Gadfly Bites 10/19/22—A whole nother level

Do high-performing charter schools improve student health outcomes?

Is it possible that attending a high-performing school may help young people live healthier lives? An intriguing new paper from the American Medical Association’s JAMA Network open access journal says yes, though with some important caveats. A research team lead by Dr.

Gadfly Bites 10/17/22—Let’s face it

We’re back after a Friday break and covering a plethora of news from 10/12 – 10/17/22.

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 10.14.22

Report card success = student success

Will Ohio’s suburban schools slip into academic mediocrity?

Last month, we looked at the recently released state assessment data from the 2021–22 school year. The results are sobering: Student achievement remains depressed in the wake of the pandemic, and gaps between disadvantaged pupils and their peers have widened.

Examining report card results for districts that were under academic distress

In the summer of 2021, Ohio lawmakers caved to political pressure and created an off-ramp for the three districts under an Academic Distress Com

Gadfly Bites 10/12/22—The time of the lawgivers is not nigh

As if they did not realize that the state legislature was not currently in session (it’s election season not lawgiving season, dontcha know?),

“Social promotion” returns without a state reading requirement

For the better part of the past decade, Ohio has required schools to hold back third graders who do not meet state reading standards.

Gadfly Bites 10/10/22—Guess you can’t have everything

OK.

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 10.7.22

Continuing discussion of important research

Gadfly Bites 10/7/22—“Actually pretty encouraging”

Fordham’s latest Ohio policy brief—focused on strengthening teacher re

Gadfly Bites 10/5/22—Who is running the show?

There’s a lot of needless blather in this piece, but the bottom line is that

A closer look at early literacy results on state report cards

A few weeks ago, Ohio released state report cards for the 2021–22 school year.

Teacher compensation compared to other professions

Sylvia Allegretto and her colleagues at the union-backed Economic Policy Institute (EPI) have been arguing for over eighteen years that teachers are underpaid. Her latest in a long line of reports on the topic was published in August and follows the same methodology as all previous versions.

Gadfly Bites 10/3/22—“We’re trying to change that mindset from the traditional sense.”

Both Fordham and the Ohio Education Association are thinking about how to strengthen the teacher workforce in our state

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 9.30.22

Important new research

Gadfly Bites 9/30/22—I’ll take “Things you say when you love your report card” for $400, Mayim.

“We’ll

Assessing the academic wreckage of the pandemic in Ohio

The past two school years have been anything but normal due to pandemic disruptions, with student achievement showing the strain.

The good, bad, and ugly of College Credit Plus according to the state’s recent performance audit

Since 2015, College Credit Plus (CCP) has offered academically eligible Ohio students in grades 7–12 the opportunity to earn postsecondary credit by taking college courses for free before graduating from high school.

Gadfly Bites 9/28/22—Let’s hope it’s a farewell tour

Fordham’s Aaron Churchill has an op-ed in the

Gadfly Bites 9/26/22—How long until we can go back to addressing the pre-pandemic suckitude?

Here are two “big picture” looks at Ohio report card data.

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 9.23.22

National awards

Gadfly Bites 9/23/22—Creativity

Another fathers walk?

Gadfly Bites 9/21/22—Is zero stars even an option?

Post-pandemic patterns indicate too little access to grade-level work

Helping students catch up from more than two years of school-closure-related learning loss will be an impossible task if they do not have regular access to grade-level work in their classrooms.

Checking in on Ohio’s curriculum reform efforts

Unless there’s a political or ideological controversy, curricular decisions in schools and districts rarely make headlines. That’s too bad because these choices are immensely important.

Gadfly Bites 9/19/22—And then, they overplayed their hand…

A little bit of report card hangover to start with today.

Annual Ohio exams paint mixed picture of post-pandemic academic recovery

Editor’s 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.