- In case you didn’t know, this is National Charter Schools Week. It is also, by coincidence, National Teacher Appreciation Week. This story is timely as it is a conjunction of the two. Like the conjunction of celestial bodies that result in one eclipsing the other. (NBC4, Columbus, 5/5/23)
- I don’t know what the proper term for a non-fortuitous conjunction is, but here’s another piece that fits that description: On the eve of National Charter Schools Week, charter school leaders from across the state appeared before the Ohio Senate Education Committee in Columbus begging for the basics, including a transportation system that actually works to get their students to school. Charming. (Gongwer Ohio, 5/5/23)
- Had enough celebration yet? I sure have. Let’s go see instead what’s going on in our traditional school districts across the Buckeye State. First up: Here’s a look at how two districts in northwest Ohio have been spending their federal Covid-relief money. There’s not a ton of detail here, which is probably a good thing, but I am initially struck by how many millions of dollars both city and suburban districts spent on upgrading digital learning resources. This is apparently even after the pivot to remote education by districts unprepared and uninterested in doing it right proved to be a predictably huge disaster for kids and families. Both districts in this story still have tens of millions to spend as well and the clock is ticking. Maybe they’ll just stick to upgrading their sports facilities or something simple like that. (Toledo Blade, 5/8/23)
- “I guarantee there is more social and emotional damage done to a kid sitting in the 10th grade that can’t read” than in holding that student back a grade, Canton City Schools Superintendent Jeff Talbert told The Rep last week. “The kid sitting in the 10th grade that doesn’t know his math and is sitting in an algebra II or geometry class,” he continued, “is more of a problem than me telling you that you missed too much school” and so will have to repeat the foundational material. Nice, right? And because Canton City Schools is seeing a huge percentage of students chronically absent and/or failing at least two foundational classes, supe is pushing for a “change” in his district’s retention policy. I use the quotes there because it’s really just a tweak to the existing policy which we learn—without comment—“hasn’t been followed” for many years. A tweak that will take more than a year to put in place and involves “alternative programs” for kids as well as the actually-enforced retention provision. Care to guess how this is going to play out? (Canton Repository, 5/7/23)
- Meanwhile, 2023’s Ohio Teacher of the Year is among the voices continuing to bug the legislature to eliminate the retention provision of the state’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee. (Cleveland.com, 5/8/23)
- Superintendent Bob Hill is looking back on the merger of two Springfield City Schools high school buildings into one 15 years ago. He is in a mood to celebrate, it seems, although he admits that the “wins” have been small. How small? Well, apparently the district’s report card grades and student achievement levels are so bad these days that no one will even state them, with the supe explaining in writing to everyone that they are not an “accurate representation” of district success. More accurate, he says, is performance index (or PI) scores. On that measure, Springfield is 591 out of 671 districts and 714 out of 859 district and charter schools. Yep, that’s definitely what I might term a “small win”. There’s another term for it that comes to my mind as well that does not start with “small”. (Springfield News-Sun, 5/8/23)
- But, yeah. Vouchers are the problem. (The Courier, 5/8/23)
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