Gadfly Bites 7/26/19 – Go big and go home

1. Post-budget analysis continues. Fordham’s Aaron Churchill is among the folks quoted in this piece looking at the budget’s changes to charter school automatic closure provisions. (Columbus Dispatch, 7/24/19) Meanwhile, editors in Toledo opined: “The budget reveals an administration that intends to have its arms elbow-deep into solving the real problems of education.” Given this, the editors generally laud the budget for its education provisions—minus Academic Distress Commissions—and say very little at all about charter school changes. Interesting. (Toledo Blade, 7/25/19)
   

2. However, the Blade’s associate editor has his own thoughts on education policy and penned his own solo commentary to address them. He starts out by blasting state report cards generally (and returns to this a couple of times throughout), but what he’s really stuck on is the value added measure. He is responding to testimony before JEOC (RIP) last week provided by a Toledo City Schools board member about how biased she believes the measure is against large school districts. Take note that what she testified is that a small negative rating on student growth gets magnified for large districts like Toledo. Which kind of makes sense to me seeing as to how we’re talking about a lot of students in a big district, but what do I know. Mr. Troy tells me that nobody in Ohio understands report cards but this one exceptional board member. Wonder if heroner would be saying the same if Toledo had a small positive growth rating that was itself inflated. Who knows? Certainly not me. (Toledo Blade, 7/26/19)
   

3. Speaking of which, only Ohio’s giant urban school districts could turn a multimillion dollar budget windfall into a reason to complain. (Akron Beacon Journal, 7/23/19)
   

4. I am left wondering after all of this if things are saner in the smaller districts. This piece about how Berea City Schools are changing their method of gifted identification indicates to me that the margin is slim. (Cleveland.com, 7/25/19)

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