Gadfly Bites 1/25/19 – Say Hmmm… to Education?

1. We start today with further praise for the Say Yes to Education program, which recently announced Cleveland as its next expansion city. And that praise comes from somewhere other than the PD. The author has not been following the process in forensic detail as has the PD – she seems pretty sad that charter school students who live in *gasp* the ‘burbs will be eligible to participate – and so her take is interesting. It seems to me, dare I say, more skeptical than others. (FreshWater Cleveland, 1/24/19)

2. If you’re like me (sorry if that sounded insulting, y’all), you are regularly asking yourself the question: “What on earth is the OSBA, what do they do exactly, and why do they always speak in unison with BASA and OASBO like they are marionettes operated by a single artist?” That last part of the question remains unanswered here, but the first two items come a bit clearer in this story which notes that Plain Local Schools board member John Halkias is the new president of the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA). Yay. (Canton Repository, 1/23/19)

3. A performance audit of Woodridge Local Schools in Northeast Ohio identified more than $2 million in potential savings for the district, like these things usually do. The supe did not seem supportive of any of the recommendations, especially in light of the passage of the district’s most recent levy. Wonder what OSBA’s position is on performance audits? (Akron Beacon Journal, 1/23/19)

4. Speaking of support, Ohio’s new governor was talking about his support for career technical education (CTE) this week. The “financial support” pledge seems OK, but I’m more interested in his support for the notion that CTE pathways do not and should not preclude higher education options along the way. I guess that’s what Gongwer means by “moral support”. (Gongwer Ohio, 1/23/19)

5. As my long time Gadfly Bites subscribers know very well, Ohio’s War on Knowing stuff (a.k.a. the Slow-Motion Hit Job on Accountability) has many fronts. Case in point, here we have a belated attack on school and district reports cards as issued by the state. The superintendents of the two lowest-performing districts in Lake County are trying to make the argument that not only are they at least as good—or perhaps even better—performers than the high flyers in their county (you know which ones I mean), but also that the low overall (unfair and unrepresentative) grades they received have harmed them in terms of credibility and funding. Shots fired, right? Of course, whichever components of those same report cards they like (a.k.a. the components on which they did OK) are just fine and dandy. So perhaps it’s just Nerf darts fired. (Willoughby News-Herald, 1/24/19) And let us not overlook the sometimes-forgotten front in the War on Knowing Stuff: the battle against the “unfair” Academic Distress Commission framework. The Community Leadership Coalition on Education in Youngstown expressed its disdain for the local ADC this week, citing—among other things—the district’s enormous legal expenditures as an example of leadership run amok. I know what that money was being spent on, Reverend. Do you? (Youngstown Vindicator, 1/25/19)

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