Gadfly Bites 5/19/21—“Our kids have never been where they need to be.”

1. While we heard on Monday about how far behind Columbus City Schools’ seniors are, here is a positive “beyond-the-pod” story where we learn a lot about another church-affiliated non-profit doing the work of tutoring, supporting remote learning, and so much more for some of the district’s students. There is no discussion of how much money it takes to do all this support, but since it’s all conducted out of a renovated and repurposed old house on Columbus’ east side, I would assume it is a shoestring. (Columbus Dispatch, 5/18/21) Meanwhile, here’s another very lengthy and detailed story about how school districts in the Cincinnati area are prioritizing social-emotional learning above all else right now. In Middletown City Schools, for example, the district treasurer notes that while learning loss (yes, he said it) is not a new challenge to them, “limited funding and resources have always been an obstacle” in overcoming that challenge. Specifically, the district has been “trying to advance kids by 1½ grade levels each year for a number of years now to get them on track.” One assumes he forgot the fact that a majority of those kids likely fell behind while under the district’s aegis, but let’s not quibble about who’s responsible for what. There’s still a pandemic on, after all. And Middletown will apparently not be addressing learning loss much until those students’ rona-related issues are fully dealt with. Much of the district’s $26 million in federal coronavirus support money (a huge shoestring if you ask me) will go to hire 60 new full-time staffers (which does, to be fair, include some tutors), mainly focused on those SEL needs first and foremost. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/17/21)
    
2. Here’s a story about a hard-charging 18-year-old in the Cleveland area who started her own business to help fund her ambitious college plans. Alysha Ginel tells WKYC about how she taught herself math in middle school but didn’t know whether she had done it right until she took her high school placement test and knocked it out of the park. She is now valedictorian of that high school and heading to the University of Pennsylvania for undergrad in the fall and, eventually, to law school. I know TV news stories are short and the focus of this piece was elsewhere, but I personally would love to know which middle school Ms. Ginel hung around in back in the day and indeed which high school she has gone on to dominate these last few years. Neither of those details is included. Luckily for us, Google is your friend for at least one of those forgotten factoids: *cough*charterhighschool*cough*. (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 5/18/21)
   
   

3. There’s a lot of self-delusional self-congratulation that could be humorously unpacked in this story about the latest joint meeting of the Academic Distress Commission and the elected board of Lorain City Schools, but since we just got done talking about high schoolers and graduation, let’s just stick with the closing stats. To wit, praise for the district’s 80+ percent on-track rate as of this week, while letting the attrition of nearly 15 percent of the Class of 2021 over the preceding four years stand without comment. Wonder where they went? And why. Oh wait—I feel like we may have already covered that last question in the Bites before… (Morning Journal, 5/18/21)
    
4. I feel like folks regularly forget—and never more so than over the last year or so—the fact that most kids love to learn. Especially the little ones and especially when they have teachers who love what they teach and do the hard work to make it fun and engaging. I am reminded of this fact again while reading the quotes from fifth grader Killian Mason, who will be attending the first-ever summer school program put on by Christ the King School in Toledo this year. And yes, it is being done to mitigate learning loss (hey, if a district treasurer can say it, I can) due to the pandemic. But they’re not sugar-coating it by calling it Learno-Extendo-Palooza-Ganza-With-Fries! or whatever. Even the kid knows: “It's going to be more like a normal year, like school but in a summer climate.” And he, unsurprisingly (to me at least), couldn’t be more excited for it. (WTOL-TV, Toledo, 5/18/21)
   
   

5. Finally today, two state legislators are on the record in the OCJ prognosticating the fate of the school funding revamp currently included in the state budget. The intro makes it sound like kum-ba-ya between the two. I am, somehow, not convinced. Check out their quotes and see what you think. (Ohio Capital Journal, 5/19/21)

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