- As you may know, Count Week is no more in Ohio’s school districts. No more Pizza Days or Pajama Days or Spirit Days in an effort to get as many kids as possible into the building to be counted for funding purposes. While districts must now count students every day and report to the department of education three times per year, the actual funding process based on these numbers can’t go into action until a year’s worth of counting has been done. Some Butler County districts seem concerned about how the numbers are going to shake out and have some choice words about how much ODE has bitten off (yes, testing is part of it too, as far as they are concerned). ODE’s guy, for his part, doesn’t sound very concerned about the process. We’ll see how it all shakes out. (Middletown Journal-News, 4/12/15)
- Speaking of testing in Ohio (seriously, when are we not?), the Plain Dealer ran a piece on the first data produced by State Senator Peggy Lehner’s Advisory Committee on Testing. These are the results of a survey of public school leaders (principals, teachers, superintendents) regarding their experiences with the first round of PARCC and AIR testing, most of which is now concluded in Ohio. Satisfaction with test implementation is low across the board. If anyone’s paying attention (the number of comments on the PD website are shockingly low for an education story), I daresay this information will be spun every which way: proof that the tests themselves are bad/too problematic and must be destroyed, proof that the implementation of the test was problematic and that they are too hard for the grown-ups to manage, etc. Once again, we’ll see how it all shakes out. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/10/15)
- The Academic Distress Commission overseeing Lorain schools has two new employees. Veteran educators and administrators who will be working as “academic monitors” – responsible for ensuring that Lorain teachers “present curriculum with fidelity throughout the district so students can succeed”. This, I imagine, is a pretty big lift. Hence the heavyweight newcomers. There’s a ton of details on what the monitors are responsible for and how they’ll do their jobs, and it’s pretty interesting stuff. I will submit that the penultimate paragraph of the piece is what I found most interesting, but I’m pretty sure its placement in the story was deliberate. If you read that far, you can draw your own conclusions. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 4/11/15)
- The so-called “5 of 8” will likely be up for a vote in the State Board of Education meeting this week. That is, the elimination of staffing requirements for school districts based around art and music teachers, school nurses, etc. per 1000 students. Ahead of the vote, editors in Cincinnati opined on why they think the rule should be retained. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 4/12/15)
- The Willoughby News-Herald took a look at what online schools are and are not in Ohio – calmly and rationally. I’m sure some will say too calmly and too rationally. (Willoughby News Herald, 4/12/15)
