Gadfly Bites 7/24/19 – There’s so much awesomeness we have to cut back

1. As my loyal Gadfly Bites subscribers know very well (love to all five of you!), your humble clips compiler loves to unearth obscure stories from odd outlets and to tie together the full range of found pieces into a story of the day, eclectic as it might turn out to be. Just for you. Well, today’s lead clip is probably the opposite of all that. To wit: I am the last person in all of America to find and talk about this very very prominent story which has been posted and discussed literally everywhere in the last 36 hours. But it’s still pretty cool. Hathaway-Brown, a bougie all-girls private school in Cleveland, is the first of its kind in the country to establish a varsity eSports program. It is probably only the wide reach of the AP—and not the cringey “Ooh look! Girls can be gamers too!” angle—that accounts for the story’s ubiquity in news outlets. Probably. (Associated Press, 7/22/19)

2. Longtime readers of the Bites will recall me following a series in the Plain Dealer a while back which chronicled the successes and roadblocks of a low-income family as they navigated life in Cleveland—including housing, employment, healthcare, and schooling for four children. I am noting it again because of this new piece in which not only is school choice a vital component but also in which my former employer, the awesome School Choice Ohio, is shown assisting the family in navigating the many options available to them. SCO FTW! (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 7/23/19) On the topic of school choice, Matt Ladner of RedefinED blogged earlier this week about the huge boost Ohio’s new biennial budget has given to choice in the Buckeye State. Nice. (RedefinED, 7/22/19)

3. Speaking of the budget, a lesser-known (to me, at least) provision was apparently a big boost to something called the Health IT in the CLE (HIT in the CLE) Community Classroom. I think they were funded mostly on the awesomeness of their mission—providing after school computer and data science instruction to CMSD students who do not have access to relevant coursework elsewhere—rather than the cleverness of their name. The new funding will allow the once-daily pilot program to expand to five days per week and, hopefully, boost the number of students taking part. (Yahoo Finance, 7/23/19) And since we’re on a tech kick this issue, here’s info on a summer program for recent high school grads in Columbus that seems to be pretty cool as well. Go nerds! (Columbus Dispatch, 7/24/19)

4. Summer is over for students at AIM Academy, Stark County’s only year round school. The new year—just the school’s second in existence—began earlier this week. Reviews of the first year seem positive. All but three school families (all of whom had to apply to attend) returned for the second year, and word of mouth was so positive that there is a waiting list of over 60 students this year. Only a small handful of third graders had to be retained due to the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, a big improvement over the usual numbers at other Canton schools. And preliminary test scores showed the school “holding its own” academically. (I’m not sure what that means, but let’s call it “not bad news”). The positive reading and test score outcomes are credited to intensive work during the three week “intersessions” – that is, targeted academic remediation for students who are behind which is conducted during the mini breaks taken throughout the year. As a result of this awesomeness, remediation is being cut this year to occur in just two of the three weeks in each intersession. Wait, what? (Canton Repository, 7/23/19)

5. The given reason for cutting back on the awesomeness at Canton’s AIM Academy in the foregoing clip is expense. The teachers conducting the remediation work are expensive and, apparently, that level of expenditure for actual academic success was not sustainable. And the story may only get worse. In nearby Mahoning County, the auditor has sent out a warning that declining overall population means declining student bodies in the county’s school districts, and that means money crunches down the pike. Unless, of course, these school districts can find a way to save money. Unfortunately, cutting back on the awesomeness is not an available option for most of them. (Youngstown Vindicator, 7/22/19)

6. Finally today: a look at what’s going on in school districts following the non-abolition of Academic Distress Commissions. In Youngstown, incoming CEO Justin Jennings attended a meeting of the elected school board, looking for common ground. Unfortunately, board members are still dithering over placing a levy on the November ballot. Probably because they were hoping they’d be giving that money to themselves and not to the CEO. (Youngstown Vindicator, 7/24/19) In Lorain, a new board member was chosen to replace former president Tony Dimacchia. The new member’s views on the ADC were pretty clear.  Because of that, Lorain also likely will not have a levy on the November ballot. Sounds familiar. (The Morning Journal, 7/23/19). In this coverage of the very same Lorain school board meeting, emphasis is given to some real world math problems which were discussed. And they are fascinating. Apparently the district uses student swipe cards to take attendance, and the teachers have “a box” on their desks that (I think) is used as a check against those swipes. But it seems that neither students nor teachers are having much success using these gizmos and attendance data—and all of the downstream uses of that data—may be out of whack because of it. Additionally, neither administration nor board can seem to agree on just how many teachers union members are employed in the district. Wonder if they use swipe cards to figure that out? (Elyria Chronicle, 7/24/19)

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