Gadfly Bites 1/5/24—The future

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1. At last, we get to turn to 2024 stories--and indeed to the future in general. There’s a lot to unpack in this story. It is a detailed look at Lorain City Schools’ Success Academy, which is working to keep hold of juniors and seniors who are at risk of dropping out as well as grabbing back older individuals who have already left school just shy of a diploma. The students’ stories are important, as are the efforts undertaken by the district. These include a new “night school” component to help accommodate young people with jobs or family responsibilities during the day. There are actual district teachers involved, which is good, but it sounds like those staffers are mainly the cheerleaders and “kid finders”. While they say it’s not online credit recovery, there is lots of talk of online programming and third party vendors. We can hope for a brighter future for these young people as diploma holders vs. dropouts or even GED holders, but it seems clear (to this unfortunate cynic at least) that any such success is going to be due more to the kids themselves than to the program they used attended. (Chronicle Telegram, 1/1/24)
   
   

2. Another future-forward piece for you: Did you know there were Catholic trade schools out there? Neither did I! And I think they sound fantastic. Four such institutions are highlighted in this piece, although only three are currently operating. All of them are pretty new, including the College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, Ohio, which welcomed its first students in fall 2023. These are all postsecondary institutions and charge tuition, but the numbers seem pretty reasonable to me, and there are numerous offsets built into the systems to make them as affordable as possible…and to pay off with gainful employment as early as possible. Couple those new features with the traditional Catholic educational mission and one suspects there will be a bright future for the schools and their students. (Catholic News Agency, 1/2/24) 

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