Gadfly Bites 6/12/26—Complicated matters

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We’ll start today with a simple note that, among the myriad legislation passed in the General Assembly this week, was a bill that included a provision for Ohio middle and high schools to teach students about the Success Sequence. That is, the research-based optimal pathway to life success: Get an education, then get a job, then get married, then have children. Such a curriculum will soon be part of state graduation requirements. (Ohio Capital Journal, 6/12/26)
On to more complicated matters. In case you missed it, Fordham Senior Research Fellow Vlad Kogan recently posted a fairly stinging analysis of the Columbus Promise program on the Ohio Gadfly Daily blog. (And in case you’ve forgotten, that’s the pledge from the city that any Columbus City Schools graduate can attend Columbus State Community College for free.) His downbeat findings—inadequate academic preparation, lots of dropouts, lost earnings, and high operating costs—very quickly generated a flurry of responses from the district, the city, and the folks hired to do the original research on program outcomes, published in the Dispatch today. It’s an important debate that we can only hope will lead to improvements in the program that better benefit students at some point in the future. (Columbus Dispatch, 6/12/26) Kogan is also an OSU professor, and he has to go into full lecture mode in this piece, easily debunking the idea that state funding for school districts is shrinking by using a pizza analogy. Good one, prof! Hopefully that’ll boost up your RateMyProfessors number even higher. (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 6/9/26)
Speaking of school funding issues, the elected board of Mentor City Schools has determined that their current funding woes are the result of the expansion of the EdChoice Scholarship program to near-universal status and—because they are facing a looming deficit—they must now oppose it. They voted 4-1 to join the voucher groucher lawsuit. In a unique twist, they will not have to kick in a portion of their state funding to turn around and sue the state because a random Mentorite (for surely that is what they must be called) has already maxed out a GoFundMe campaign to donate private funds for the effort, with a second one in the works for next year’s lawyer dues. Crazy stuff! (News 5, Cleveland, 6/11/26) As all 6 of my long-standing, long-suffering subscribers will surely recall, we noted that the Mentorinos (just tryin’ something) were planning to have a “debate” of sorts in chambers about EdChoice and the merits of joining the voucher groucher lawsuit. That event did actually happen, but unfortunately I missed the limited coverage there was at the time. You can take a look now if you want; I found it unsurprising.
It should be noted that the elected Mentorians (still tryin’ stuff) on the board also took a step toward putting a new levy on the ballot in November to help shore up finances. Perhaps if that fails, they can crowdfund operating cash from some of their wealthier residents, too. No such option in Jefferson Township Local Schools, I reckon. Their third attempt at a levy in 12 months went down to defeat in May. And with no KickStarter to fall back on, the tiny (and still shrinking) district is making substantive staffing cuts, including all of their principals. Now before you jump on the “Ohio is starving its school districts of cash” bandwagon, do take note that Jefferson Twp. has so few students (259 at highest recent count) that they have only had two principals in the entire district for many years. There are daycares in Ohio bigger than that! Not sure how they’ve avoided fiscal emergency up to now, but it’s clearly time to talk about dissolution, consolidation, or charterization for this disappearing district. (Dayton Daily News, 6/10/26) Meanwhile, Akron City Schools has been hemorrhaging students for the last 30 years, with enrollment declines accelerating steeply since 2010. While a couple of buildings have been closed in that time, the district has also been on a building and renovation spree so comprehensive that they now face an even bigger dilemma: Any underutilized school they close to rightsize their footprint—and they must do so to avoid a looming deficit—is going to be less than 20 years old. Closing those brand-new white elephants will be “emotional”, district leaders say, but think of how readily they’ll sell to a charter or private school operator in near-mint condition. (Signal Akron, 6/11/26)
In Cleveland, meanwhile, a group of community members (yes, district-employed union members count as “community”…although I do wonder how many of them actually live in Cleveland proper) is trying to end CMSD’s 30-year experiment with mayoral control of the school district—including a return to electing board members. They say they are motivated by the recent spate of building closures and consolidations. While it is true that pushback against the effort was likely dampened by the lack of elected board members involved, it is ironic that the Akron Schools folks in the clip above cite CMSD’s closure efforts as successful (they have been) and worth emulating (they are, especially the support given to impacted families). Feels like an uphill climb, but we’ll see how it goes. (Signal Cleveland, 6/9/26)