5/29/09 Columbus Dispatch Simone Sebastian Columbus schools want to contract a chunk of their food operations to a private company that promises to bring the indebted department back to solvency. Maryland-based food-management corporation Sodexo wants to raise lunch prices, shrink staffing through attrition and use its national purchasing power to reduce the district’s losses. Columbus [...]

5/28/09 Columbus Dispatch Editorial June will not be pleasant for Ohio lawmakers. They’ll have to spend the month either slashing services that Ohioans hold dear, raising taxes or both. Not pleasant, but unavoidable. The state constitution requires a balanced budget by June 30, and at present, projected state revenues for the 2010-11 biennium fall far [...]

5/28/09 Columbus Dispatch Editorial  Columbus City Schools officials have done a creditable job adjusting the district’s massive school building and renovation plan to constantly shifting conditions, brought on by everything from economic turbulence to the fact that enrollment can be affected by families’ right to choose charter schools and private-school vouchers. The district’s open-enrollment policy [...]

5/27/09 Plain Dealer Thomas Ott This is the third of three stories looking at Joseph M. Gallagher, a Cleveland elementary school that faces severe consequences if students’ test scores don’t improve. Some children travel to Joseph M. Gallagher Elementary School from half a world away. Then another long and difficult journey begins. These “newcomers,” a [...]

5/25/09 Columbus Dispatch Jennifer Smith Richards and Charlie Boss  After participating for the past three years, Hilliard schools won’t be sending any new students to a countywide science- and math-focused high school this fall. The reason: Hilliard plans its own math and engineering program and doesn’t want to spend more than $100,000 to send 20 [...]