- Not to toot our own horn, but…TOOT! Fordham Ohio’s latest report, Getting Out of the Way: Education Flexibility to Boost Innovation and Improvement in Ohio, was released yesterday and we held a launch event in Columbus. Report and event generated some great response. Check out the Enquirer (Cincinnati Enquirer, 6/11/15, plus other Gannett outlets) for quotes from Aaron Churchill and a response from something called the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition. Check out the (still, for now) Big D (Columbus Dispatch, 6/11/15) for a nice summary of some key points from the morning’s panel discussion and a response from the state teacher’s union that goes in something of an unexpected direction. That same line of thinking is followed by public media’s StateImpact (StateImpact Ohio, 6/11/15), who quote Aaron and then look to the State Senate for a response. The Dayton Daily News’ Jeremy Kelley made the early morning trek to Columbus for the event and produced a wide-ranging piece (Dayton Daily News, 6/11/15, plus a few other outlets in the publishing group) that covered a number of other issues besides teacher licensure and tenure. Thanks to the good folks at Education First, our intrepid panelists, and everyone who attended.
- We’ll stay in Dayton with Jeremy for moment – and stay on the subject of teachers – to talk about a newly-announced initiative called “Live Dayton, Teach Dayton”. The program offers an incentive to newly-hired teachers who agree to live in the city of Dayton for three years. This program, funded by the city and Dayton Public Schools, joins an incentive program from Sinclair Community College that would provide a $1,500 scholarship to middle or high school teachers who want to become “adjunct-eligible” to teach at Sinclair. The "Live Dayton" stipend is available for teachers in Dayton Public Schools and to new teachers at Dayton Leadership Academy, a charter school which is sponsored by Fordham. (Dayton Daily News, 6/11/15)
- In other news, the Senate version of Ohio’s next two-year budget proposes elimination of the Straight-A Innovation Fund. This is a nice piece that details some of the projects the fund helped to create in the Cincinnati area. "There's just so many examples of how this has truly impacted the lives of kids," said Cincinnati Public Schools’ world language manager. I might have talked about a STEM school myself, but it seems that Rock and Roll Academy is a big deal as well. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 6/11/15)
- Speaking of students benefitting from innovative education models, here’s a guest piece from Huffington Post written by a young man in Toledo who tells of the “huge leg up” he received via the career tech education he received at Toledo Technology Academy. Says the young and wise Joseph Neyhart, “Yesterday's voc-tech is today's career and technical education.” Nice. (Huffington Post, 6/11/15)
- Not much new here, but worth a clip. The Beacon Journal is attempting to learn more about White Hat Management’s potential sale of contracts on 12 of its charter schools to a Virginia-based management company. I certainly hope that journalist Doug Livingston was not surprised when White Hat didn’t jump at the chance to provide information to the paper. A cursory look at the amount of ABJ ink expended on White Hat stories in the past probably foreshadowed at least the speed with which any potential answer might arrive. Story developing, hopefully. (Akron Beacon Journal, 6/10/15)
