- State Sen. Peggy Lehner was the headliner at a City Club of Cleveland event on Friday, talking about the state ofK-12 education in Ohio and about ways to improve it. As you can imagine, the Common Core repeal effort underway in Ohio was a prime topic ("This legislation would create chaos in our schools and set us back years."), but the Senate Education Committee Chair also talked about Pre-K, third grade reading, teacher quality, and expulsion policies. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
- Editors in Canton seem to be on board with the senator’s interests also, opining this weekend in praise of Stark County schools’ efforts to meet the requirements of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee. (Canton Repository)
- Common Core was also in the Canton paper this weekend. A quick survey of district and ESC officials (and at least one legislator) in Stark County shows broad support for the Common Core. (Canton Repository)
- Here’s a very thorough report on Common Core with a national take, an Ohio take, and a Cincinnati-centric take (the latter provided by the awesome Julia Carr Smyth). The implication of this piece is that Ohio’s legislature is having “buyer’s remorse” over the standards, but surely this would mean that the legislators on the Rules Committee paid attention when the standards were adopted back in 2010, which we heard last week was not the case. (WCPO-TV, Cincinnati)
- The Dayton Daily News focused their Common Core coverage on last week’s hearings, drawing out the positions of those for and against the bill to repeal Ohio’s New Learning Standards. They’ll surely have more to report on this week as hearings are now scheduled to continue into a third week. (Dayton Daily News)
- Meanwhile, editors in Columbus opined once again in favor of Common Core. (Columbus Dispatch)
- Back in the real world, the Big D takes a look today at teacher turnover numbers in Reynoldsburg Schools, attempting to make sense of those numbers in connection with the ongoing teacher contract talks (or lack thereof). (Columbus Dispatch)
- I noted last week that “back-to-school” stories about charters have been conspicuously absent. This weekend, the Blade highlighted the L. Hollingworth School on the east side of the city – a five-year-old school beginning its new year in a former manufacturing plant which they have very snazzily refurbished. The administration seems committed to their neighborhood and the families there. Nice. (Toledo Blade)