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- I’m probably missing something here, but does anybody else think that the idea of a well-funded Education Services Center holding a “flea market” to sell classroom supplies (“This includes books, decorations, games, and more.”) to teachers—who are paying from their own pockets here—seems a little odd? Especially since the event, brand-new this year, seems to have been targeted at first-year teachers who, I suspect, have no idea in the first week of August how much money their own schools will provide for them to stock their classrooms…or indeed if their well-funded schools might already have giant piles of “anything a teacher could need” in the back room. While the data may show that teachers nationwide always spend some amount of their own money buying such things, it feels like a messy message to have the ESC be the ones taking a chunk of that change, rather than finding some way to mitigate or fully obviate any such spending, perhaps using their own very full coffers to do just that. Your humble clips compiler hopes that this is also the last annual edition of this shady-sounding shindig. (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 8/2/24)
- We’ve talked about this already, but it’s worth repeating for a couple of reasons: Xavier Jesuit Academy is a brand new private school opening in Cincinnati in a matter of weeks. It is able to provide an expansive educational experience (all boys, grades 3 through 5 for the first year of operation) for a maximum out-of-pocket expense of $1,000 per year per student due to the contributions of major corporate and private donors as well as the expansion of the EdChoice Scholarship Program to near-universal eligibility status. Let me say that again: The expansion of vouchers in Ohio created a new school where none previously existed. This includes an extended day program, “designed for kids whose parents work beyond school hours” (which is, of course, almost all working parents) and a free summer program. Extracurriculars include athletics, fine arts, culinary arts, and service opportunities. And the curriculum is “designed to engage and encourage young learners during their formative years so they grow up to be great men who serve God and others.” Even better, all 45 boys accepted for the inaugural year were informed in person, at their homes, by staff members bearing balloons, certificates, and a backpack filled with swag. If we’re grading on messaging today, feels to me like ESC 0, Catholic Diocese of Cincinnati 45. (Catholic News Agency, 8/2/24)
- Also in the messy messaging category: Columbus City Schools. So says OSU professor and Fordham friend Vlad Kogan in this very long piece on the topic of school closures, focusing closely on one building—West Broad Elementary. “The district has really struggled to articulate the need for the closures, the motivation for the closures,” says Kogan, “and I think the way that the task force process was set up didn't help with the communication side of it.” This is obviously true, because nowhere in this 2,000-word grouch fest—even after all these months of the closure saga—did anyone note that West Broad’s enrollment is only 65 percent of capacity, that nearly 70 percent of the school’s 360 students are chronically absent (which means that the building is far less than half occupied most days), and that it received just 2.5 stars out of 5 in its latest report card. And that’s just the start on how the district missed out on a chance to address concerns, both legitimate (parents worried about busing) and not (historic preservationists). (Columbus Dispatch, 8/4/24) While they were not included in the main piece, those data on West Broad Elementary, and on the other district buildings identified by the facilities taskforce for possible closure, are included in this companion piece. Might also be interesting to see what the staffing levels are in these very empty buildings, but that’s probably too much to ask. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/4/24)
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