- Aren’t search engines great? With them, one can search for an important name (say, Aaron Churchill) and sometimes find references to that name in new places. To wit: Here is a really interesting post from an organization out of Minnesota which covers and amplifies our Aaron’s recent blog explaining why standardized tests really really matter. (Center of the American Experiment, 9/23/20)
- This piece doesn’t have any specific Ohio content but it seems relevant nonetheless. It is a brief analysis of a new report from Bellwether Partners which says that while distance teaching and learning is still a work in progress, “key solutions” to common problems are beginning to emerge. Let’s hope that’s right. (Education Dive, 9/23/20)
- Closer to home, students in the Cleveland area will soon have free access to the internet at a number of different transit locations and onboard buses and trains thanks to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. Homework, yes. Search engines, yes. Netflix and Hulu, no. (WKYC-TV, Cleveland, 9/25/20)
- Staying on the North Coast for the moment, Cleveland Metropolitan School District is reporting an enrollment drop of 1,500 kids between last fall and this. The largest drops are among preschool and Kindergarten students, which makes sense in the all-remote learning environment currently being offered. District officials say they will soon be ready to start “hunting for kids” they think should be attending but are not, although “attendance” seems to be an undefined concept here. Depending on the definition, however, that enrollment drop might end up being a bit larger than just 1,500 kids. (The 74, 9/23/20) Coincidentally, State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria was talking to national public media this week about that very topic. DeMaria told WGBH that he’s trying to shift the definition of attendance toward recognizing whether students are making academic progress. “If they're participating and engaging, that counts,” he said. He added that the flexibility provided by remote instruction is a good thing (echoes of CMSD’s CEO earlier this week) because he’s heard from plenty of parents of teenagers in the Buckeye State who don’t start their schoolwork until noon. (Holy cliché, Batman!) “I think the long-term goal is to actually be creative and understanding,” he suggested. “We're so used to testing and just taking attendance as kind of anchors of measurement. And we need to take our thinking to the next level.” The testing comment I get: dime a dozen these days. But if the mindset regarding attendance sounds a little different to you than when a bunch of online charter schools in Ohio got busted for “attendance issues” a couple years ago, I suspect you are not alone. (WBGH-FM, Boston, 9/24/20)
- One more NEO clip, maybe peripherally related to the foregoing: a new Julie Billiart School campus will open in the suburb of Westlake next fall. Julie Billiart is a private school specializing in serving students with mild to moderate autism, anxiety, dyslexia, ADHD, and other learning differences. Quick internet search says that they do accept students on all the voucher programs. Thank you so much for asking. And thank you, Jeeves. (Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, 9/23/20)
- Last Friday, we learned that Toledo City Schools was going to switch from all-remote learning to a hybrid model in October, but that they had decided families would have no all-remote option if they were not comfortable sending their kids back into school buildings just now. I called it a “bold strategy” at that time, which I know all of my dedicated Gadfly Bites subscribers realize is just my crafty way of saying “a surefire way to alienate those families and send them fleeing for an alternative”. I can only assume that officials in the district read and understood my clever wordplay right away. How else to explain why they are now said to be “considering” reopening enrollment to their pandemic virtual academy? It was either me or the recent sharp spike in Toledo-area internet searches for “online charter school registration”. As a tiny and ironic aside, the final paragraph of this piece is a corker (often the case with reporter Bri’on Whiteside’s pieces, I observe): anyone interested in applying to the virtual academy should that be allowed is instructed to do so directly with the staff at their assigned school because the district website doesn’t have an app for that. Hilarious. (Toledo Blade, 9/24/20)
- In case any parents in the Toledo area are not feeling super happy with their school options, here’s a great piece where choice supporters discuss various options available—particularly private schools and homeschooling—with literally no “but traditional district school” counterpoint required. Great stuff, and a great event. But don’t forget parents, there’s always the internet! (Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, 9/25/20)
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