Gadfly Bites 3/1/21 – Fixable

1. I include this piece in the clips today due to the fact that data from Fordham’s fantastic Ohio By the Numbers annually-update trove of vital education information is used within it. (Unfortunately, the piece doesn’t credit Fordham or link to the resource, but that’s what you have me for, right?) The piece is also disappointing to me in other ways. It is a sort of coda to Black History Month which supposedly explains that the “causes of racial inequity”—in the Dayton area at least—are “identifiable and fixable”. I don’t know about the rest of the very long article, but in the education portion of the story (which is depressingly short and positioned at the very end), we learn that Dayton City Schools has been working on a racial equity audit for at least two years now, with no deadline for completion or release put forward. Let alone a timeline for fixing whatever concrete problems might yet be identified. I assume that the complete and total closure of the district for any kind of educational offerings for nearly two months at the end of 2020 is part of the problem. At a minimum, it isn’t part of the solution. (Dayton Daily News, 2/28/21)
    
2. We have noted in these clips before that, just over the Ohio border, West Virginians have been tussling somewhat idiosyncratically over charter schools for a good while. And despite the fact that charters are nominally allowed at the moment, the rules around their application and approval are such that it will likely be a cold day in Nitro before a brick-and-mortar charter opens up in the Mountain State. However, a year’s worth of remote learning has boosted the possibility that a virtual charter school could be on the cards in the near future. Of course that will mean more tussling in and out of the state legislature, hence the deep dive into charter school research in the Charleston newspaper this weekend, including a review of Fordham’s own commissioned research on the topic and an interview with our own Chad Aldis. Unfortunately for West Virginians hoping for a quick resolution to the issue, Santa Claus is a town in Indiana. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, 2/27/21)
   
   

3. Guess what else is getting the stink eye from education status quo lovers after a year of pandemic-disrupted education? Vouchers as alternatives to district schools. There is a brief Fordham reference in this Cleveland.com commentary piece on the topic. (Cleveland.com, 2/28/21) Speaking of which, I guess we can count Piqua City Schools in on the putative legal crusade against EdChoice as well. The elected school board there voted to pony up a portion of their state funding (“50 cents per pupil shall be initially allocated to the payment of coalition operating expenses, and $1.50 per pupil shall be allocated to the support of the coalition’s efforts in opposition to the deduction of school voucher funds”) to help sue that very same state government. (Miami Valley News, 2/26/21) And we kind of come full circle in our clips with this piece, which is also on the topic of racial equity in education in various districts around the state. However, by the time we get to Cleveland Heights-University Heights City Schools, we just get bellyaching about the “detrimental effect” of EdChoice vouchers on the district. (Akron Beacon Journal, 2/26/21)
    
4. The other thing that CH-UH officials are complaining about in the above piece? Having to conduct state testing this spring. And while the test haters—including the legislative sponsors of the putative test-waiving House Bill 67—are still super duper bummed over the federal guidance that supersedes their cancellation efforts, they say they’re still not done trying. Check out this piece in which a revised version of HB 67 is previewed, the main thrust of which appears to be a statement of no consequences for whatever tests still happen…something which is already in law. So…this is just a reminder? (Lima News, 2/27/21) Speaking of needing a reminder, editors at the Akron Beacon Journal seem oblivious to the fact that the federal guidance ensuring tests are administered this spring was not a mere suggestion. (Akron Beacon Journal, 2/28/21) However, the editors at the Blade have heard the message loud and clear. “Considering all that we do not yet know about how children have slipped behind in this crisis,” they write, “Ohio schools must give standardized tests this year and use the results to guide the state’s academic recovery.” (Toledo Blade, 2/27/21)
   
   

5. Apparently Kindergarten classes aren’t the only ones feeling empty this school year. The Ohio Department of Education reported that public preschool enrollment dropped 27 percent between fall 2019 and fall 2020. (News5, Cleveland, 2/27/21)
    
6. Well isn’t this fascinating? A national pre-SARS-CoV-2 effort to redesign high school schedules to “optimize school models” (with an assist by Johns Hopkins University) and give students more options and flexibility will be coming to a number of schools across Ohio in fall 2021. Here we get a look at Canal Winchester High School’s (?!) version, in which students will be able to choose either a traditional in-person schedule with seven periods and a lunch; an in-person block schedule, where classes meet less frequently but for longer times; or online learning. There are lots of non-pandemic-related reasons given as to why these options will be of assistance to different kids, but the change seems…prophetically timely, eh? (ThisWeek News, 2/26/21) Here is another nice pandemic pivot: Miami University’s teacher training program forged a partnership with Ohio Connections Academy to allow its seniors to do their student teaching in the fully-online school so they would not lose an hour of that precious training time. And of course if remote learning is going to continue after this school year, these soon-to-be grads will have a huge leg up on their competition. You know what’s even better? I am old enough to remember last year when the state simply cut the number of student teaching hours required for licensure in response to pandemic school closures. What a difference a year makes. (The Miami Student, 2/26/21) 

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