Gadfly Bites 8/28/26—Welcome changes

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned.

1. Patrick O’Donnell covers the topic of Ohio’s industry-recognized credentialing system for high school students. This includes the numerous warnings about its weaknesses from both Jessica Poiner and Aaron Churchill and the great news that the Department of Education and Workforce has instituted welcome changes to drop many low-value credentials and to limit the ways in which credentials can contribute to a determination of graduation readiness. Huge and important fixes, worthy of the national attention. (The 74, 8/26/26)
   
   

2. Speaking of state-level innovations, this year also sees the launch of two new dashboards aimed at helping students and families get the most out of educational data: Ohio High School Outcomes and Ohio Career and Technical Education Outcomes. At their rollout earlier this week, Ohio DEW director Stephen Dackin said, “Parents want to know their child’s education leads to a brighter future. Employers want graduates who are ready to contribute on day one. These dashboards provide a new level of insight into students’ journeys beyond high school so families can plan with confidence, schools can build on what works, and employers can count on a stronger pipeline of Ohio talent.” Sounds fantastic to me. (Spectrum News 1, Ohio, 8/27/26)
   
   

3. Meanwhile, two of Aaron Churchill’s recent Ohio Gadfly Daily blog posts busting school funding myths being promulgated by school district leaders and supporters were cited and linked in this Gongwer piece (subscriber only; sorry, peons). Aaron dismantles their “sleight of hand” claims of fiscal starvation by the state and explains how their justifications for more money unravel in light of a proper understanding of the way the school funding system works. Lucky for them, I guess, the number of folks who understand is very small. Unfortunately, Aaron is the best and most persistent of them all. (State Affairs/Gongwer Ohio, 8/26/26) Despite the subscriber-only nature of this particular coverage, I’m sure you have seen the district apologists falsely claiming poverty in both your subscription and non-subscription news feeds already. Aaron’s two most recent blog posts on the topic are also available to you for free here and here.

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