Gadfly Bites 8/11/17 - Guidance issues
In case you missed it, State Auditor Dave Yost (…) issued some guidance this week. What’s the big deal, I hear you ask. Doesn’t he do that literally every week? Well, probably.
In case you missed it, State Auditor Dave Yost (…) issued some guidance this week. What’s the big deal, I hear you ask. Doesn’t he do that literally every week? Well, probably.
But we do. Really.
Somewhere between the right and the left – between the un-nuanced mantras of personal responsibility and big government – lie most of the problems related to poverty, as well as most of the solutions. So said Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance in his opening remarks at a Columbus Metropolitan Club event in Columbus last week.
Contract talks in Dayton resume today with some distance still between the two sides. Folks seem upbeat but it will be a long day today and probably Wednesday too, the only other scheduled bargaining day. In between – a school board meeting.
Contract negotiations between the teachers union and district administration resumed in Dayton yesterday after nearly two months off. Those negotiations were to begin with the two sides sitting in separate rooms. That way nothing could go wrong. Nice.
Dayton school board members are not the only ones preparing for a possible teachers strike to start the school year: the union ratcheted up the tension to at least “triple dare” by voting this week to authorize a 10-day strike notice ahead of resumed contract negoti
There is a new superintendent in Youngstown City Schools. In a surprise to almost no one, it is not one of the out-of-towners recommended by the school board. It is instead, the current interim supe, a district veteran. (Youngstown Vindicator, 7/29/17)
Let’s start today with some statewide education news. To wit: this question.
Our own Chad Aldis is one of several Ohio sources quoted in this national piece looking at the state’s second-draft ESSA plan: how and why it’s changed, what its reception at USDOE might be, and what it means for accountability back home.
Not much education news to report on from the weekend. In fact, there’s very little in the following pieces that has to do with education. More about adult interests, as usual. How very sad.
We start to today with a clutch of stories from Lorain. The “realness” of the arrival of a CEO in the district seems to have caught up with the elected school board.
While many folks in the education realm here in Ohio are congratulating themselves on lowering the state’s graduation standards for the Class of 2018, some are still questioning the wisdom of the action (our own Aaron Churchill included) and some are worried about unintended consequences and/
We start today with something of a broad overview of education in Ohio, courtesy of state supe Paolo DeMaria. The supe presented his vision at the City Club of Cleveland last week, stressing the need for strategic planning and broad goals rather than what he calls “random acts of policy development”.
As originally noted in Wednesday’s clips, here is more on this week’s Ohio Supreme Court rulings against the state’s largest online charter school. And I do mean “against”. It ain’t over yet, of course, but three rulings in two hours has got to be a tough blow to absorb.
Now here is a confluence of articles that I would call inexplicable. First up, the state board of ed met earlier in this week and seemed eager to talk about Ohio’s CEO-style Academic Distress Commissions. That is, about how much they all seem to loathe them. Seriously? None of you see any positives at all?
In case you missed it, there was some talk a week or so ago that two new charter schools planned for the 2017-18 school year might not open in Cleveland due to some procedural, paperwork-y type issues.
In case you missed it last week, the General Assembly passed the new two-year state budget and Governor Kasich signed it into law…making a record number of line item vetoes along the way. Jeremy Kelley took a look at 11 of those education-related vetoes and got some big names to help him make sense of the original intent of the language and the effect of the vetoes.
The Dispatch published an interesting piece this weekend discussing the lack of district superintendents who are female and people of color in Ohio.
After the departure of its high-profile leader in the recent past, FutureReady Columbus is still trying to get itself ready for the present day. The organization was born as a big ticket, partner-fueled initiative to help Columbus students get the best possible education.
Apprenticeships are all the rage. President Trump recently announced a doubling of federal funding for apprenticeship programs to $200 million in his next budget. This follows an investment by President Obama of $50 million in the outgoing months of his administration. In fact, this follows a major rewrite of the federal legislation governing job training in 2014.
Since 2002, the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) has published yearbooks on the state of preschool education.
Our own Jamie Davies O’Leary was front and center on the editorial page of The D this morning, opining against lowering graduation standards in the strongest possible terms.
Not much going on in education news over the weekend, but what there is of it revolves around money. Of course.
Patrick O’Donnell took a look at the latest CREDO study of charter management organizations, showing that several CMOs with schools in Northeast Ohio are performing very well indeed. John Zitzner of Breakthrough Schools calls their results “mind-boggling”.
Our own Jessica Poiner, in a blog posted Monday, “blasted” Ohio’s efforts to lower graduation requirements and reduce the state’s high school diploma to an Oprah-like certificate of participation. (“Everybody gets a diplomaaaaaaaa!”).
When it comes to high standards and accountability, Ohio talks a pretty good talk. Many of the most popular education reforms of the day have already been proposed or passed in the Buckeye State, and a few have even been hailed as best in the country.
Our own Chad Aldis was a guest on the State of Ohio news program on Friday.
We start today with a feel good story of high schoolers beating the odds to graduate and go on to college. All have earned scholarships for that accomplishment. The main story is of a young Columbus woman who has, indeed, survived war and other hardships.
NOTES: 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.This piece was first published in a slightly different form on EdBuild’s blog.
In a surprise to no one, the state board of ed this week voted to order the state’s largest online school to repay something like $60 million in regard to the ongoing kerfuffle between the state and the school over its recent attendance audit.