(dramatic music) - The Ohio Redistricting Commission met this week for the first time in more than a year and accomplished nothing.

Akron Police Chief Steven Mylett will step down following a tumultuous two years on the job.

And Ideastream says goodbye to News Cat, a fan favorite feline from our children's news program, "NewsDepth."

She died this week at age 15.

"Ideas" is next.

(bright music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission finally met this week and got nothing done.

They were unable to settle on co-chairs, much less begin the process of redrawing state legislative district maps that could pass Constitutional muster.

Akron Police Chief Steven Mylett, whose two-year tenure included the police shooting death of Jayland Walker and the formation by voters of a Civilian Police Oversight Commission will step down before the next mayor is sworn in.

New state report cards are out for all Ohio schools, and they highlight wealth inequity in school districts.

And Ideastream says goodbye to News Cat, the chief cuteness correspondent of "News Depth."

Joining me today for the Round Table from Ideastream Public Media, reporters, Kabir Bhatia and Conor Morris.

And in Columbus, Ohio Public Radio and Television State House News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to Round Table.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission hadn't met since May of 2022, but when they gathered this week, they accomplished absolutely nothing.

The majority of Republicans on the commission couldn't even agree on co-chairs, much less start drawing fair state legislative districts.

They recessed Wednesday and then they planned to meet again this morning, but that was canceled yesterday because they'd made no progress.

The commission is made up of five Republicans, two Democrats, and as commanded by voters, is charged with drawing fair district maps.

All the maps they put forward before the last election were ruled unconstitutionally gerrymandered by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Karen, they can't pick co-chairs.

How much hope is there that they can draw maps?

- Well, it depends on who you talk to.

Republicans, who dominate this commission, say there's still plenty of time.

The deadline that Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, who is a member of this commission, has said he wants maps to be approved by is a week from today.

And he said that will give boards of elections time to prepare for the March primaries, because next year's a presidential year, so we have March primaries, also leaves time for litigation, which certainly would be expected, but the actual date that they have to be approved by is October 23rd.

And so Democrats say they're very concerned that that's actually the deadline, and maybe the maps still won't be done by then.

- So let's talk about the co-chair thing.

When you hear you can't pick a co-chair, you think it must be the Democrats and the Republicans are fighting, 'cause that's usually what it defaults to.

But in this case, the Democrats say, "We've got a co-chair, "we're just not gonna say who it is till you pick yours."

And the Republicans are fighting, and I think there's some long range political intrigue behind that, at least that's what I've been reading.

- Yeah, legislative leaders pick the four lawmakers who are on this panel.

There's two Republicans, two Democrats, one from each chamber for each party.

And so, the legislative leaders then decide who's gonna be the co-chairs of the committee, and there's a co-chair from the Democrats and a co-chair from the Republicans.

And apparently, there's a behind-the-scenes dispute here between Senate President Matt Huffman, who named Rob McColley, and who was a senator from Northwest Ohio to the committee.

And then House Speaker Jason Stephens, who named Jeff Leray, who is a representative from the Pickerington area outside of Columbus.

And the two of them can't seem to agree on who should be the co-chair.

Should the House Republicans or the House Democrats be the co-chair?

And the Senate says, "Hey, it was Speaker Bob Cupp "last time who was the co-chair, "and so we want Senator McColley "to be the co-chair in the House."

We haven't really heard from Speaker Jason Stephens on this too much.

So, it sounds really like little stuff here, but it's procedural, and it's part of what the process entails, so it's important.

And it doesn't matter in the sense of what the maps look like, but it's taking time away from putting those maps out there and getting public input on them.

- I got a text from a friend of mine who I'll refer only to as Caveman.

(Karen laughs) That's what he looks like, who simply said, "Nonsense," when he linked to the story on this.

And I think a lot of people are looking at this and seeing nonsense.

When I talked about the political intrigue, Senate President Matt Huffman is running next year, thought to be running for the House, because he's term-limited outta the Senate, and there is already a house speaker in Jason Stephens.

Huffman, if he runs for the House, you would presumably think, want to be a leader there, and so there's some of that even personal political battle going on.

- Yeah, you asked me that, and I didn't answer.

