Gadfly Bites is on vacation Friday and Monday. We’ll be back on Wednesday, February 23 with however much snark you can stand.
- The state board of education met this week with a wide-ranging agenda. Two interesting items in my estimation. First up, we learned of another delay in operationalizing a high profile legislative creation: Afterschool Child Enrichment Educational Savings Accounts for families. Is the delay due to a difficulty in ODE finding an interested vendor to operate the thing, a funding issue, or because ODE is “jumping through hoops” to do early legwork work that the vendor should be tasked with…once said vendor is locked down? Based on the coverage, I’m not sure this week’s debate answered the question or helped spur movement. (Gongwer Ohio, 2/14/22) Later on, ODE’s transportation chief told the board that the current bus driver shortage in districts across the state is “going to be here for a while”, despite whatever legislation has been passed and whatever actions the board and the department are thinking about taking in response. (Gongwer Ohio, 2/14/22)
- Speaking of legislation, House Bill 290, the so-called “backpack” funding bill, got its first committee hearing yesterday. More to come, I’m sure. (Toledo Blade, 2/15/22)
- Here is a great news story about a driven and successful high school student in Cleveland who seems willing to stop at nothing to reach his dream of an MIT degree and much more beyond. His hard work is deemed a “shining example”, but this story’s got two big question marks for me: Why is this young man having to create his own summer research program? And why can’t he get any transportation to school?! (News 5, Cleveland, 2/15/22) Let’s hope that someone tips off Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s new Chief Education Officer—most recently the head of Teach for America in the region—about this amazing student who could use a bit more support. I’ll bet she’d come up with some quick options if she was asked. (News 5, Cleveland, 2/15/22)
- Sticking to northeast Ohio for a moment, Akron City Schools’ superintendent Christine Fowler-Mack is looking to beef up her administrative staff quite substantially. It all sounds reasonable enough to me, but more high-level admins come at high-level salaries: likely an additional $500K per year. Sounds very similar to the ways in which our erstwhile ADC-district CEOs were trying to “upscale” their workforces, all of which have now been dismantled. Maybe the Akron supe’s effort will eventually run similarly aground due to sticker shock or concerns about “too much overhead”, but at least for now it doesn’t feel like the big ask is being criticized out of hand. You know, like it was when those CEOs did the same thing. (Akron Beacon Journal, 2/15/22)
- Despite previous admonitions, it seems that educators in the Dayton area have reached the stage of acceptance that the Covid slide actually occurred among their students. How else to explain the ginormous efforts underway to remediate it? Dayton City Schools’ $3.6 million (and counting) work to reduce class sizes by hiring nearly 100 additional teachers is of particular interest here. Especially as compared to the more modest suburban efforts described. (Dayton Daily News, 2/16/22)
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