Gadfly Bites 9/23/20 – Protection for whom?

It’s Wednesday, and that means the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee will be hearing testimony today. One of the bills up for debate: SB 358. That’s the one that would, among other things, extend a moratorium on state testing from last school year to this one. We don’t know yet who is testifying on that bill today, but previous testimony, including Chad’s in support of a resumption of testing in the spring, is summarized here for your edification. Speaking of which, what do y’all think of that word “protections” used twice in the piece? I was edified by it, but probably not in the way intended. (Dayton Daily News, 9/23/20)
And speaking of edification, here’s another great piece looking at Fugees Academy, a Columbus private school that supports refugee children resettled in the central Ohio area. It sounds great, as it always does. And it mentions that much of its funding comes from the EdChoice Scholarship voucher program, as each piece that covers Fugees Academy always points out. (Columbus Dispatch, 9/23/20) Speaking of school choice programs, Columbus City Schools board member James Ragland is being publicly criticized by the local teachers union because he works for School Choice Ohio, a supporter of…well, the name kinda says it all, right? Ragland has got some responses, but given the union prez’ rhetoric, it seems like those will fall on unsympathetic ears. (Columbus Dispatch, 9/23/20)
Kudos to Marion City Schools Superintendent Ron Iarussi for gleaning what information he could from the district’s report card this year. (I mean, how can you not, really? What’s there is kinda…obvious with all those other “N/A” ratings around it.) Anywho, he sees some evidence of a bump in reading achievement for his Kindergarten and first grade students which he attributes to the new phonemic awareness curriculum he helped institute. We also learn in this piece that Marion City Schools was awarded nearly a million dollars in literacy grants to boost the existing efforts and to do even more to help their youngest readers. Nice. (Marion Star, 9/22/20)
Speaking of grants, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District was recently awarded nearly $500,000 to develop a model program to expand educational opportunities for disadvantaged students. CMSD was one of only two districts nationwide to receive an award via the very government-ally named Well-Rounded Education Through Student-Centered Funding Demonstration Grants Program. (Gongwer Ohio, 9/21/20)
Earlier this week, we learned that Cincinnati City Schools will be switching from all-remote learning to a hybrid in-person/remote schedule in October, the latest large district to make that change. The two-days-per-week A/B Group plan going forward is quite different than the alternating-weeks plan originally put forward for hybrid scheduling, but I’m sure that’s no big deal. Nor is the fact that one of the district’s high schools will have to remain all-remote even in October because they cannot accommodate the two-days-per-week plan. Nor is the fact that apparently Garfield created the new two-days-per-week plan since Monday is the chosen off day. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/21/20) CMSD is considering the possibility of switching from all-remote to a hybrid plan. CEO Eric Gordon said he will decide one way or another soon. (Cleveland.com, 9/22/20) The CEO might have tipped his hand a little bit this week when he delivered his state of the district address (virtually) and took quite a bit of time to praise certain aspects of the “new normal” of remote learning. He believes that, among other things, the individualized learning efforts underway in the wake of school closures are valuable and should be retained—and even built upon—whenever the rona has abated. (Cleveland.com, 9/22/20)
Meanwhile, Walker Elementary School in Canton has gone back to all-remote learning for the second time this year because of the high number of teachers and students quarantining at home due to possible rona exposure. (Canton Repository, 9/22/20)