Commentary
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 3/11/22—Everybody needs a Yugo sometime, I guess
Don’t look now, but it seems that a number of Ohio school districts are tentatively starting to declare victory against the Covid slide in student progress and achievement.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 3/9/22—Schools of choice, people
A seeming hodgepodge of clips today, but the throughline is delish. Check it out. First up is an opinion piece from a long-time columnist at the Dayton Daily News with whom I am not familiar. Perhaps he has never written about education previously?
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 3/7/22—Woe and whoa
While the days of multiple Columbus City Schools buildings “pivoting to remote learning” due to huge numbers of absent staff members seem to be over for now,
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 3/4/22—I believe the proper term is “between gigs”
I am reasonably sure that some of you, my lovely readers, occasionally say to yourselves, “Gadfly Bites is being too hard on this or that media outlet; surely it is not skewing coverage of certain topics as much as our humble clips compiler thinks.” Perhaps you are correct from time to time, but piec
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 3/2/22—Before the roadshow
Unnecessarily cranky headline here, if you ask me, but a generally even-keeled story on Ohio’s so-called “backpack funding”
Commentary
Governance
Ohio should follow Maryland’s lead on spending federal Covid relief dollars
Over the course of the pandemic, the federal government has sent billions of dollars in emergency funding to states via three separate relief acts. A large portion of the appropriated funds within each act were earmarked for K–12 education, with the largest available funding stream being the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/28/22—The network broadens
Following up from our Youngstown bombshell on Friday, current CEO/future superintendent Justin Jennings says he is excited for the work ahead.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/25/22—Stable, structured, and accountable…to us
We’ll start today’s clips with what might seem at first to be a bit of a shocker: Current CEO Justin Jennings has been chosen by the elected school board as the su
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/23/22—Not crazy
We’re back from vacation and snarkin’ about pieces from 2/17 – 2/23. Glad you’re still here reading it all!
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/16/22—“It takes upscaling the workforce”
Gadfly Bites is on vacation Friday and Monday. We’ll be back on Wednesday, February 23 with however much snark you can stand.
Commentary
School Finance
Ohio’s enrollment slump, and what that means for policymakers
Over the past two decades, student enrollment has gradually declined across Ohio, reflecting demographic changes and out-migration that have reduced the overall childhood population
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/14/22—You can just feel the love for students and families, can’t you?
An opinion piece posted in the Dispatch late on Friday is ad
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/9/22—Down to the penny
Here’s a long piece from the Columbus Dispatch—there are other localized versions in other outlets across the state also—
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/7/22—Love/Hate
A subset of northeast Ohio teachers and other school staffers speak out in this piece, no one holding back about why they are all s
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/4/22—From lake to shining lake
In case you might have missed it since it’s not strictly an education story, Intel recently announced it was going to build an enormous silicon chip production facility in exurban central Ohio, promising thousands of good new jobs to the region.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 2/2/22—The kids WILL be all right…won’t they?
Yesterday, the Dayton Daily News published an op-ed in support of the EdChoice voucher program<
Commentary
School Finance
Ohio needs to better leverage state dollars to support low-income students
For decades, analysts have observed large achievement gaps between low-income children and their peers, disparities that have only widened due to Covid.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/31/22—All night long
As we have noted here many many times, state fiscal intervention in school districts is literally exactly the same as Academic Distress Commissions with regard to academics. Why, I ask you for the millionth time, is the district response always different?
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/28/22—Newsworthiness is in the eye of the beholder
I was a little flippant about the ADC district audit story on Wednesday (how not unusual, I hear you all cry), so I decided to look at the media coverage a little more closely today.
Report
Governance
Ohio Education By the Numbers—2022 Edition
Giving children an excellent K-12 education has long been a top priority for Ohioans. That’s no different today, but educational issues loom even larger after the pandemic-related disruptions of the past two years. To guide productive conversations about improving education, clear and accessible data are key.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/26/22—New elected board present, same as the last two
It is, purportedly, a new day in the three Ohio school districts still nominally overseen by Academic Distress Commissions.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/24/22—Even the definition of “flexible” is not stable in a pandemic.
I said I wasn’t likely to clip stories about schools opening/closing/going remote unless they were excessively interesting to me. This one qualifies. Pickerington City Schools in suburban central Ohio has created a new plan to deal with staff shortages due to the pandemic.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/21/22—Thank U, Next
Career-themed schools are still a thing in Toledo City School District, including what we’ll call
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/19/22—Wacky Wednesday
An interesting discussion of the importance of education in the Black community comes to us from Lima.
Commentary
School Finance
EdChoice lawsuit twists the truth about school funding in Ohio
Last week, five school districts filed a lawsuit in the Franklin County courts that attempts to strike down EdChoice, Ohio’s private scholarship program that serves roughly 50,000 school children, many of whom are among the need
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/14/22—Can we send a phalanx of bunnies to DC?
Ohio is one of 19 states whose state chapter withdrew from the National Association of School Boards last year in reaction to….well, you know.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/12/22—Bureaucracy strikes again
Last week, it was the new school funding system delayed due to the…intricacies...of operationalizing new legislation.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/10/22—Cold doses of reality
OSU professor and Columbus City Schools dad Vladimir Kogan hit the pages of the Dispatch today with a cold dose of reality.
Commentary
Governance
Gadfly Bites 1/7/22—The future could be now
I’m sure my long-suffering tenured subscribers have noted that I am not clipping stories about which schools are closed/open/remote/in-person/hybrid/winging it due to SARS-CoV-2-related issues these days, despite the fact that education reporters (and government reporters and crime reporters a
