Gadfly Bites 5/9/25—Roadblocks to success

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1. Since it happens so rarely around here, let’s start today’s clips with not one but two pieces of unequivocal good news emerging from school districts. First up, Toledo City Schools’ long-gestating (and, sadly, oft-roadblocked) CDL licensure program for students has produced its first graduates. There is nothing but good news in this story. Kudos to everyone involved! (Toledo Blade, 5/7/25) A group of high schoolers at Whitehall-Yearling High School dedicated their senior project to easing their fellow students’ trip to school every day. Whitehall City Schools doesn’t provide busing for high school students, and many kids have a long walk that regularly results in five- or ten-minute tardies—lost time that adds up to lost learning and perhaps chronic absenteeism. These budding engineers have created a prototype electric scooter program that includes docking stations, tracking systems, and chargers. If all goes well, it will be up and running in the fall. Awesome. (NBC 4 News, Columbus, 5/8/25)
   
   

2. As usual, it’s all downhill from here. As we noted earlier this week, Cleveland Metropolitan School District will unify school calendars across the district starting in the fall, ending the extended-day and extended-year schedules currently used at various schools of choice. This is, ultimately, a cost-saving measure for the cash-strapped district, but other “explanations” for the move have been trotted out this week. In this piece, Patrick O’Donnell focuses on one of those: the fact that year-round schooling has produced “no gains” in those buildings where it has been used. As much as implementing a year-round schedule was (and still is) considered an “experiment” here, one cannot escape the fact that ending it is a similarly-speculative venture. These schools of choice are among the highest-performing in the district and are sought out by parents looking for the best option for their kids. District CEO Warren Morgan says that there are “other variables” besides the extended year that makes them so good, but is that really true? Are those other variables going to be equally strong with 10 or 20 fewer days? I guess we’re all going to find out soon enough, whether we want to or not. (The 74, 5/7/25)
   
   

3. Here’s another one of those “we need to move beyond X” pieces which, as we decoded earlier this week, means that the author has pretty much given up on X (or actually hates X) and wants to do anything but X because it is hard (or odious). The piece is an op-ed, the author is a suburban district superintendent, and X = teaching the science of reading (or math or civics or whatever else reformers want to teach in a plain, unvarnished, and research-proven way). All of this seems particularly tone deaf to me given the extended series of articles in the Dispatch this week starkly illustrating Ohio’s cratering K-12 math achievement. You can’t “move beyond” what you haven’t yet reached, doc. Get back to me when every kid is proficient. (Columbus Dispatch, 5/8/25) I’m sorry to say that this effort—waiving the 3.0 GPA requirement for high school students to qualify for postsecondary CTE courses via College Credit Plus—appears to me to be the same thing in different words. Removing the readiness requirement does not magically make students ready for anything; and allowing them to move them forward when they are not ready is a recipe for an expensive disaster. You’d think a former football coach would know that. (Cleveland.com, 5/8/25)
   
   

4. Luckily, current managing director of advocacy for ExcelinEd Davin Babcock (also former policy director and chief of staff for the Ohio House of Representatives) is thinking very differently in his op-ed, published today. “Ohio has long been a national leader in education innovation,” he writes, referring to all the academic achievement goals our previous writers and speakers want to “move beyond” despite not having yet fully reached them. “The question in 2025 isn’t whether we can improve outcomes for students,” he continues, “it’s whether we’ll choose to. By working together, our leaders can ensure this session results in policies that are student-centered, future-focused and grounded in evidence.” Much better. (Cleveland.com, 5/9/25)
   
   

5. Going back to the topic of CTE for a moment, here’s a look at the enrollments and—more pointedly—the giant waiting lists at all of the career and technical schools in the Miami Valley. Victims of their own success. (Dayton Daily News, 5/8/25)
   
   

6. It’s going to take another year, but a new Catholic high school option is coming to Findlay. The latest Ohio addition to the Chesterton Schools network will open in Flag City, U.S.A. (look it up) in the fall of 2026. Awesome! (Toledo Blade, 5/5/25)

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