- Fordham’s own Aaron Churchill is quoted in this piece taking a good long look at online charter school ECOT. The headline probably says a lot about where the article intended to go from the outset: “turnover common at e-school.” That turnover is real, to be sure. The numbers don’t lie. But after reading the piece, I think that several someones at the Big D likely had their eyes opened a little about what really causes said turnover. As Aaron puts it: “The cost to make that transfer…is essentially zero.” As the ECOT rep puts it: “People [need] a short-term situation for a bullying situation, parents splitting, or they have a child… They have instability for that moment that doesn’t lend itself to a traditional school and how it’s structured.” And as a former ECOT student who didn’t complete a year in the school puts it: “It’s all you, pretty much…. You don’t really have a teacher standing over your shoulder telling you what to do, so I fell behind really fast. I think a lot of people are thinking it’s the easy way out. Honestly, that’s what I thought. But it really wasn’t.” Which of those statements makes you reevaluate what you think you know about online charters? (Columbus Dispatch)
- Aaron wasn’t the only Fordhamite in the Ohio papes this weekend. Mike Petrilli was bonding with education writers in Colorado this week, including the Beacon Journal’s Doug Livingston. Doug reported this weekend on a panel presentation in Boulder that declared Ohio’s charter schools “some of the worst in the nation”. Likely true, to a point, but I can only imagine there was another panel somewhere that noted some Ohio district schools could earn that moniker as well. How many bills are pending in the General Assembly to fix them or close them at the moment? (Akron Beacon Journal)
- Also in Colorado was the Plain Dealer’s Patrick O’Donnell. His interest was in the area of Common Core and he cited Mike in all of the many facets covered – the status of the standards in various states, concerns with aligned testing, what testing opt-outs mean for the standards, etc. And of course in many places across Ohio, many of these facets are naively combined by naysayers interested in throwing out the baby, the bathwater, and the tub. O’Donnell does a nice job separating the issues in this in-depth piece. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
- I don’t think anyone from the Enquirer’s editorial board was in Colorado this week, but they at least got the memo that many of the most vocal testing opter-outers are conflating Common Core standards and PARCC testing in the aforementioned tub full of things they wish to throw out. The Enquirer’s editors opined on the subject this weekend – urging Ohio to slash testing but to keep Ohio’s Learning Standards. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
- Two stories from Lorain County caught my eye today. Continuing my obsession with school lunches, first up is a look at many years of efforts to improve the nutritional quality and variety of lunches in several county districts. I stand amazed at what lunch servers – with or without panini presses – know about their students. Next up, here’s a lovely piece on the 31st annual Academic Awards Program held yesterday by the Lorain County Alliance of Black School Educators. More than 300 students in grades 7-12 were lauded for academic achievement this year. “The only way to the top is through academics,” said organization co-founder Gloria Noland during the ceremony. “Education is a must if you want to compete in this technological world.” Yes. It is. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal)
- We end with a short piece whose rampant use of double and triple negatives hides something pretty amazing: a study on the effects of open enrollment in Mahoning County on both sending and receiving districts in terms of funding and student achievement. Guess what? Far more winners than losers emerge. More to come on this, folks. This is big. (Youngstown Vindicator)
