Gadfly Bites will be on vacation for a bit, you lucky readers; but your luck runs out on 9/8/21 when it all starts again.
- Here is a fantastic look at two central Ohio families whose children have been thriving thanks to the Ohio Autism Scholarship. They will continue to thrive due to the increase in funding for the scholarships as enacted in the new state budget. Just don’t call ‘em “vouchers”, OK? Link (Columbus Dispatch, 8/24/21)
- The worst fears of elected school board members and teachers union reps in Cincinnati City Schools have not come to pass in the switch to non-dedicated public transit routes for school transportation so far this year, even though a couple of tweaks of the plan and some additional student/family education information have been required. You would think that this is good news and would make those nervous feel a little better, but it appears that Chicken Little’s not going to be happy unless the sky actually falls. (Fox 19 News, Cincy, 8/24/21)
- In case you missed it, Ohio has a new interim state superintendent locked down (fingers crossed!) for when Paolo DeMaria retires next month. But the newb was not finalized without some agita among state board members related to the state’s current strategic plan for education. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/23/21)
- Finally, you may have heard that “high-dosage tutoring” is the penicillin needed to combat whatever we’re calling pandemic-related learning loss at the moment. (Honestly, if the Executive Director of Accelerated and Extended Learning at Columbus City Schools says point blank, “There is a learning loss”, should the rest of us really be hiding behind euphemisms at this point?) However, since the Executive Director of Accelerated and Extended Learning at the state’s largest school district seems convinced that the answer to learning loss in her district due to 18 months of remote instruction is a huge investment in third-party online tutoring, perhaps the whole shebang needs to be called into question. (ABC6 News, Columbus, 8/23/21)
Did you know you can have every edition of Gadfly Bites sent directly to your Inbox? Subscribe by clicking here.
Policy Priority:
Topics:
