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- In case you hadn’t heard, the House Higher Education Committee is holding a series of exploratory hearings on science of reading implementation in Ohio so far. Yesterday’s hearing included invited testimony from state and national policy leaders, including Fordham’s own Chad Aldis. Some interesting Q&A with him and all of the witnesses. (Gongwer Ohio, 5/24/24). Chad’s full written remarks can be read here, and full video of the hearing is here (Chad starts at 2:30). Good stuff!
- Now that the Columbus City Schools’ Facilities Task Force has released its closure/consolidation proposals, it’s time for the PR portion of the process. A series of formal public input sessions begins Thursday; but before that, we got a press junket. Specifically, two members of the elected school board yesterday led members of the media on tours of Columbus Alternative (a magnet high school program operating in a century-old building with…some issues) and Columbus Downtown High School (a nicely-appointed 2009 building which hosts trade-focused classes and has a utilization of less than 46 percent capacity). One of the proposals is to move the alternative program to the downtown building and consolidate the trade classes at another career-tech-focused campus near downtown. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but we’ll see how it goes. (Columbus Dispatch, 5/15/24) Meanwhile, an impromptu “input session” happened at Marion-Franklin High School yesterday when a group of parents and teachers crashed what was supposed to be a private meeting of the task force there. Closure of MFHS—older, not well-maintained, and operating at less than 44 percent capacity—is one of the proposals, with students consolidated at South High School, nearby. Doesn’t sound like anyone who offered their input—which the task force members listened to even though things reportedly got argumentative—is in support of that plan and they offered numerous reasons to not do it. We’ll just focus on one of them for now—a common roadblock to consolidating schools used successfully before here and elsewhere: Gangs. As in, students from these two schools are in rival gangs and will attack and harm one another if forced to share space. Now I don’t doubt that this is true, but what I do have issue with is the unspoken assertion that nothing can be done about it. Honestly, wouldn’t addressing even this one gang beef via the schools be a humungous benefit to every citizen of Columbus, over and above the small but important issue of efficient use of district buildings? With tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars—not to mention having all the leaders of city/county/state/police/church/social service/sports/higher ed/business on speed dial and all raring to help the schools with anything they might ask for—couldn’t the reality of the problem be acknowledged and prepped for? (Look guys, I know what resources and pressure you can muster if you want to. To, say, pass a levy or build a new stadium or get neighbors to allow a new school building or a bus turnaround to be built. That’s the effort I’m talking about here.) What if LeBron James is there at the new high school on Day One along with food trucks and a concert? And the mayor and the fire chief are there on Day Two with donuts? And the head of children’s hospital is there on Day Three? Etc. Etc. Etc. And what if there are also 100 social service pros there every day until things are working smoothly? Feels like a much better idea than adults in charge saying “yeah no; those kids will kill each other, we can’t do that.” (ABC6 News, Columbus, 5/15/24)
- Not to end on a down note, how about a CTE student with a perfect ACT score? Yes? Well then, meet Maryam Tunkara from Butler Tech, who is clearly awesome all on her own—no PR hype required. (WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, 5/12/24)
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