Gadfly Bites 9/13/19 – Report card drama!

1. Before we get to the big news of the week, let’s take a brief moment to talk about awesome young people. There is no mention of us directly here, but the 7th and 8th graders in the Fordham-sponsored Dayton Leadership Academies participated in a 9/11 commemoration in the Oregon District of Dayton which doubled as a remembrance of the recent tragic shooting there. The event was part of their leadership class and they represented DLA—and Dayton—with pride and grace. (WDTN-TV, Dayton,  9/11/19)
2. The aforementioned “big news of the week” is the release of school and district report cards, which occurred yesterday. Statewide coverage—including a quote from Fordham’s Chad Aldis—comes from Gongwer. At that level the news is generally good. More districts going up than down in overall grades with some notable jumps in places. Doesn’t stop some folks from complaining about report cards generally. You know the buzzwords I’m talking about, right? “Snapshot”, “unrepresentative”, “arbitrary”, “not the full picture”, etc. You will see these words recur out of different mouths all across the state in the following coverage, right when you most expect it. (Gongwer Ohio, 9/12/19) We will talk about the even bigger big news in a bit, but a quick preview comes courtesy of state superintendent Paolo DeMaria, who told Gongwer, “I know there are those voices out there that say having some kind of harsh consequence [you know what he means, right?] can be a motivator, and I think this bears some of that out. I don't think it gets exclusive credit, but one of the reasons that these districts have shown the kind of progress that that they have is because they really were aggressively attentive to trying to get out of that status [you know what he means here too, right?].”

3. The news was mostly good in overall grades across Stark County, but this piece, also including a quote from Chad, digs into some of the component grades too. Lots of room for improvement there, I think. (Canton Repository, 9/12/19) Ditto for this piece from the Rep’s Gatehouse sister outlet the Dispatch. The central Ohio coverage includes a brief look at local charter school report cards too, including commentary from Chad. More comparisons to come, I’m sure. (Columbus Dispatch, 9/12/19)
4. Of course the biggest of the big news is how the latest report card data might impact ongoing legislative work on Ohio’s means of intervening in chronically-underperforming districts. (Yes, I’m aware that that would be speculation—“might”—rather than news; but beggars can’t be choosers around here these days.) We will say briefly that East Cleveland City Schools, still in the first year of its Academic Distress Commission-based turnaround effort, maintained an F grade for 2018-19. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9/12/19) Lorain City Schools, however, in the second year of its Academic Distress Commission oversight, rose to a D on its report card. CEO David Hardy’s words of congratulations to and thankfulness for his teachers and staff were heartfelt and moving to me. The president of the elected school board’s words, in what appeared to be an effort to downplay the improvement, were borderline nonsensical to me. (The Morning Journal, 9/12/19) Even though hizzoner the board prez is pretty quiet in the Chronicle’s report, they still manage to blunt and obfuscate the district’s accomplishment (first time above an F in TEN YEARS, y’all) by the way it is presented. (The Chronicle-Telegram, 9/13/19) Speaking of things Lorainiacs never thought they’d see: Rather than go through a trial, the elected school board, the CEO, and the poor treasurer caught in the middle managed to sit down and solve their little employment dilemma amicably. Through lawyers, and only after eight hours of negotiations. But what are you going to do? (The Morning Journal, 9/11/19)

5. Sadly, no such good news was forthcoming for Youngstown City Schools, currently in their third year under the aegis of an Academic Distress Commission. They recorded an overall F for 2018-19, the fourth straight year at that grade. Devastating for the students and families. (The all new Vindy.com, 9/13/19) That F grade for Youngstown is 100 percent bad news, right? For students looking for a good education in the city, no question. But maybe there is a silver lining? (WFMJ-TV, Youngstown, 9/12/19)
6. That’s right, the next step in the Academic Distress Commission turnaround process for Youngstown as it currently exists in Ohio is the dissolution of the elected school board and the appointment of a new board by the state superintendent and Youngstown’s mayor. But only if HB 154, currently under discussion in the Senate, doesn’t up and change everything. Here is a look at where the school turnaround revamp legislation currently stands from the point of view of Senate leadership. (Gongwer Ohio, 9/11/19)

