- “As the Ohio General Assembly finishes work on the state’s two-year budget due June 30, we strongly urge lawmakers to follow DeWine’s lead and require phonics instruction for all children. This is a great example of why state standards can be essential in ensuring all Ohio students have the opportunities they need in life.” So saith the ABJ’s Editorial Board. Amen and Hallelujah. (Akron Beacon Journal, 5/11/23) More reading, more reading to dogs. Get used to it, haters. (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 5/10/23)
- Boosting literacy scores is top of mind for the interim superintendent of Columbus City Schools, too, she says. Mainly to keep her job here, it seems, but I’m sure it’ll help the kids too if she—or someone else—is actually successful at the effort. (Fox 28 News, Columbus, 5/11/23) I jest of course. The current interim is one of three finalists for permanent supe, all of whom were on parade throughout the district yesterday. (Fox 28 News, Columbus, 5/11/23)
- There’s a lot to unpack here once you get past the cranked-up emotion (no one’s graduation is actually being threatened and no diplomas are being “denied”) and read the whole story, including more questions than answers. If it is a bad thing that a school district might give some seniors a blank piece of paper on graduation day rather than a diploma due to unpaid student fees, why is it not also bad that the district would take and keep double the amount owed when community members chip in to pay off those fees? Doesn’t that just make student fees a potential cash cow for districts and encourage even more of the same “badness” in the future? Feels like a simpler, cheaper version of this system could be organized…although it probably wouldn’t make the news. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/10/23)
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