Gadfly Bites 6/24/24—Schools that cannot fulfill their academic role shouldn’t spend a penny on anything else

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1. Big thanks to the Dayton Daily News for covering Fordham’s new report on brick-and-mortar charter school performance versus traditional district schools in the first two years after pandemic disruptions. Kudos to reporter Eileen McClory for finding folks to comment on the paper who actually accede to the accuracy of the findings, even as they protest (very gently, if I may say so) that more research into other comparisons between school types would be interesting to see. I couldn’t agree more! (Dayton Daily News, 6/21/24)
   
   

2. Personally, I feel that Akron City Schools has other, more important matters on its plate than joining the voucher groucher lawsuit, but it seems that the elected school board disagrees with me and will vote later today in favor of paying out $40K of their precious state funding to join the folks suing the state over the EdChoice program. All of this while trying to get folks to give them more money via a levy in November and while seemingly actively ignoring that disastrous performance audit that showed the district failing to serve students across numerous aspects of education. The arguments for joining are pretty dubious, too, I think. Would it really sway the judge/strengthen the legal argument if more districts or specific districts were involved? And would it really show the public at large that “we are doing everything we can to bring money into the system and keep money into the system” (per elected board member Barbara Sykes’ logic) if one of families’ educational options were forcibly shut off? (Akron Beacon-Journal, 6/24/24)
   
   

3. Businessman (and former elected school board member) Philip Derrow, responding to the overload media coverage grouching about vouchers lately, published on op-ed in the Dispatch this morning. He says that underperforming school districts are losing families to alternatives (all the alternatives) simply because they want something better for their kids, and that nothing will change for those districts—including the steady decline in enrollment—until their leaders right the academic ship. “I have long argued that the primary role of K-12 education is to successfully impart foundational knowledge to students in literacy, math, the natural sciences, history, civics and the arts,” he writes. “Schools that cannot fulfill that role shouldn’t spend a penny on much of anything else.” And that includes pricey lawsuits meant to eliminate one of those educational options. (Columbus Dispatch, 6/24/24)
   
   

4. Axios Columbus gives us some succinct data to corroborate Mr. Derrow’s thoughts, showing the enrollment declines in Columbus City Schools and Cleveland Metropolitan School District over the last few years. It is worth noting that Columbus City Schools is an OG member of Team Voucher Groucher, having now made at least three annual payments to their lawyers with nothing at all to show for it yet. Even though the payment amount has likely shrunk each year (it’s based on enrollment), this still seems to me like an awfully expensive roll of the dice, especially when the ability to actually give families what they want is already within your power to do…if only you would spend your money on that effort.  (Axios Columbus, 6/24/24)

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