Gadfly Bites 3/16/20 – Cobbling together
In case you may have missed it somehow, Governor DeWine told the whole world over the weekend that Ohio’s school year may already be over.
In case you may have missed it somehow, Governor DeWine told the whole world over the weekend that Ohio’s school year may already be over.
School’s out. What? Y’all expected me to clip that for you? Not a chance.
Sorry to miss out on a Monday edition, but now we’re back with lots to catch up on.
It’s no secret that tough accountability measures are out-of-fashion in education circles these days.
It’s one of those days where the clips don’t seem to want to cohere into a story of their own, so how about the story of same news, different day? With a side order of “perhaps Murray’s been doing this too long”.
As previously threatened, state supe Paolo DeMaria created Ohio’s “working definition for competency” (that’s definitely code for something) by setting the new graduation
Another day, another charter school story that’s so good they didn’t have room to fit the words “charter school” in the printed story.
NOTE: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute occasionally publishes guest commentaries on its blogs. The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.
In case you missed it, Chad was a panelist at a recent Cleveland event discussing Ohio’s voucher program.
Still in something of a holding (our breath) pattern on EdChoice in Ohio, so let’s talk about some other stuff first. Big news from the world of student wellness funding. Governor DeWine says more money’s coming.
Today’s clips are a side trip inside the universe of the voucher grouchers saga; since many of the grouchers are otherwise occupied and we are in something of a lull. Maybe think of it like the gap between production of Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace.
In EdChoice news: [Sung to the tune of that Hamilton! song] Here Comes the Governor! (Gongwer Ohio, 2/19/20) Seriously, thou
The endless hours of EdChoice testimony continued—including this past Saturday and a nearly 10-hour marathon on Presidents Day.
For the past several years, there has been a steady push by traditional education groups in Ohio to weaken state accountability and school report cards in particular.
Updating the voucher groucher saga, the other shoe finally dropped earlier this week when the Senate at last refused to concur in the House’s Christmas stocking full of g
As sagas go, today’s voucher groucher update feels more like the laggy parts near the middle where the themes are expounded on but not much plot actually happens.
While we will be talking about Ohio’s EdChoice program today and all the folks working mightily to make changes to it, we’ll take a break from the official Voucher Grouchers saga since things are reasonably quiet on that front for the moment. I guarantee that will change soon enough.
When last we updated the voucher groucher saga, we noted that families and private schools had attempted to take the initiative by suing nearly everyone in state government due to the legislated delay in opening the EdChoice application process.
Again due to the publication timeline of Bites, I am lagging behind the biggest news.
So, as you probably know, the General Assembly voted to hose families interested in getting a voucher kowtow to the voucher grouchers rather than enacting some kind of quick fix to something that wasn’t broken or indeed rather than standing pat and letting the voucher program go forward as per
Before we get to the actual news you probably came here for, how about a related side trip?
We’re back! With lots to talk about. But we’re not going to start where you might expect. Let’s hit some reality first.
Columbus City Schools is apparently hanging on to an eyesore/money pit of an empty, derelict school building.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 marked a massive federal investment in our schools, with more than $100 billion to shore up school systems in the face of the Great Recession. Along with that largesse came two grant programs meant to encourage reform with all of those resources: Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants (SIGs).
Against the backdrop of Ohio’s Attainment Goal 2025, the state’s annual report on college remediation rates—the number of first year college students requiring remedial courses before beginning credit bearing work—has taken on a greater
Repetitive, soundbite-friendly carping about the EdChoice voucher program continues apace.
As dedicated Gadfly Bites subscribers will no doubt recall, your humble clips compiler is of the opinion that a) the EdChoice voucher program is not “broken” (it is operating as designed, including a boost in the number of eligible students based on school report cards, which has happened before), an
Apparently, the feared “loophole” around additional charter school funding that we discussed last week has been avoided.
We start today with some excellent news (IMO, naturally).
In my annual review of Ohio report cards, I concentrate on the performance of public schools located in the state’s major cities, known as the “Big Eight.” The reason is twofold.