-Sun, 4/17/23)
- In case you’ve forgotten, it’s “let us tell you how much vouchers suck” season here in Ohio. And it’s such an important topic for some folks that the MJ was forced to cover it in two separate pieces on the same day. Obviously vital stuff. (Morning Journal, 4/17/23) The grouchers’ message is made very clear via this reiteration: The public is not fully informed yet about vouchers. That is, they don’t know how much vouchers suck, so we’ll tell them. And once they are informed, they must go forth and regurgitate what we say to others. (Morning Journal, 4/17/23) While this version of how much vouchers suck is perhaps a bit more nuanced (and way waaaay longer), it still includes the phrase “some of the best, brightest and wealthiest students are plucked from the public schools”, unchallenged, as if it were a valid criticism of Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship Program. Spoiler alert: Neither vouchers nor schools are doing any sort of “plucking” of anyone, anywhere, ever. (Cleveland.com, 4/16/23)
- All of the foregoing is, as I know you know, politically-charged hot air masquerading as sage advice for those who might be on the fence about vouchers. (As if!) While there is some of that involved in discussion of making the science of reading the law of the land here in Ohio, including this Vindy editorial cautiously in favor of it… (Vindy.com, 4/17/23) …it seems pretty brazen to me to ignore education professionals—like these reading teachers and intervention specialists in Heath City Schools who are super happy that their schools have switched away from balanced literacy, three-cueing, and the like—just for the sake of not wanting the governor to be right about something. This is especially true since these folks made the switch willingly long before Mike DeWine was talking about it and have seen some amazing, quantifiable improvement in reading proficiency in just a few short years. The argument for staying the course against such evidence seems a little weak to me. Just sayin’. (Newark Advocate, 4/17/23)
- Finally today: Several bits of interesting discussion around school transportation came out of a House subcommittee hearing late last week. Most notably, a seemingly bipartisan appetite for changing the district-centric, business-as-usual approaches to busing which have ruled the day around here since the middle of the 20th century. “There is a need right now to test different ideas as it relates to how kids are getting to school, particularly as it relates to how kids in charter and private schools are getting to school because the burden right now is unfairly falling on traditional public schools.” Among the positive suggestions I see: direct funding to private and charter schools to provide their own transportation, flexibility on the types of vehicles allowed, and soliciting volunteers to launch pilot programs to operationalize new ideas. Fingers crossed! (Gongwer Ohio, 4/14/23)
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