(laughs) That's right, because there is, I mean, Senate President Matt Huffman clearly wants to be in leadership, if not the speaker of the House when he runs and expects to win next year.

And of course, Jason Stephens is gonna run for reelection most likely, and could he retain his speakership?

Yeah, that's an open question, because if you might recall, Jason Stephens has a split Republican caucus, because more Republicans in his caucus supported Derek Merrin for speaker than supported him.

He became speaker, Jason Stephens did, because of support from Democrats.

So there's some infighting going on here that really is holding this process up, essentially.

And so meanwhile, there are these maps that need to be redrawn.

Senate President Matt Huffman told me this week that they're not gonna look like the existing maps, but under the existing maps, Republicans actually gain seats in the House and Senate, so what are those new maps gonna look like?

Democrats say they won't vote for any maps that aren't Constitutional, according to the Ohio Supreme Court's definition from last year.

And they certainly won't vote for anything that benefits Republicans more, so we could have a another long, drawn-out redistricting process here.

- I wanna make this point just one more time, and you said if they don't pass constitutional muster, based on what the last Supreme Court said.

There's a new Supreme Court.

It would seem to be much more in line with whatever maps the Republicans are now drawing.

And so is there any incentive to worry about what the previous ruling was when you assume, if it goes up to the Supreme Court again, whatever maps they may be, you have a better chance of having them declared constitutional?

- It depends on how serious Republicans are when they say they want a bipartisan map, and that's what I keep hearing, is that they want a bipartisan map, meaning that Democrats would have to sign onto it.

Again, Democrats said they're not going to sign on to anything that they feel violates the previous Supreme Court's definition of gerrymandering.

So if they want to get to a bipartisan support for a map, they're gonna have to potentially give Democrats more opportunities to gain seats.

And so I think, like you say, the four Republicans on the Ohio Supreme Court are potentially going to rule with the Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, though we don't know that, that's certainly expected or predicted in any way.

But if they wanna get that bipartisan support and have that map last for a while, then they need to potentially do some things that Democrats want them to do.

And looming over all of this is this redistricting amendment for next year, which is a amendment that would potentially take the power to draw maps out of the Ohio Redistricting Commission and put it with a 15-member Citizens Commission.

Now yesterday afternoon, the summary language for that was just rejected by the Attorney General, again for the second time.

They have to go back and fix it, but they say they're serious about it, they're gonna fix it.

And if this redistricting process really goes off the rails this time, and that amendment does get approved for next year's ballot, it could really make an argument to voters that yeah, the redistricting system does need to change.

(dramatic music) - Ohio released its annual school report cards yesterday and again, they show that districts educating poorer students did much worse than affluent districts.

Districts, rated two or two and a half stars out of five, include Youngstown, Cleveland, East Cleveland, and Lorain, while wealthier districts like Beachwood, Hudson, and Rocky River all received five stars.

A district must receive at least three stars to meet state standards.

It's the second year since the move to a five-star rating system rather than letter grades.

Districts receive overall ratings, and there are measurements too in individual categories, like achievement, progress, and early literacy and graduation rates.

Conor, you did all the reporting on these, the results, and then you spoke to some of the educators who've been critical of the annual report card, basically because of the alignment with poverty.

- Sure, yeah, we spoke to Eric Resnick, who's a board member at Canton Schools.

He's long been a critic of the report card system in Ohio and has worked with an ad hoc group of other folks, other school board members, who have been trying to change this for a while and haven't gotten much traction.

He argues it's not really a good reflection of the hard work that teachers and districts are putting in in these high poverty districts.

They're serving a lot of kids that are having a lot of struggles for sure.

They're already coming in behind, in some cases, a year behind or more on basics, math, reading, just simple stuff like that.

And he's just saying essentially that the work that we're putting in is not being reflected in these report cards, which are measuring things that understandably, these kids are gonna be struggling with, like the basic stuff, like graduation, early literacy, I mean, these are things that are harmed when kids are dealing with a lot of other things outside of the classroom, being raised by a grandparents, not having steady meals, not getting regular doctor's appointments, those kinds of things.

- Violence in a neighborhood, perhaps, all kinds of social determinants.

