Gadfly Bites 7/15/19 – Choice is good

1. Chad trekked over to the Spectrum News offices last week to talk about Ohio’s academic distress paradigm live. His 8 minutes on screen are dedicated to discussing one of the approximately 328 different options state legislators are looking at for changing that ADC paradigm. (Spectrum News 1, 7/12/19)
   

2. Interesting editorial on same from the Wheeling Intelligencer today. They seem to be the only folks (besides your humble clips compiler, that is) who don’t believe the current ADC legislation is “broken” and they completely ignore those 328 “repair” options noted above. They recommend that Ohio stays the course until the state Supreme Court can hear and rule. Fascinating. (Wheeling Intelligencer, 7/15/19)

3. Here’s an update on the “gradeless transcript” dreamed up at Cleveland’s tony Hawken School and developed by the woefully misnamed Mastery Transcript Consortium. A handful of true believers/guinea pigs will be submitting these things to colleges soon. Ugh. (The 74 Million, 7/14/19)

4. As a palate cleanser, how about a quick roundup of stories from the “choice is good” department? First up, it was “Rocket Day” at PAR Excellence Academy in Newark last Friday. Sounds like a great, fun, educational STEM (and history) learning day which was open to the entire community. A great intro for them to this awesome (and only) charter school in Licking County. (Newark Advocate, 7/12/19). This piece is a little late, but its lovely tone and important details make it most welcome at any time: it is a look at the graduation ceremony—and the impressive senior class—of Horizon Science Academy in Lorain. (The Morning Journal, 7/13/19) Another piece from West Virginia (jealous much, Mountaineers?) welcomes the new head of school at the Utica Shale Academy, an energy-trades based charter school across the border in Ohio. (Weirton Daily Times, 7/14/19) Finally, the ACCEL charter school network (them again?) could be in the market to buy some white elephant school buildings off the Cleveland Metropolitan School District soon. A win for everyone, I think, if the deal can be worked out. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 7/11/19)

5. Finally today: A 508 school, College Credit Plus, and a precocious young student. What more could you want from an education news clip? Homeschooled ten-year-old Darryl Elijah Owens III is the youngest student ever enrolled at Stark State College. And it doesn’t sound like he’s going to stop there, with his sights set on being a professional basketball player AND a college professor of American history or government. (Canton Repository, 7/15/19)

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