Gadfly Bites 9/9/19 – More folks see the light

1. Fordham’s new report on postsecondary readiness for Ohio high school grads got a little more coverage over the weekend, of just the sort I think we were looking for. To wit: the county rankings. The Canton Rep starts out by lauding Stark County’s relatively-lofty finish (19th place among all 88 Ohio counties and third in the counties of the Northeast region). But then they see the light when that “loftiness” translates to only 28 percent of Stark County graduates scoring remediation free on the ACT and only 18 percent passing at least one AP exam. (Canton Repository, 9/6/19) Ditto for the folks at the ABJ. Summit County tied for 20th statewide, but the student numbers were simply not that great: just 33 percent of county grad scored remediation free and a lowly 19 percent passed at least one AP exam. I feel like the paper gets it, but I fear that the rep from Akron City Schools quoted in response, sadly, does not. (Akron Beacon Journal, 9/6/19)
2. You can see the same sort of thing in this piece previewing the graduation rate component of state report cards, which are due out later this week. Are those graduation numbers for the Class of 2018 “real”, the PD asks? Only time will tell, really. For school officials and data wonks, the “light” will be the dawning of understanding down the road as the softer, non-academic pathways finally fade out. But for those kids who already took the gimme diplomas and walked out into the real world—and the PD gives us a handy chart to show who and how many and where they are—I assume they will see the light much more quickly. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9/8/19)

3. How about some good news after all that? Here’s a great story about a young woman whose plethora of health struggles kept her from attending a brick-and-mortar school. Instead, she found an online charter school which kept her moving forward. Oh, and she also wrote a freakin’ novel. Nice. (Spectrum News1, 9/4/19)
4. Here is a story about a Catholic school in North Canton celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and still going strong. Yay. I can’t tell if it’s the journalist or the school leader who is proud of not accepting EdChoice Scholarship students, but it’s in there somehow. OK. The school leader does directly note that they are surrounded by “great public schools” and somehow still manage to attract a lot of kids themselves. Hey, principal? I have a report I think you should take a look at... (Canton Repository, 9/6/19)

5. I’m not at all sure what they were doing before, but the Lima News assures us that Allen County’s school principals are now “100 percent involved” with students and staff. OK. Cool. (Lima News, 9/8/19)
6. A guest commentary from Idaho references the governance model in Ohio’s independent STEM schools as a workable example for charter school governance in the Gem State. Just because the author is my former boss around here and because he probably knows what he’s talking about, I will attempt to shut down my gut reaction/personal fear that says keep your STEM/charter comparisons to yourself, dude! (The Post-Register, Idaho Falls, 9/9/19)

7. Speaking of Ohio stuff breaking wide, here is yet another look in for Fordham’s 2017 interdistrict open enrollment report published in RedefinED’s blog. Reference to EdChoice in there too. What’s it about? How should I know; it’s something political. (RedefinED, 9/9/19)

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