Gadfly Bites 4/18/25

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A portion of a blog post by Fordham’s school funding guru Aaron Churchill, expertly supporting the case for the end of funding guarantees for school districts losing student population, is quoted ever so briefly in this piece. The rest of it is filled up with quotes from the leaders of Loveland Local Schools, emotionally manipulating the general public to rise up against…[checks notes]…any effort to end guarantees for school districts losing student population. Especially theirs. (WLWT-TV, Cincinnati, 4/16/25) Aaron’s full analysis is here.
But the best Aaron Churchill moments are the ones where he just gets to explain himself fully and directly, like he does in this op-ed, expertly supporting the case for implementing direct certification to more accurately identifying and funding low-income students in Ohio. (Cleveland.com, 4/18/25)
Returning to our Wednesday theme of adults talking about kids without much magnanimity (and those kids fully understanding the disregard they are hearing): A bunch of public officials in Dayton (school district, city, bus system, county, library system, etc.) held a press conference recently to talk about how dangerous it is that high school students use the downtown bus transfer station to get from school to home in the afternoons. All their comments are pretty brusque and each official is thinking more about how to push the perceived problem off on somebody else’s agency in an endless loop of buck passing than in actually getting the kids what they need. Luckily, we get some quotes late in the piece from the vice president of the district’s student senate, who says, bluntly, “None of us really want to be down there, but we’re forced to be down there because that’s the only way we can get to where we need to be. This situation should be used as, ‘These children aren’t safe downtown,’ instead of, ‘These children need to be moved from downtown’.” This is echoed by no less than the leader of a local human rights organization: “Why are we focused on removing students rather than responding to their needs? Their presence downtown isn’t a threat — it’s a cry for connection.” (Dayton Daily News, 4/15/25) While your humble clips compiler was on vacation last month, the Dayton Public Library system announced the reopening of its Southeast Branch. Old coverage of that reopening plan, which I did not talk about previously, is here if you’d like to read it. If you recall, that branch was closed down after a fight involving students from nearby schools because no one (school district, library system, city, police, etc.) could figure out how to keep the space safe. The answer, the library decided after weeks of discussion, was to strictly limit the number of people who could be in the building during weekday afterschool hours, require an online sign up to potentially be one of those people, and to continue this policy until the school year ends. I say all of this as a prelude to this story, in which the folks from Learn to Earn Dayton announce the launch of a civic leadership training course. The idea is to get more local citizens interested in and equipped to serve in a variety of positions (schools, nonprofits, governing bodies, etc.) and to understand “key issues and policies impacting Dayton students and families” specifically. Not to be too downbeat here, because obviously the pipeline of public servants in the area could use some zhuzhing, but I might be a little wary of who I got in to do the instructing and educating myself. Just sayin’. (Dayton Daily News, 4/15/25)
No such hesitation from me on this story out of Mansfield: It is entirely ridiculous, from concept to execution to the angle the AP has taken on it. How quickly do you think the average high school student will reject the idea of learning the same thing babies need to learn? And if you want to laugh even more about the idea of “sleep training” teenagers as an academic exercise, dig into the curricular materials for teachers (available here in all their risible glory), including the admonition that grading for the lessons should “never be based on whether or not a student actually implemented their plan, talked with someone outside of class about their plan, or improved their sleep.” So to anyone expecting this effort to actually result in any noticeable movement in any of the ills it is supposed to remedy: Wake up! You’re dreaming. (AP, via News5 Cleveland, 4/16/25)
And finally today, we follow up on our Monday story about the HOPE Toledo college scholarship program. I was not the only one who first learned this week that the effort had already run into financial trouble, quietly ceasing to admit new students after the Class of 2022. Because its founder, Toledo native and Chicago marijuana entrepreneur Pete Kadens, also apparently learned it for the first time on Wednesday. Not only that, but he (and we) also learned that each of the three classes whose students (and parents) earned the scholarship before it burned out have outstanding unpaid debts to the colleges that HOPE Toledo was supposed to pay for—potentially totaling over $400,000. The good news is that Kadens committed to paying the outstanding balance for the Class of 2020; the bad news is, no such commitment has yet been made by anyone regarding the Classes of 2021 and 2022. My heart goes out to the families caught up in this sad, fully-avoidable mess. (Toledo Blade, 4/16/25)