- The Innovative Learning Pilot program was created in the previous Ohio General Assembly session last year. The program involves the use of alternative standardized tests that schools develop on their own to match their educational programming. It is possible that the outcome of the pilot project could influence testing policies for all schools in the future. Yesterday, the list of “already-innovative” districts and independent STEM schools chosen to be part of the pilot program was announced. You can read a straight-up account from Gongwer Ohio (4/6/15). The coverage from the Columbus Dispatch (4/7/15) misses out on the provenance of the pilot project and indicates this is a brand new venture. But it does include a quote from Fordham’s own Chad Aldis, where he laments the “choose your own adventure” nature of this effort. Forget about space; standardized testing appears to be the final frontier these days.
- A bill was introduced in the Ohio House yesterday that would require all students to learn cursive writing between Kindergarten and fifth grade. NOTE: This would have been a funny clip if our CMS allowed a cursive font. But it doesn't, so it's not. (Dayton Daily News, 4/8/15)
- Montessori high schools are rare as hens’ teeth in Ohio. Oddly, Cleveland has one of them already – a pretty swanky private version. Ninety percent of Montessori schools in the US are private schools. So it is with some fanfare that the folks behind that high school announced this week that a new Montessori charter school is coming to Cleveland in the fall. It will be sponsored by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and will share a sliver of local revenue as do the other charters in partnership with the district. It will start with a Children’s House and go through second grade for now, with plans to add grade levels as they gradually rehab the 85-year-old former nursing facility they will call home. Fascinating all around. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/7/15)
- Members of Youngstown City Schools’ Board of Education are feeling denigrated these days, according to their attorney. Not by their super slow progress in raising district achievement levels but by the limitation placed on the number of board meetings they’re allowed to be paid for attending due to the presence of an Academic Distress Commission in the district. There is, as you might imagine, no limit on the number of unpaid meetings they can have. Nobody asked me, but I might suggest that the argument that “one day the commission will be gone and the Board will be responsible for the district beyond that” is not a winning one in this case. We will all be (much) old(er) and (much) gray(er) before that happens and President Kardashian will probably have solved education problems by then anyway. (Youngstown Vindicator, 4/8/15)
