Gadfly Bites 9/16/26—Inching forward

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1. School and district report cards were released yesterday morning. The overall takeaway is that things are generally trending in the right direction—early literacy, math and English test scores, and absenteeism—but Ohio is still some distance away from where we were in 2019…and the climb back remains agonizingly slow. (Cleveland.com, 9/14/26) Fordham’s Aaron Churchill said in a statement, “Policymakers must continue their push for stronger math and reading instruction”, and to improve chronic absenteeism rates. Full statement, with some nice big-picture data tables, is here. (State Affairs, 9/15/26) Aaron was actually interviewed for this Spectrum News coverage, where he went into some more specifics about the big picture data. He noted “slight improvement” on chronic absenteeism rates, but reminds us that “they are still significantly higher than they were prior to the pandemic. Right now about a quarter of students are still chronically absent each year.” He adds that too many students being absent for too many days undermines other academic efforts. “It’s undermining teachers and their ability to teach and stay on track. (Spectrum News 1, Ohio, 9/16/26)
    
2. Media outlets were also quick to checking in with some notorious underperformers around the state. Lorain City Schools leaders note that academic outcomes there are trending upward—slowly—and they point to excessive absences for a lot of that lag. “Attendance is awful,” says superintendent Jeff Graham. “When our kids do show up for school, great things are happening.” (The Chronicle, 9/14/26) Youngstown City Schools earned 3 stars overall—their highest rating ever—and it sounds like party time up there. The overall success was driven, says superintendent Jeremy Batchelor, by two high flyers (Choffin Career Center and Rayen Early College High School, both buildings at 5 stars) and by a couple of formerly cellar-dwellers (East and Cheney High Schools) which both boosted to 3 stars this year. Batchelor particularly extolled East: “There existed scholars, teachers, administrators, families and community members who continued believing in East when the data told a very different story,” he said. “They refused to let the school determine where it could go. They should be extremely proud of what they accomplished.” (WFMJ-TV, Youngstown, 9/14/26) East Cleveland City Schools, whose improvement efforts we have previously discussed here at Fordham, maintained their 3 star rating again this year. “Maintaining three stars gives us another piece of evidence that the progress can last,” said superintendent Henry Pettiegrew II. “It is confirmation that the district has moved—and a reminder that we must keep moving.” Nice. (Cleveland.com, 9/14/26)
   

3. One person not looking on the bright side (IMHO) is reporter Patrick O’Donnell. His new piece in The 74 wants to equate Ohio’s current math instruction improvement efforts to our science of reading implementation efforts circa 2023, when there were strong outside forces talking about “state overreach” and “no consensus” in order to derail the push to eliminate bad curricula, boost teacher skills, and provide individual supports to students, among other things. And while that tussle got settled just exactly the way we all figured it would—my favorite part was when nay-saying veteran teachers reported getting teary-eyed while watching long-struggling students suddenly accelerate their learning—O’Donnell’s coverage of the plan to build a similar structure for math instruction in Ohio is languishing in the old swamp. “The Ohio legislature and Gov. Mike DeWine passed a law this summer that mirrors Ohio’s 2023 law…by requiring schools to better track math skills and give students extra help. The new law also requires elementary school teachers to show they are proficient in math skills before they can teach math.” But, he says, “there is no consensus — both nationally and in Ohio — on how students can best learn math, with ongoing debate nationally between a self-proclaimed science of math movement and more holistic approaches favored by many educators.” To which I say: Just like the SoR nay-sayers that are still out there willing to give the same “no consensus/overreach” quotes about literacy education to any sympathetic reporter who calls in 2026 as they gave in 2023, these math deniers will still be saying the same things on the record long after Ohio has moved onward and upward in math despite their insistence without their assistance. (The 74, 9/15/26)

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