- Busy end to the week around here. First up, House Bill 2 passed out of the education committee on a party line vote on Wednesday. Despite those last amendments we told you about earlier, this is still a huge step forward for charter law in Ohio. Chad is quoted saying just that in the following coverage: The Alliance Review, 3/26/15, others via AP, and Gongwer Ohio (3/25/15)
- Also on Wednesday, Senate Bill 3 – the education deregulation bill – passed the full senate on a vote of 24-9. As it stands now, 125 districts would qualify. The Dispatch piece names names of those districts in Franklin and Delaware County. None are surprising. Now, on to the House. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/25/15)
- Ahead of a full House vote on HB 2, editors in Columbus opined that while “significant”, the bill still wasn’t the best it could be, especially with regards to what didn’t make it in to the bill in committee. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/26/15)
- The House vote on HB 2 took place yesterday morning. Some discussion was had on the floor on what did and didn’t make it into the bill, but in the end the vote was 70-25. Upon passage, Chad reiterated his support for the bill as “strong legislation that brought together legislators from both parties to do what's right for kids who attend charter schools." On the Senate. Coverage from the Columbus Dispatch (3/26/15), Gongwer Ohio (3/26/15), and WKSU-FM, Kent (3/26/15).
- As you may have noted in that WKSU piece, not everybody’s happy with the passage of HB 2. This morning, editors in Cleveland opined that HB 2 is not enough. They focus mainly on transparency-based proposals championed by State Auditor Dave Yost that did not end up in the bill. This is probably the nicest the editorial board of the PD has been to Yost in ages. So I say soak it up, sir. I’m sure the usual ambivalence will resume soon enough. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/27/15)
- Editors in Toledo opined in exactly the same way as those in Cleveland on HB2. It is to be hoped that their concerns can be addressed as the Senate takes up the bill after Easter break. (Toledo Blade, 3/27/15)
- I hesitate to include this story because a) I’m not even sure what it’s about (“brain-based curriculum for kids in poverty”? What does that even mean?), and b) I’m not sure it’s as complimentary to the Village Prep/E-Prep schools in Cleveland as they think they are being. A weird one for sure. (Stateimpact Ohio, 3/25/15)
- Speaking of Cleveland, teachers there are expressing some unhappiness with the state of play. On their list: student-based budgeting, teacher evaluations, their pay, and overall budget cuts planned for the district. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/27/15)
- Finally, in the sad Bizarro-World that is Youngstown, the most recent meeting of the Academic Distress Commission that oversees the district was so full of dysfunction, headscratching quotes, and outright horror that it quite defies me to describe it succinctly. I will tip two of the bigger issues and then urge you to read the story yourself for all the sad details. First, it was suggested that more manpower be found to enable visits to the homes of chronically absent students. Not to urge them to go to school, but, it seems, to determine if they “had all but disappeared from the district.” Second, the impending startup of a new STEM school led by the county ESC, a consortium of local districts, and Youngstown State University was greeted with this: “For another ESC to steal students from Youngstown is unconscionable. ... I’m angry. They ought to go to church and learn the 10 Commandments.” Yowza. (Youngstown Vindicator, 3/27/15)
