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Teachers & School Leaders
How to point Ohio teachers toward a brighter retirement
The fiscal woes of state pension systems are regularly in the news.
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Teachers & School Leaders
Default settings matter: A recap of Fordham’s teacher pensions event
This week, Fordham released its latest report, an analysis of the three retirement options available for Ohio teachers.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 11/13/20 – Define “better”
While students in grades 6-12 in Troy City Schools have indeed moved to fully-remote learning for a couple of weeks—as we talked about on Wednesday—
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School Finance, Teachers & School Leaders
Default Settings: How Ohio can nudge teachers toward a more secure retirement
Though not widely known, Ohio teachers have three retirement options: a traditional pension plan, a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan, and a hybrid plan that combines features of both. A large majority of teachers are in the pension plan—the result of either an affirmative choice or by default, not having selected a specific plan at the beginning of their careers.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 11/11/20 – Largesse
The Cleveland Public Library is partnering with nonprofit PCs for People to help distribute computers and WiFi hotspots for
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 11/9/20 – “Everyone became more comfortable and tech savvy.”
A Catholic school in North Canton whipped from fully in-person learning to a fully-remote model last week (cancelling a day of school and weeks’ worth of planned sports a
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 11/6/20 – Yeah, there’s an app for that. But you don’t have to use it.
Just your regular reminder, in case you are not a parent in K–12 education in Ohio—that there’s still a whipsaw pandemic going on out there.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 11/4/20 – Election stuff…ew
Did you know that in Ohio you can place a levy reduction issue on the ballot? I didn’t either until I read this story.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/30/20 – Ersatz
Our own Aaron Churchill was large and in charge on the commentary page of Cleveland.com today, talking about the Cleveland-specific fi
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/28/20 – Minus
The headline of this story asks “How is back-to-school going?” in the Cincinnati region. Folks quoted here largely say it’s going pretty well.
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Gadfly Bites 10/26/20 – “Let's not panic seeing this data”
Fordham (probably our Ohio by the Numbers data although who can really tell?) is namechecked in this piece looking at the thorny subject of school funding.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/23/20 – Going traditional
We heard on Wednesday that the boost in rona cases across the state were a threat to in-person education.
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Teachers & School Leaders
Will the pandemic cause a teacher shortage in Ohio?
When coronavirus turned everything upside down this spring, there were predictions that educators would retire in droves rather than risk teaching during a pandemic.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/9/20 – A blaze of glory
COMPILER’S NOTE: Gadfly Bites will be on vacation next week. (“Thank goodness!” I hear you cry. “You need a break. Hopefully you will return refreshed, renewed, and ready to boost up what has been—let’s face it, man—your recent mediocre work.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/7/20 – The whipsaw whips again
Cincinnati City Schools is going to a hybrid in-person/remote model after all, starting next week.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/5/20 – Luckily…
In Cincinnati, some of the district’s whipsawed parents speak. (Spectrum News 1, 10/5/20)
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 10/2/20 – The whipsaw chronicles
Another day, another raft of evidence that parents looking for certainty are well and truly hosed.
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Teachers & School Leaders
Schools need talented teachers. Here’s how to find them in these challenging times.
There are no silver bullets when it comes to closing achievement gaps. But there are inputs and interventions with solid evidence bases, and the impact of a good teacher is one of them.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/30/20 – Going forward
For some reason meeting on a Saturday, the elected board of Dayton City Schools unanimously approved a phased-in plan to bring students back for a
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/28/20 – General misunderstanding
Here’s an in-depth look at the first month of the school year at Xenia’s St. Brigid School.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/25/20 – Wicked Googly
Aren’t search engines great? With them, one can search for an important name (say, Aaron Churchill) and sometimes find references to that name in new places.
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Governance
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.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/21/20 – Maybe there are fewer enemies than we think there are
Be cool, man! The boss is in town.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/18/20 – Putting the “test” in testimony
In case you missed it earlier this week, Fordham’s Chad Aldis testified before th
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Teachers & School Leaders
To deal with coronavirus fallout, we need talented teachers
In the last six months, as the nation has struggled in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, there’s been a lot of controversy and disagreement over what schools need
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/16/20 – “A bad time to be measuring districts.”
“I just think it’s not a terribly appropriate time to be [measuring districts].
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/14/20 – A curmudgeon gets his scowl back
I’m not sure this piece reads as entirely objective journalism, but perhaps that’s because it is unusual to see
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/11/20 – Hello friend
The Dispatch editorial board giveth… (Columbus Dispatch, 9/10/20) …and
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/9/20 – Has your school ever been any good at that?
Here’s a look at how schools in Montgomery County say they will address “the Covid slide” among their students.
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Governance
Gadfly Bites 9/4/20 – “I feel like this is maybe just one step above the plan we had in March.”
We have heard a bit about school districts having trouble accessing enough laptops fo
