- Today’s scheduled Common Core repeal hearings were themselves “repealed”, so no live tweeting for Chad today. What do the bill sponsors propose for future hearings? Evenings with teachers in October. Could be interesting. (Gongwer Ohio)
- Speaking of Common Core, the director of the Center for Mathematics and Science Education was speaking of Common Core at Bluffton University in Northwest Ohio yesterday. There were even math problems to do. Awesome! (Lima News)
- Sticking with some more out-of-the-way places in the state, the value of income-based vouchers are extolled in rural Ohio. (Logan Daily News)
- Back in the big city, the state Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the case questioning who owns the assets of a charter school contracting with a for-profit management company. You can check out coverage from Gongwer Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and StateImpact Ohio. Is this a battleground over charter school accountability or just a question of contract law?
- Speaking of accountability, here’s the second in the Morning Journal’s series on “the new era of accountability” in Ohio’s schools. I don’t know if this is the point of the piece, but it seems that officials’ perception of their district’s performance on recent report cards guides their opinion on the usefulness of new standards and new tests coming down the pike. Districts who did as well as they wanted are already moving on to other things (arts, extracurriculars); districts who fared less well than they think they should have believe report cards don’t (and won’t in the future) measure what really counts to them; and districts who did as poorly as they expected to do are optimistic that their implementation of new curriculum aligned to new standards and tests will tell a different story for them next year. Fascinating. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal)
- You can put Youngstown’s superintendent on the side of those officials whose district did not do as well on report cards as had been hoped. He told the school board why he thought that was at yesterday’s meeting. No indication here as to whether he thinks higher standards will help lead to improvement in the future. (Youngstown Vindicator)
- The first contract negotiations between striking Reynoldsburg teachers and the district since the strike began are scheduled for Sunday. (Columbus Dispatch)
- A similar situation may be brewing in Riverside Local schools in Northeast Ohio, where teachers have been working without a contract since the start of school. I don’t want to be alarmist – and for sure there are differences in tone from Reynoldsburg a few weeks ago – but those pictures of yesterday’s Riverside school board meeting do look eerily familiar. (Willoughby News Herald)