- [Conor] Of course, sure.

- We talk about social determinants of health, but there's also social determinants of education.

- They line up is what some experts say.

So, and then, it really is striking as you look down the list of these star ratings, which again, used to be one star is an F. One star outta five is what an F used to be.

And you look at the schools that have two outta five stars overall, or in a lot of categories, like yeah, Canton, Cleveland, Akron, and these are the schools that are serving the most concentrated groups of students living in poverty.

- This is the first time we've had half stars too.

So it's not just the stars, you could be two and a half, like Cleveland is too, like Canton is.

- Yeah, so I think the state has been moving in a direction where they're trying to get a little bit more of a fuller picture.

There are two elements on the report cards.

One's called gap closing, one's called progress that are meant to measure students' growth based on similar students' performance and then also progress over time too, so not just a a test score, a score on a standardized state test, which some advocates argue are biased against impoverished kids and students of color who are coming in behind.

- Let me ask what the thoughts are by districts that you've talked to about getting a star rather than a letter grade.

Is it somehow better because you're not seeing the letter D or F?

- Yeah, I think that, so I spoke to most recently, I've done some reporting in Lorain and East Cleveland, which are schools that were under state control.

Well, East Cleveland is still technically under state control, but they've got control through their board of education, and they've hired their own superintendent, but they're still a Academic Distress Commission is what it's called, that's what we're seeing them.

But regardless though, the teachers unions that I spoke to there are just not a fan of the way that the report card has been historically or even nowadays, put forth.

Back when it was a letter grade, it was a little more demeaning, I think, for a community as a whole to see students get an F or a D. In East Cleveland especially, I talked to a couple folks who were saying, "Look, we've been," the superintendent Dr. Pettiegrew said, told me, "We feel like as a community we've been beaten down "by this over the years.

"We're already dealing with so much industry leaving.

"We don't have a grocery store, and then on top of that, "people are telling us, our kids, "we're just constantly being reminded "that our kids are failing."

And so it's not good for community morale is what he's saying.

So there might be a little bit less of a stigma when it's just a star versus an F, but it's not really much of a difference is what some of the educators are telling me.

- [Mike] Karen.

- Can I add something in here?

- [Mike] Yeah, please.

- This is the third time I think in 10 years that report cards have been overhauled, because before the A through F letter grades, there were these terms called continuous improvement all these terms that seem to a lot of people to be pretty vague.

And the letter grades were instituted to try to give parents a little more certainty of whether they're districts and buildings were actually meeting state standards, and that's how you ended up with A through F. And I think a lot of lawmakers were surprised and shocked when their districts got Bs, Cs, and Ds.

And so that fueled some of this desire to change into a rating system.

And it's interesting to note that 79% of school districts did achieve at least three stars, but that means that the other ones didn't.

The number, it was only about 1% that only got one star, 11% got five stars.

So once again, we just still have this huge variety of stars and ratings and achievement all over the place.

But one thing is constant and that is that economically disadvantaged students do worse compared to their peers in wealthier districts.

- I thought it was interesting to note too, Zachary Smith in cleveland.com, in his reporting today, talked about the fact that a third of the school districts receiving the five star scores in Ohio were from Greater Cleveland, including a dozen districts in Cuyahoga County.

These are obviously all going to be pretty wealthy, suburban districts, but Northeast Ohio, is, as a whole, outpacing the state.

- Sure and there are bright spots definitely even in the school districts that serve lower income students.

Cleveland got three stars and four stars in the progress and gap closing and those are pretty high among even the urban school districts that they're compared to.

And yeah, especially in the suburbs, there are a lot of public school districts that are receiving a lot of supports from taxpayers and then, they've got good facilities, they've got students that they're coming from homes where sometimes even parents can afford tutors and things of that nature, so there's a lot of advantages that those students get too in those areas.

- Let me ask about one other thing that just popped out at me, and it happened when I was reading a release from the Fordham Institute, which is giving its assessment of this, and it was the absentee rates.

While they're down overall statewide, when you look at some urban districts, and Cleveland's jumped way out at me, more than 50% absenteeism, chronic absenteeism.

Kids aren't going to school since the pandemic.