7. As we noted earlier, there are the usual caveats trotted out every year like clockwork to try and cast doubt on the accuracy and importance of state report cards (“flawed”, “unfair”, “ever-changing”, “confusing”, etc.). But sometimes folks will go off script when talking to reporters—for good or ill. So how about a quick look at some of those more candid reactions? First up, let’s go direct to Denial, Ohio: “As long as we make yearly growth, and feel like the kids are making growth, that's more important to us.”  OK. Cool. (WSAZ-TV, Huntington, WV, 9/12/19) One suburban Toledo supe cited the decision to hold back a sizeable group of special needs students from graduation: “If given the choice between doing what is right for students on IEPs or taking a higher letter grade, we will do what is best for students every single time.”  (Toledo Blade, 9/12/19) Springfield City Schools fell from a D to an F last year. Hard, I’m sure, for a supe to process. “I refuse to let the report card define us,” he tells the News-Sun here. But instead of the report card, he seems to be fine with allowing Common Core (of all things!) to define them: “Much work over the last four years has gone into laying the foundation for achieving these priorities; deconstructing Ohio’s Learning Standards, establishing a scope of sequence, selecting rigorous curricular resources, creating assessments to measure progress toward and mastery of the standards and providing the professional development that teachers and staff need to be successful in meeting the district priorities.” (Springfield News-Sun, 9/12/19) Barberton City Schools in suburban Akron is too busy dealing with a chronic absenteeism problem to care too much about this report card nonsense. (Akron Beacon Journal, 9/12/19) The Medina Gazette covers every county school district in some detail. Cloverleaf Local Schools attributes their jump from a D to C to a strong investment in teacher professional development. Meanwhile, Buckeye Local schools got a C overall, mainly because there were just too many components to work on to boost the overall grade: “You just look at the report cards and try to identify the areas where you can make a difference in for the following year.” (Medina Gazette, 9/12/19) Toledo City Schools was one of several districts to jump from an F to a D this year, which resets the clock on state intervention (if such a thing still exists by this time next year). Folks there are pretty happy, but the caveat provided for their continuing struggle to improve is a bit iffy to me. “He also said that overall TPS has made great strides in recent years considering how many of the district’s students come from academically disadvantaged backgrounds.” Hopefully since that was an attributed comment rather than a direct quote, someone just misunderstood what was actually said and not an admission that either poor students have trouble learning or TPS has trouble teaching them. (Toledo Blade, 9/12/19) A number of individual schools in Cincinnati received As this year, a good thing. “We sell hope,” commented the principal of a newly-minted A school, which seems kind of a weird thing to say to that news. The district supe, in response to her district’s repeat of an overall D, said, “Results like this do not happen by accident.” Which is also a weird thing to say, if you ask me. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/12/19) When I was a kid, I loved those little books that would describe ridiculous, outdated laws that were “still on the books” in various cities and counties across the country. I was reminded of those books when I learned that Dayton City Schools raised their overall grade from an F to a D. They also got to reset the clock on a declaration of academic distress, stopping theirs at the eleventh hour with a crap ton of money and effort. So glad the General Assembly wasted all that effort passing a law to keep them from being declared in academic distress. Perhaps it will soon appear in a book of crazy useless laws along with “no eating raisins on Sunday”, which is still on the books in Cornrow County. (Dayton Daily News, 9/12/19) Speaking of the General Assembly, let’s give former state school board president Tom Gunlock the last word on report card results for now. He is sure that the general good news across the state is not to be trusted. “They need to pick whatever their goal is,” Gunlock said. “If their goal is to give a diploma to everybody in the state, then the (legislature) did it well. If the goal is to make sure every kid is ready for the next part of his or her life, then they did it very poorly.” Daaaaang. (Dayton Daily News, 9/12/19)
8. Whew! Just time for two bits of non-report-card-related news. Fordham’s latest report, ironically on the postsecondary readiness—or lack thereof—of Ohio’s high school graduates, got some lovely in-depth coverage from the Ohio Star news outlet. Thanks, guys! (Ohio Star, 9/12/19)

9. Finally today, just to bring some balance to the general good news tone in these clips: Columbus City Schools approved a contract to spend three quarters of a million dollars replacing every incandescent bulb in its system with LEDs. Thus far, there have been five fires in local school buildings as a direct result of the work. The explanation given here is pathetic enough (“We’re in a hurry! Three different contractors are making the same dumb mistake!”), but the projected clean up costs simply add insult to injury. (WSYX-TV, Columbus, 9/11/19)

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