Gadfly Bites 12/23/19 – The (not so) small matter of perspective

This is the last edition of Gadfly Bites for 2019. Thank you for reading and for subscribing. We’ll be back on January 2 with a 2019 wrap up; back to regular service for 2020 on January 3. Happy New Year to all!

1. It’s nothing but EdChoice stories to end the year. Imagine that. Our own Chad Aldis is quoted in this piece looking at the “momentum” for enacting a “fix” to the program (you know what I mean). I don’t know why everyone is in such a hurry. I know these folks say there’s a February 1 “deadline” approaching (the start of the scheduled voucher application window), but surely if all this hyperbolic awfulness is true it shouldn’t be a problem to just take those vouchers away from folks after they apply. It’s for the system’s everyone’s own good, after all. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12/22/19) Amid the cacophony of school district leaders decrying EdChoice and the report cards which underpin it, there’s only one voice speaking positively about EdChoice in this piece. Somewhat ironically, I think he is the leader of a charter school. (Springfield News Sun, 12/23/19) More “momentum” talk in this piece. (Gongwer Ohio, 12/20/19) There is only one message to take away from all of these pieces: voucher bad.
    
2. Here is a piece which, in the main, indicates voucher good. To wit: one or more private schools in the Akron area are going to begin accepting voucher students when they had not previously done so. That’s good, isn’t it? I mean, if your perspective is that you want folks to have choices. (Akron Beacon Journal, 12/21/19)
   
   

3. Here is a piece which says, unequivocally to me, voucher really good. It is the story of Fugees Academy, a private school new to the Columbus area that focuses specifically on helping refugee children get up to speed in English and other academic areas with accelerated curriculum, longer school days, a year-round schedule, and a whole lot of love and hands-on support. Most of the students are attending using EdChoice or other vouchers. And why? Because families fleeing to America for a better life don’t deserve the type of schooling that Manjil, a Fugees student from Nepal, experienced. The piece tells us that, after three years at a traditional public school that focuses on English language learners, the 13-year-old was still “reading at roughly a kindergarten level.” Of course, this story makes vouchers sound great because it is focused on students and families. Please note that that perspective is entirely missing from all of the previous pieces covered today—and, honestly, in most of the apocalyptic voucher stories we’ve read over the last many weeks. Interesting. (Hechinger Report, 12/23/19)

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