- In this difficult time, I’m sure you’ll agree that we have to take whatever sunshine we can get. And when it turns out that the children in some of Ohio’s worst-performing school districts get that win, then it’s even sweeter to me. (Ohio Supreme Court, 5/13/20)
- In related news, a committee of the state board of education voted yesterday to raise the cut score for Ohio’s third grade reading test…because they had to by law. By a vote of 7-1, they raised it by one point; then by a unanimous vote, they passed an emergency resolution to urge the legislature to waive the statutory requirement necessitating the approved change. (Gongwer Ohio, 5/11/20) Later on, the full board voted (16-2) to approve a 20 percent pay cut for themselves for the rest of 2020. (Dayton Daily News, 5/12/20)
- The state board said they cut their pay as a show of solidarity with schools and districts across the state who are also going to be absorbing funding cuts. Remember how we mentioned on Friday that you’d see a lot of the same talking points from various districts around the funding cut conversation? Almost as if they were all being fed the same bullet points from a single source. Here is more evidence of that from North Olmsted City Schools. (That “rainy day fund” phrase should be a song title, I think.) Although, as we noted on Monday, the bullet points repeated by bougie schools will be different than those repeated by non-bougie ones. (Cleveland.com, 5/13/20) And if you think I’m wrong about this whole putative “talking point” business, you are actually partially right! My fevered imagining posits a passive process – a regularly-scheduled conference call where district leaders are given this information in one gestalt-like transfer on the regular. In this piece, where Cleveland Heights-University Heights City Schools blasts out their cashola-related talking points (which naturally involve their favorite bête noir: vouchers), you actually get to see how the process works. And I’m clearly wrong. It’s a far more active a thing than I had posited. My apologies for the error…and thanks to Thomas Jewell of the Sun Press for including that awesome level of detail. (Cleveland.com, 5/13/20)
- Is there literally anyone not connected to Lorain’s previous, ongoing, pervasive suckitude who is not applying to be the next CEO? So much for the win, kids. (Elyria Chronicle, 5/12/20)
- I’m sorry to clip a press release, but you’ll understand why I had to in just a moment. KIPP Columbus has been honored among a group of charter schools across the country for going “above and beyond” to support their students during the coronavirus-related school shutdown. Why no, there hasn’t been any media coverage of their awesomeness. Why do you ask? (NAPCS, 5/12/20)
- Perhaps, after all of this, the only way kids can win is by going their own way. A twelve-year-old student in southwest Ohio, said to have “outgrown” the local district’s K-12 curriculum, enrolled in community college instead and will shortly be taking home an associate degree. And nice try with that AP reference, Enquirer, but I doubt that would have mattered here. Twelve. Years. Old. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/11/20)
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