Gadfly Bites 6/5/26—Clips that ridicule themselves

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We start today by noting the arrival of every Ohio superintendent’s favorite time of year. No, silly; not that. Double-dip season is finally upon us! (Cleveland.com, 6/3/26)
All I have to say in response to this story—discussing a pending bill to dissolve the neglected and rotting carcass of Academic Distress Commissions here in Ohio—is ahahahahahahahahahaha!! But really, that’s enough. (Cleveland.com, 6/3/26)
“O Young Wildcat Initiate! Choose wisely for your high school learning mode. Do you…or do you not…accept…The OP-tionnnnnnnn?!” I mean, how else should I read this piece hyping the “alternative” modes of high school instruction available for students at Mayfield High School, one of the highest-rated and highest-performing schools in the state? The career-centered pathway discussed here seems pretty normal (as in, not exactly groundbreaking), and I suppose we probably know what “traditional classrooms and lectures” refers to. So that leaves only The Option as the seemingly-novel part of this story, although even it has been around for at least six years (so long that I’m sure I’ve ridiculed it at least once before). Even so, I come away from this piece wondering how it truly warrants the moniker of “alternative” (calling it “a structured study hall” for “lack of a better word” does it no favors at all in that regard). And why it’s even needed since the school and its kids have always been super high-performing. And unsure of how can it even work when kids opt in and out of it at will throughout the year (again, “the students are with their teacher for study hall” is a money quote, but not for the reason everyone thinks). And of course why no one has come up with another name for it that doesn’t sound like it’s from Doctor Who in all this time. (The 74, 6/4/26)
Finally this week, we have a fascinating case study that I think illustrates the promise and the pitfalls of current high level “agreement” that big changes need to be made to student transportation in Ohio. In it, we learn about the year that one private school in Delaware County dared to change its bell schedule to a pattern which the local school district couldn’t figure out how to accommodate and thus they chose to declare every single student attending that school “impractical to transport” after years of providing busing without problem. The reportage stops there, making a sort of coup de grâce out of the district’s “We tried to make that work and we just couldn’t” declaration, and leaving the impression that the obvious solution to a problem like this would be for districts to dictate the daily schedules of every school for which they provide transportation to their own satisfaction. (Your interpretation may vary, of course, but that’s how I read it. It is at least clear that that the district in the example tried to do so as its one and only effort to solve their problem.) Even if I stipulate that incompatible bell schedules represents a large proportion of the “impractical to transport” epidemic in Ohio (which I don’t, but just for the sake of argument…), there is another, far simpler, solution that goes unmentioned in this piece’s 720+ words. Can you guess what it is? If so, do you think the current high level agreement that “big changes to transportation” are needed would survive a serious legislative attempt to implement it? I for one am skeptical. (Cleveland.com, 6/3/26)