- Yeah, it's really troubling.

And they were pointing out, understandably so, that it's a serious problem that the state needs to grapple with.

Chronic absenteeism is defined by, I believe, missing 10 or more days, I think, in one school year, which is quite a bit.

And so, the rate for all of the Ohio's urban school districts was 40%, 50%, it was quite high.

And again, that's speaking to a lot of struggles.

Before the pandemic, those rates were more like 20%, 30%.

So speaking to that lingering effect from the pandemic school closures specifically and issues with mental health that were brought to the forefront.

(dramatic music) - Case Western Reserve University will welcome graduates of the Cleveland and East Cleveland public schools, not only with free tuition, which is already the deal, but fully covered room and board, books, all that kind of stuff, starting with next year's freshman class.

The university's Cleveland Scholars program is adding room and board, a cost that might have prevented some students from attending, even tuition free.

Conor, quite a few Cleveland Scholars at CWRU now, and that'll likely grow because of this.

- Yeah, there are 56 students there under that program right now, and they're hoping obviously that the number will grow.

They're covering basically everything, books, housing, food.

- I mean, you gotta qualify.

It's not just graduate and get in, but you're admitted, right?

- [Conor] Yes.

- And then everything's covered.

- Yes, and of course we should mention too, Case is pretty selective in their admissions.

So, but yeah, and then they also get a guaranteed, paid internship or work study opportunity, so that's another bonus.

Yeah, but there are some challenges, as I mentioned.

You've gotta get admitted first.

A lot of students nowadays are really considering if college is even right for them, some of them- - And it's not in some cases.

Not everybody has to go to college.

- Yeah, absolutely, some of them are considering a two-year degree, because they don't wanna be in school that long.

So there are some definite caveats with that.

But still, lots of folks were cheering that on social media saying, "This is how we try to lift all boats "in Cleveland and the Cleveland area," so.

- Speaking of the tide that's lifting boats as well, the Say Yes program also offers free tuition, mostly at public colleges.

But basically, if you go to the Cleveland schools and matriculate, your chances of being able to afford college are pretty great now compared to before.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, I think that this is part of a broader strategy to encourage folks to choose public schools, because there are strong offerings at Cleveland schools and East Cleveland schools.

I visited East Cleveland schools recently, upgraded their buildings recently, new furniture and everything.

They're really trying to show that these schools can be places of pride and places where you can earn, you get life-changing education really, puts you on a path forward.

So, and Say Yes too, that's funded by donations, and basically, any public school, public university or college in Ohio, you can attend for free using that scholarship.

But it's a first in, or a first in/ last out?

I'm trying to think of how this would be phrased, but you get your other scholarships first, then Say Yes comes in for the back half, basically so.

(dramatic music) - The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland last week issued guidance to parishes and diocesan schools that prevent LGBTQ+ expression.

The policy bars the display of Pride flags and rainbows and prohibits same-sex couples from attending school dances.

Let's go over what the policy states.

It should be noted, the diocese says, "This formalizes existing guidance and policies."

- Yes, so they were saying essentially that schools either had informal or formal policies already on this, and they needed some sort of uniform, blanket policy.

So, staff are required to notify parents if minors are experiencing gender dysphoria, which is a conflict between sex assigned at birth and gender with which one identifies.

Institutions will not permit students to use preferred pronouns that don't reflect their sex assigned at birth.

No dressing in a manner that's, quote, "inconsistent with one's gender assigned at birth."

- [Mike] So what does that mean?

- So yeah, that's the thing.

A lot of these schools already have just a dress code, like, you're gonna be, boys will wear slacks and girls will wear a dress or skirt.

So that one is not probably that big of a deal for some of these schools, but I think they're saying essentially that you must dress in a male or female manner based on whatever's on your birth certificate.

- And that one went further.

It said, "or acting in a manner that has the effect," of quote, "causing confusion or scandal "regarding one's sex or gender."

- And that is much less cut and dry of course.

And actually, I think it's fair to say that manners of presentation and gender are always not cut and dry, so that has caused confusion for folks for sure.

But also, just no Pride flags, rainbows in terms of if they're being used to advocate for LGBTQ+ causes, none of that.

