Five education stories that mattered this year

Welcome to the first-ever EdInk newsletter! The end of the year is a weird time to be launching a new project, but I wanted to fast-track this issue and publish it before everyone is confused and full of cheese next week (I plan to be). 2023 has certainly given us in the world of education a lot to reflect on, so I thought I’d end the year and start this newsletter by summarizing what education policy looks like in Ohio right now. I’ve picked five local education stories that tell us something about our state and the choices we're making for our schools. TL; DR summary: lawmakers’ decisions have been costly, in both the literal and figurative sense. 

Before we get into those, though, I’d like to thank all of you for being here. Starting an education-focused newsletter was not on my 2023 bucket list, but as a parent of two children in Columbus City Schools, and after doing topic research as a member of the Google News Initiative’s Pre-Launch Lab 2023 cohort, I’m more convinced than ever that this type of content is needed. Every new subscriber bolsters my confidence (we’re at 49 and counting now, in 13 states and two countries!). If you believe in this work, there will be opportunities to support EdInk financially in 2024. In the meantime, reading and sharing this newsletter helps tremendously. 

And now, here are five Ohio education stories that mattered in 2023. 

1. Columbus City Schools gets a new superintendent. Dr. Angela Chapman, who had served as the interim in the position, was officially appointed to the role by the school board in May, after a national search that cost the district $250,000 (WCBE News).  
2. Columbus voters approve $100 million annual school levy. The levy will fund school support staff, infrastructure improvements, pre-K expansion, and more (10TV). It passed despite vocal opposition from the Columbus NAACP and calls for a delay by the Equity Now Coalition, although the latter later reversed course (Columbus Dispatch & WOSU).   
3. Lawmakers pass measures to limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights. These include a vote last week by the Big Walnut school board in Delaware County to ban LGBTQ+ flags—against the advice of the district’s legal counsel—coming at the same time that Governor DeWine is weighing a bill to ban trans girls from high school athletics against the advice of the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association. DeWine will need to decide by December 29 whether to sign or veto the bill, and you can contact his office if you have feelings about this (Columbus Dispatch & Ohio Capital Journal).    
4. The new Office of Education and Workforce takes over most responsibilities of the State Board of Education. After Democrats won a majority on the State Board of Education in the 2022 elections, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill to curtail the board’s power. A lawsuit to block the move only temporarily delayed it, and the Department of Education and Workforce is now in charge of the state’s curricular decisions, led by a man who previously served 11 days as state superintendent before resigning due to an ethics violation (ABC News, Statehouse News Bureau, Ohio.gov & Dayton Daily News).
5. Student test scores look different after the pandemic. There’s been a lot written about test scores and what they tell us about academic recovery, but this story about Ohio’s “K shaped” recovery, where white affluent kids are doing even better and poor kids of color are doing worse than they were pre-Covid, pretty much sums it up (The 74). 

Bonus: for more national stories, The 74 shared their “jealousy list” of education stories they wish they had published this year. The list came out too early to include the New York Times’ recent feature on the after-school Satan club, but I’ve shared it with a free gift link so you can read all about it. 

Added bonus: if you are the parent of a CCS 5th grader, your whole family can get a free COSI membership—just in time for break.

That’s all for EdInk until 2024! If you know someone who might like this newsletter, please share it with them. You can look forward to more roundups and original content coming next year, and we welcome suggestions of what you’d like to hear about. Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!