Gadfly Bites 7/13/22—Popp Goes the Tiger

1. I’m not sure whether the voucher haters suing the state of Ohio over the EdChoice Scholarship Program had been waiting on a critical mass of cranky-yet-gullible school districts to pay up for join their pathetic band, but hot on the heels of the elected board of Toledo City Schools ponying up, we appear to have some very tiny little movement in the case this week. You will no doubt have noted in this clip that the leader of the voucher haters spouted off against charter schools as well. Charters are not part of the lawsuit but that scattershot rhetoric is yet another example of school choice hatred so white hot that all logic and coherence goes out the window when a willing ear is available to them. (Statehouse News Bureau, 7/11/22) This piece on how Dayton-area parents can go about choosing a school for their children from all the many options available to them includes a subtler version of that same rhetoric from anti-choice voices. Luckily, our own Aaron Churchill is on hand to offer some positive (and important) advice on the topic for readers. (Dayton Daily News, 7/13/22)
   
   

2. Meanwhile, I fear the spirit of Ned Ludd might be haunting the chamber were the state board of education met this week to discuss a computer science curriculum for Buckeye students. (Gongwer Ohio, 7/11/22)
    
3. Setting aside the fact that this story reminds me of Beverly Goldberg’s stint as Quaker Warden on a TV sitcom, and setting aside some of the red flags raised (for me) regarding adult perceptions of high school students, Pickerington City Schools’ expanding “Parents on Positivity Patrol” program also appears to have at least two words in its name that are active misnomers. (ThisWeek News, 7/8/22)
    
4. And finally today, staying on the twin topics of parents (sorta) and of misleading journalism (deffo), here’s a story pitched as “two Medina County moms” recommending summer math work to help keep kids’ skills sharp. Digging in, we see that these women are veteran classroom teachers who are selling a workbook product they created for profit as a side gig and are donating 15 percent of those profits to schools. At base, there’s nothing wrong with a local news channel running a story about this—it is, to my mind no different than covering a neighborhood lemonade stand—but it should be much clearer from headline and lede what it’s really about. Additionally, there a ton of red flags (again, dude?) in here for me. Among them: The first-hand observation of a lack of math basics in their students (and indeed in their own kids), with no cause attributed; the exclusion of reading skills from their definition of “summer slide”, because these guys aren’t English teachers; the quote, “No one really knows you know how to work on math with their child. No one knows what steps they should be taking or where they should be at different grade levels,” applied to parents writ large; the “no more than five minutes a day” nature of their workbooks, which is too little and leans toward math phobia; and the unwritten but obvious (to me) question of shouldn’t schools—meaning you two teachers—actually be doing most of this stuff when you’re on the clock, rather than leaving it to parents? (News 5, Cleveland, 7/13/22)

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