Gadfly Bites 6/28/19 – Which is it?

1. Following on with our theme from yesterday, little birdies in the Statehouse are apparently suggesting that changes to the state’s intervention efforts into chronically underperforming schools (a.k.a. ADCs) may be limited in the final budget bill—to a simple moratorium on new declarations of academic distress with no efforts to alter the existing paradigm included. Since this is of primary interest to Dayton City Schools, we’ll let the Daily News tells us about it. (Dayton Daily News, 6/26/19) If this moratorium idea comes to fruition, the three existing ADC-based turnaround efforts would likely continue unchanged until a standalone bill could be put in place to make whatever changes can be decided upon. As you might expect, representatives of at least three of those three ADC districts have concerns about this idea. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/26/19) Meanwhile, the editorial board of the Blade seems to be of two minds on the topic. Which is it you want, gang: Repeal or moratorium? (Toledo Blade, 6/27/19)

2. Certain parts of the I Promise School model are spreading to other buildings in Akron City Schools. Specifically, the family support center providing wraparound services for other members of students’ families along with the students themselves. Staffed and largely funded by the local United Way. Nice. (Akron Beacon Journal, 6/25/19)

3. The legislature’s Joint Education Oversight Committee (“Those guys are still around?” I hear you ask. Yes. They are.) met this week to discuss the Prepared for Success measure on state report cards. As I read this coverage of the testimony, many district school types (no charter or STEM schools are included in testimony, of course) and the legislators agreeing with them are asserting that the measure is “wrong” because very few districts got an A on it. It should therefore either be removed or altered to provide a “more accurate picture”. But it seems to me that the measure is pretty accurate as is; the districts doing well in preparing kids for college are rightly getting As. And if you’re getting an F, you are not preparing enough of your graduates for college. Seems like a quick fix would be renaming the measure “Prepared for College Success”. Then the districts still unhappy could help create a “Prepared for Military Success” or “Prepared for Hospital Porter Success” or “Prepared for Artistic Success” or whatever it is you value instead of college. And then you can make them as accurate as you need to and parents can work out whether they want that kind of success for their kids. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/27/19)

4. Finally today, you all know that I rate Gadfly Bites’ level of influence on a scale of -1 to Abysmal. So it is clearly only a hilarious coincidence that a week after I suggested the elected board of Dayton City Schools might want to throw in the towel if they could not successfully spend down the $100 million surplus upon which they are currently sitting, three sitting members announced they would not run for reelection. (Dayton Daily News, 6/27/19) Luckily for everyone, there is someone in the administration who does know how to spend. Can we demo it? Yes we can! (Dayton Daily News, 6/28/19)

Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox (in case you want to join the abysmal parade and sign up for such a newsletter)? Subscribe by clicking here.