- We start our Friday clips with a trio of STEM-related stories. A teacher at Global Impact STEM Academy in Springfield recently won a prestigious national science educator award for his work with students in the school and during science-focused summer camps. (Springfield News Sun, 9/21/21) Steubenville City Schools announced this week it will use a portion of its federal Covid-relief funding to create a standalone facility for STEM education for its students. I know that I am usually quick to suspect some potential shenanigans when buildings (or rooms) are built with one-time money like this. But given the way Steubenville’s schools have been coming up aces in recent years, I actually feel like these guys will have some good programming ready to launch in there as soon as it’s ready. (WTOV-TV, Steubenville, 9/22/21) Unfortunately, given Columbus City Schools’ track record generally and a number of specific questionable details provided in this piece, the only thing rising here for me about the district’s newly-announced STEM-ish initiative is hot air. (Columbus Dispatch, 9/23/21)
- We have heard some conflicting reports over how transportation would be handled this year for charter and private school students living in the boundaries of Dayton City Schools. And while this piece does nothing to elucidate the exact nature of that transportation infrastructure, unfortunately for at least one charter family who tell their story here, the chaos and consequences created for them by late buses and inconsistent routing is all too obvious. As is the fact that the district doesn’t care one whit, but there’s nothing new about that. (WHIO-TV, Dayton, 9/22/21)
- Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited a couple of schools in the Toledo area recently. And he seemed really pleased with all that he saw, especially the classroom environments. “Caring adults and a welcoming nurturing environment,” he said afterward, “is always going to be what students need to be successful.” (NBC 24 News, Toledo, 9/22/21)
- Secretary Cardona’s comment, as you might expect, doesn’t fully resonate with me. Certainly not as much as I’m sure it did with his audience. While he is not incorrect, caring adults and a welcoming classroom make up perhaps 1/16 of what students need to succeed…in my own humble opinion. (“And why should anyone care what you think?” I hear you asking, “You ain’t EdSec.) True story, I suppose, but until he decides to do his own snarky clips compilation three times per week, y’all are stuck with me. And lots of similar thoughts go through your humble clips compiler’s head when he reads about the brief “state of the schools” presentation given by Canton City Schools’ superintendent Jeff Talbert. The central theme of his presentation, we are told, was finding and expressing “your ‘why’.” That is, why you want to do this work of educating children. However, when I hear that he also said his students came back to school this fall 1.5 years behind (so much for summer
schooljoy fiesta, I guess) and that his cited remedy was vaguely tutoring and after-school programs, I find myself more concerned about “whether” you are educating children than “why” you might find yourself in the position to attempt to do so. (Canton Repository, 9/22/21) Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon gave his annual “state of the schools” speech recently also. There was some talk of “steering in a new direction”, but getting closer to normal after two-and-a-bit pandemic disrupted school years was also a prominent theme. (Cleveland.com, 9/22/21) Nothing says “closer to normal” to me than when item 1 on an elected school board’s agenda in the year of our lord SARS-CoV-2 is setting the “out-of-district tuition rate” for students. For Independence Local Schools in Cuyahoga County, that rate is $15,256.92 per year, in case you’re an old-school Robin Leach stan. (Cleveland.com, 9/23/21)
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