Gadfly Bites 6/2/21—The rubber hits the road

1. Our own Jessica Poiner had an op-ed published in the Enquirer last week arguing for keeping Ohio’s universal college admissions testing requirement. Important topic, as you’ll see. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/30/21)
    
2. Meanwhile, Goodyear Tire & Rubber announced that it will be funding fifteen full-ride scholarships for local students to attend the University of Akron, five per year for the next three years, starting with the Class of 2021. It is unclear from this piece whether charter, private, and STEM school students will be eligible, but whoever applies will need—you guessed it—a “competitive” score on one of those college admissions tests. (Akron Beacon Journal, 6/2/21)
    
3. Speaking of Akron, the first group of students who received education supports from the I Promise Foundation are now graduating high school. The stories of the kids who persevered over the last 10 years are great—all of them crediting the program (tutoring, afterschool activities, summer school, the chance to meet LeBron James) for their success, including high enough college admissions test scores. And I particularly liked the fact that not only did many kids receive full-ride scholarships to the University of Akron and Kent State University, those students will attend together—rooming together where possible and even attending some classes as a group. Perfect! One sobering note among the data: “Of the 327 who originally signed up, 169 remain in the program and are graduating, although some may require classes this summer or in the fall to reach that milestone. Most of those no longer in the program transferred out of Akron schools, according to the foundation. About a third of those graduating are heading for college in the fall.” I am hopeful that as the program grew from its humble beginnings and limited offerings in 2011, the strengthening of its support system helped boost some of those more sobering numbers through the years. (Akron Beacon Journal, 6/2/21)
    
4. While I could make a lot of hay out of this piece—in which we learn that the elected board of Columbus City Schools voted to join up with the putative lawsuit against vouchers in Ohio—I’ll just be content to point out the ironic juiciness of the fact that this story is here reported by the district-owned and operated public radio station. But I would like to point your attention to the B story in the final paragraph here. There is something perversely…comforting (probably not the right word)…in knowing that even a global pandemic couldn’t stop Columbus City Schools’ data manipulation juggernaut issues. (WCBE-FM, Columbus, 6/2/21)
   
   

5. Everyone at the Statehouse is trying hard to send more money to Ohio’s schools. (Too bad some of them are going to use that funding to turn around and sue the state over vouchers, amiright?) That includes the Ohio Senate, which unveiled its own version of a school funding overhaul yesterday. This version, I understand, also follows the previous House plan to move charter and voucher funding to a direct model, rather than deducting from money given to districts. But this version, overall, is described by some as a more prudent and fiscally sustainable approach to the overall school funding formula than the previous version. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/1/21) The Senate school funding plan is, so I understand, also built on promoting excellent school options and helping to boost families’ access to them. That includes full funding of the quality charter school fund, increasing support for charter and independent STEM schools’ facilities, raising EdChoice and Cleveland scholarship, and removing arbitrary geographic restrictions on where startup charters may locate. (Columbus Dispatch, 6/2/21) Mind you, these are things that I understand about the plan. Not things that are actually touched on much in either of these two pieces.

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