- The guardians of status quo in education in Ohio are here said to be looking for exemptions to everything – testing, accountability, requirements, etc. Soooooo many exemptions. (Gongwer Ohio, 4/8/20) Speaking of which, some districts (guess which ones?) and even a bougie private school are going to non-graded, pass/fail classes for the remainder of the school year…however long that might be. “What we are conducting right now is an experiment in a dramatically different mode of instruction, hatched under very adverse circumstances,” says the supe of Parma City Schools by way of explanation. “We do not want to subject an indicator as important as a student's grade-point average to such experimental conditions.” Oh, and sports. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/9/20)
- Speaking of exemptions, fans of test-based accountability often like to ask the rhetorical question “Would you want to use the services of a lawyer who hasn’t passed the bar exam?” If a group of Ohio law students have their way, we will soon be able to put that question to the test in the real world. (Dispatch Columbus, 4/8/20)
- In this piece published yesterday, Cleveland Metropolitan School District is said to still be “stuck” in planning mode for remote learning, four weeks after Governor
Acton’sDeWine’s (why do I keep mixing those two up?) order closing school buildings. It’s not clear where the precise sticking point is. Or, rather, which of the many possible sticking points laid out here is really the main problem. Whatever it is, I feel like reiterating my stance that the chaos engendered in education by the pandemic response has not created new problems, but rather has shined a bright light on existing problems. And there appears to be fewer and fewer places to hide from them. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/9/20)
- Two things stand out to me in this story looking at the parent/family perspective on remote learning coming from the small town of Chillicothe in south central Ohio. First is to ask why so many of the stories I’ve read from the parent/family perspective nationwide seem to include current or former teachers as the parent protagonists. Anyone else noticed that? The second is to ask how it is that schools in this tiny, semi-rural burg are so much further ahead on remote learning—for better or worse—than is giant, urban, heavily-funded CMSD at this point? Oh the lessons we’re going to learn from this pandemic response. (Chillicothe Gazette, 4/8/20)
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