- Most media discussion of legislative activity in Ohio is currently about the state budget, which faces a looming deadline by which it must be finished. But last night, House Bill 2 passed the Ohio Senate by a vote of 30-0. That is, significant and vitally needed reform of Ohio’s charter school laws. Big stuff. Here’s a play-by-play of yesterday’s legislative action with reaction from our own Chad Aldis. (Columbus Dispatch, 6/26/15)
- Here is additional coverage of the same event – describing charter law reform efforts, with lots of lovely insider detail –but this one contains 100 percent less Fordham references. (Gongwer Ohio, 6/25/15)
- In other legislative news, House Bill 70 passed the Senate and changes to it concurred by the House earlier this week. This is bill is primarily about statewide expansion of Community Learning Center models (like those being piloted in Cincinnati City Schools), but it is a set of amendments added in the Senate which are generating all the news coverage. Those amendments create what is being called the “Youngstown Plan”, a sharpening of the teeth of Ohio’s Academic Distress Commission protocols which would replace Youngstown’s supe (and potentially others as well) with a CEO-style operation. We told you about this on Wednesday as the bill and its amendments were introduced, debated, and passed. Here is a selection of the media reaction across Ohio. Gongwer Ohio (6/24/15), Columbus Dispatch (6/24/15), Youngstown Vindicator (6/25/15), Toledo Blade (6/25/15), and my person favorite, Akron Beacon Journal (6/25/15), with yet another headline that reads like a story – or an editorial – all by itself.
- Amid all the rhetoric and analysis you will have read in the above pieces, here is a nice concise look at the new five-year Academic Distress Commission process that will likely be coming to Youngstown starting this fall. Plan. (Youngstown Vindicator, 6/25/15)
- As we’ve noted, Youngstown may have been the catalyst for this new ADC process, but Lorain City Schools are also currently under a distress commission and at least two other districts are teetering on the brink. So, how does this new legislation look to the folks in another academically-distressed district, especially one which has just hired a new superintendent after a somewhat rancorous process? (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 6/25/15)
- And finally, in other district-turnaround news, the latest status report from the Cleveland Transformation Alliance shows improvement “creeping” in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and everyone there is clamoring for more and faster changes. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/24/15)
