Gadfly Bites 11/29/23—Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others

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1. We have noted for months that Dayton City Schools’ interim superintendent came into the job with big plans and seemed ready to move forward with them quickly. Two of his newly-hired administrators have just dropped the blueprint for an ambitious initiative to boost important, report-card related student outcomes. To wit: Increasing student attendance to 95 percent (from roughly 85 last year), having at least 65 of students proficient in third-grade reading (up from a lowly 33.6 last year), and having at least 40 of eighth graders proficient in math (up from 10.5 percent last year). All the right words are used in this piece—assessment, additional supports, science of reading, accountability, etc.—but I remain skeptical for a number of reasons. (Dayton Daily News, 11/28/23) Two of those reasons are a) that lots of previous policies—which have both fans and detractors—remain to be undone, and b) that there is already public grumbling that the “pace of change” which some important stakeholders in the district have experienced is already too rapid and may have outstripped the capacity of central office to properly execute. (Dayton Daily News, 11/27/23)
   
   

2. I get some similar vibes in this story about the Jones Leadership Academy of Business, one of the career academy high schools in Toledo City Schools. There is a clear message, I think, that the students who have chosen to attend this entrepreneurship-focused program are coming in way behind, particularly in math skills. (The data given to us are 8 percent proficiency in algebra and zero percent proficiency in geometry in the entire school last year.) Maybe I’m misreading the point of the effort, especially since it also focuses way more on mental health issues than math achievement, but as I read it, the focus of the discussion appears to be how the school can help the community and not vice versa. (Toledo Blade, 11/27/23) Math proficiency is a basic requirement for many healthcare-related jobs, so we can hope that Toledo City Schools’ current Pre-Medical & Health Science Academy (another of the career-focused high school programs of choice being offered in the district) is taking care of business on that count. (Some hard data to that effect would be better, of course.) Especially since officials are getting ready to open another such medical-career focused program very soon. As with every previous super-hyped career-centric program of choice opening, the pathway for students from this program into very specific careers with a specific employer (you know, the one whose name will be above the door) is expressed as being clear and direct. I expect the usual backtracking and caveats (“We don’t promise anyone a job; just the opportunity to explore job-related skills… blah blah blah.”) to be provided soon. (Toledo Blade, 11/29/23)
   
   

3. I don’t typically cover stories about school levies (yucky political stuff), but this one caught my attention. It’s about Bowling Green City Schools, which finally passed a levy to build a new high school earlier this month—on its fifth try. (We are later told that the district has actually been to the ballot, on average, once a year since 2007 for various asks.) What drew my attention was, weirdly, the school choice issues raised. To wit: The chief architect of the victory, according to this, was a mom who sends her kids to private school currently but plans to send them to BGHS when the time comes. So essentially, she wanted that new building to be done before she got there, and felt that a levy on every homeowner for that purpose was the way. At the same time, the high school’s principal suggests that conditions are so bad in his current building that prospective families have actually been deterred from enrolling there. Which suggests that there is some swankier (or just less overheated) private or charter or STEM alternative for those families to choose. A fascinating dynamic, I think, and one that is entirely unexplored by either the interviewees or the reporter. The new building will be completed in 2027, district officials say. And what is the obedient citizen’s reward for passing that levy? Another levy, coming next year, for the district to “keep up with operating costs”. (Statehouse News Bureau, 11/28/23) And why do Ohio districts seem to have so many levies these days? If you ask school funding guru Howard Fleeter, he’ll tell you in detail how it all goes back to a law passed by the General Assembly in the 1970s designed to keep rising property values from automatically resulting in rising property taxes. I would suggest that it is somewhat simpler than that: It is because school districts will never take “no” for an answer, regardless of how resounding that no is. If we’d all just knuckle under and vote yes the first time, five trips to the ballot to get the required result would not be necessary. See? Easy. (Statehouse News Bureau, 11/29/23)

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