Editorial

Part Two

Faculty members and OSU College of Education degree holders Gay Su Pinnell and children’s literature professor and Pinnell’s teacher Charlotte Huck were the receiving agents of Clay’s rhetorical sketch. Without testing to confirm Clay’s “observation” studies, Pinnell in conjunction with Lesley’s Fountas proceeded to institutionalize and promote Reading Recovery/Fountas and Pinnell. Neither has expertise in early literacy nor reading. Clay’s limited studies do not stand up to scrutiny. (See Buckingham, Chapman and Tumner)

While visiting Columbus in 1984-1985, Clay began “teaching one trainer, three teacher leaders, and 13 teachers,” according to the OSU College of Education. An entry on its website states that “Since 1984, Ohio State has trained over 200 teacher leaders and trainers” in almost 40 years. That’s approximately 5-6 per year, an unimpressive total. They do not define “leaders and trainers.” They do not seem to be classroom teachers. OSU exposes both its operating and marketing methods here.

Part One

It should surprise no one that in 21st  century United States, young children’s learning to read is a landmine within academic capitalism where sales profits trump diverse children’s basic learning and equitable, humane bases for their futures. Unknowledgeable governors and politicians weigh in, confusing the public and offending teachers. Recent articles and essays in national and local media overflow with this, as the References show.

Today, with more force than usual across states and cities, the episodic “reading wars” erupt with passion and ignorance, and large financial stakes. At their oversimplified base, the “reading wars” pit one of a number of different forms of “phonics” against various forms of “phonetics.”

It is rarely noted that the issues are at least two hundred years, not two decades old, and that they have to do with much more than different ways of teaching children to read—and less often mentioned, write, spell, and do arithmetic.

One. Never hesitating to get her name into print or what passes for City communications, councilor Barroso de Padillo subsidizes five e-bike sellers (Beechwold Bicycles, Franklinton Cycle Works, Johnny Velo Bikes, Orbit City Bikes, Paradise Garage) with public dollar handouts to private citizens for discounts on e-bike purchase.

The subsidy to the bike stores amounts to the City spending $250,000 for 100-150 residents. The handouts go to any household with an income of less than $150,000, far out of line with housing and other social assistance. This is capitalist socialism.

Readers: do the simple division of public subsidy to private interests for yourselves. Does this make economic sense for the public?

No mention is made that unlike its peer cities, Columbus’ own safe bicycle lanes system remains dramatically incomplete and unmaintained. Snow removal trucks fill the bike lanes. In the Columbus Way, the lanes stop and start at the behest of private businesses.

There’s a special election coming up this August. The voter registration deadline is Monday, July 10th. Are you registered to vote yet?

If you’re not, it’s totally understandable: discussion of a need for an active and conscientious electorate can be quite insulting when you work more than two jobs to keep a roof over your head and food on the table; it can seem totally irrelevant. It’s also true that many of our elected officials tend to become aloof for all but the most intense portion of their re-election campaigns, so why bother?

Getting out the vote is the reason I entered into community organizing work, which brought me to Columbus over a decade ago. It was 2011, and Gov. John Kasich’s Senate Bill 5 sought to marginalize the collective bargaining powers of public workers.

Those opposed to the legislation saw it for what it was: an attempt to hoodwink the public into gutting worker protections while privatizing public sector jobs. We knew the Right would exploit their base’s resentments against unions. But we fought back and won with one of the largest mobilizations in Ohio history. 

Given his public statements and his actions especially as mayor of Columbus, Ohio, I have been forced to ask a number of times: does Andy Ginther actually live in the city of Columbus? He does not know the physical, socio-cultural, economic, or political city. He is clueless about any identity, and profoundly ignorant of its largely undocumented and unwritten history.

His latest comments force me to ask: does he live in the United States? On Earth?

Given his public statements and his actions especially as mayor of Columbus, Ohio, I have been forced to ask a number of times: does Andy Ginther actually live in the city of Columbus? He does not know the physical, socio-cultural, economic, or political city. He is clueless about any identity, and profoundly ignorant of its largely undocumented and unwritten history.

His latest comments force me to ask: does he live in the United States? On Earth?

Since its inception and especially the time of the layout of the landmark campus The Oval, The Ohio State University senior administration occupied space near the top of the central area. Since 1924, they occupied Bricker Hall, beside the original University Hall of 1873 (demolished in 1970, replaced with the present structure—under renovation now—in 1976.)

The century-old building was named The Administration Building. In 1983, it was renamed for John Bricker, an Ohio racist and segregationist. Ohio Attorney General 1933-1937, Governor 1939-1945, and Senator 1947-1959, Bricker was a 1916 OSU graduate and member of the Board of Trustees for more than two decades.

With no public notice and, so far, signage on the unaesthetic cookie-cutter new structure only for the fast-food spots with outdoor patios that share the space on so-called University Square, the administration departed from The Oval and the OSU campus itself for a disconnected and isolated space on the east side of North High Street across the street from the university itself.

As in so many things, Gov. Mike DeWine and his cronies; led by party leaders in the State House and Senate who blindly copy the legislation of Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Arkansas; Lt. Gov. Jon Husted who publicly admits to disliking the arts and culture; and Yo Yost and anti-abortionist LaRose who are unfamiliar with the US Constitution, their own prior statements, and truth struggle to lead Ohio into paths of decline and destruction. Incredibly, these gerrymander-elected politicians claim to have earned law degrees.

This is true in so many ways, from the environment to human services, voting rights, public health, and knowledge and expertise at any level. My focus falls on public education. Having done their best to destroy public K-12 education by unconstitutionally diverting public funds to private education—so called “public vouchers” (in the courts at present)—from for-profit charter schools to parochial schools, and even online and 1930s Nazi home schooling, they are joined in cities like Columbus by anti-democratic Democrats whose tax abatements and TIFs for private interests (who support the mayor and city council) radically underfund public education.

To paraphrase from Mr. Donte Woods-Spikes, Columbus documentarian and speaker extraordinaire: to anyone who’s been triggered by their memories on their newsfeed in the last fortnight, I empathize with you.

Three years ago last week on Thursday, May 28th, 2020, this city joined in a national reckoning that we have yet to reconcile.

Three days before in Minneapolis, MN, a Black man named George Floyd was recorded while then-officer Derek Chauvin pressed his left knee on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds as Floyd pled for his life and took his last breath to call for his mother as he expired.

I watched the last three minutes of the video that had by now gone viral on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27th. That evening – about 7 PM – I walked from my house to the Dollar General on E. Main Street, bought a big bottle of cheap white wine, took it home and drank half of it.

Dear Andy, I cannot address you as “mayor.” You take the salary but refuse to do the work. You never accept responsibility, not even for your own staff lobbying for your benefit. You do not tell the truth. You do not lead. You have no policies. Your slogans are poor.

As elected “mayor” and lifelong professional politician (unlike Joe Motil, whom you dishonestly tarnish with that label in your legally actional campaign misconduct), you fail the City and the city of Columbus.

You, Columbus Police Department chiefs, and the city council that knows little about cities in general and Columbus in particular—and the private interests who dictate their orders to you—are collectively responsible for the failing state of our city.

Admit it: Columbus is the site of mounting violence especially with guns and vehicles. Columbus has no visible public safety. This is true even in the favored but declining Short North whose owners give you commands, including discriminating against the day-to-day well-being of food truck owners/workers. You recent claims of safety based on less than two weeks ONLY in the Short North ignore the ongoing violence everywhere else in Columbus.