Statewide Stories of the Day

Schools facing reading issues (News-Sun)

More than one in five third-graders in a dozen Miami Valley school districts were not proficient in reading last year, according to 2010-11 report card data. In Dayton and Jefferson Twp., about 45 percent failed to meet that state standard, while in Springfield it was about 37 percent and Middletown, 30 percent. School districts are taking steps this summer to prepare for the new state third-grade reading guarantee, which would generally require districts to hold back third-graders starting in 2013-14 if they are not reading at grade level. Read more...

Ohio’s education challenge (Vindicator)

Gov. John Kasich, a man who does not shy away from challenge, is saying that he intends to work with the legislature to come up with a better way to fund the state’s schools, likely in time for next year’s new state budget. Meanwhile, members of the General Assembly are doing the homework needed to craft reform. Parents who think their district is doing great might be shocked to find out that, compared with national achievement-test scores, in many cases student performance is substandard. Read more...

Local Issues

Backpack program helps parents feed kids (Middletown Journal)

MIDDLETOWN — It sounded like she was talking about more than a plastic grocery bag full of six meals for her children. “This is a godsend,” Julie Oglesbay, 44, a mother of two children, said Friday afternoon at the Catalina Manufactured Home Community. “As a mother, you always want your kids’ stomachs full. This helps tremendously.” Because of a $1 million grant from Governor John Kasich’s office, a Summer Weekend Backpack Meals program was established this year in the state, including the Middletown area. Read more...

Canton City Schools students learn guitar in summer program (Repository)

CANTON — Newly formed non-profit, Ohio Regional Music Arts and Cultural Outreach (ORMACO) teamed up with Canton City Schools’ Arts Academy at Summit, the University of Akron’s guitar department and McKinley High School to offer summer guitar lessons to City Schools students. Led by Arts Academy music instructor George Dean and James Marron, guitar professor at the University of Akron, the program will culminate in a free concert for the public. Read more...

Editorial

The Creativity-Testing Conflict (Education Week)

Doublethink is "to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them," according to George Orwell, who coined the phrase in his novel 1984. American education policymakers have apparently entered the zone of doublethink. They want future Americans to be globally competitive, to out-innovate others, and to become job-creating entrepreneurs. Read more...