And there is with that, no same sex couples at parish or school dances.

They say you can go with a friend, but you can't be romantic in any way whatsoever- - [Mike] A couple, yeah.

- of the same sex.

Gender transitions, obviously, are prohibited, and that includes even what's known as social transitions where you're changing your clothes or hairstyle and quote/unquote, behavior to reflect a identity that's different than your sex assigned at birth, so.

- I've talked to a lot of folks about this in the last week, and there are some high schools that are controlled by the diocese, others that are not.

We actually heard an advertisement from St. Ignatius during this program.

St. Ignatius is a school that's run by the Jesuits.

It's not under this, nor is Magnificat or Beaumont or St. Edward or those kinds of places, but the ones that are, Central Catholic in Cleveland is one, I wondered if you've been able to get some sort of reaction, either from folks that are in schools that will be guided by this policy or schools adjacent?

- Yeah, so I actually just got a statement from St. Joseph Academy, an all-girls Catholic school that's not run by the diocese.

Somebody sent that to me this morning that reaffirms support for LGBTQ folks, actually.

The congregation of St. Joseph, they wrote, "believes in respects the God-given dignity of all life.

"We act in solidarity with all those who are marginalized, "including those in the LGBTQ community."

I talked to a parent and student there actually recently, and they said there are Pride flags there still and have not been removed that they know of.

So, these non diocesan-run schools are making their own policies, already have their own policies, and they are gonna do what they like, I think.

- Or what they believe is right for their students.

- Sure, exactly, and so those schools, from what I'm understanding is, I think that there is more support for LGBTQ+ students that we are hearing about in those schools.

Diocesan-run schools, obviously, they're gonna need to abide by these policies, so that's what we've been hearing recently from- - I know you're still looking for reaction, talking to students, all of that kind of stuff too.

We've seen reaction on social media from folks, some of which said, "Hey, this is Catholic teaching, "and I'm glad they're putting it in place."

But I think an overwhelming majority, at least of what I've seen, is, "This doesn't sound like the way Jesus might respond."

You also saw something from Mayor Justin Bibb who weighed in on social media.

- And he said just as much as well as Councilman Kerry McCormack as well, who said he'd attended private Catholic schools- - And who is openly gay.

- Yeah.

And who had said, "Look, this is not what I learned "through my faith, accepting of others, "and love for everyone as Jesus taught."

But there are still, so again, we've seen pretty overwhelming on social media and elsewhere, folks saying, "Look, I am not comfortable with this policy.

"I don't like it, and I don't think "that it's a good message to be giving our kids."

But then there are some folks as well who we've heard from who've said, "Just good, I'm not in favor "of quote/unquote woke," and they never describe what "woke" is in these statements.

They're usually pretty short, but they say, "I want my school to focus on just education.

"I want my church to just focus on faith and worship."

But, folks on the other side say, "Well, the existence of a Pride flag in the classroom "is not taking away from those lessons in the scripture "or just the education that we're giving our kids.

"It's just there, it's just a sign of support.

"We're not taking time out of the academic day to say, "'You need to do this or that.'"

- Just in one minute, why?

Why is it that the diocese decided that this needed to be distributed and distributed now?

- Yeah, they said it's in response to quote, "societal trends," unquote, and it solidifies some of those policies in which they might have had or not had.

There's been some question about how many schools and others in the diocese were actually consulted on this policy, however, and this comes at a time when the Pope has actually said some things that aren't critical of quote/unquote, "reactionary American bishops" and poets of the policy arguing, this is our local bishop doubling down after that criticism, so.

(dramatic music) - If you watched our excellent news program geared for middle school children over the last decade, "News Depth," or if your kids did, you might be familiar with News Cat.

She was a regular on the show, as the Senior Cuteness Correspondent, and she was the fluffy companion of former producer, now "PBS NewsHour" producer, Mary Fecteau.

Her name was Edie, short for Edith, and she died this week at the age of 15.

Like all the kids who watched you in school, we love you, News Cat.

(dramatic music) Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on 89.7 WKSU, we'll discuss the ongoing nationwide childcare crisis as local experts weigh in on staffing shortages and the impact on providers and families.

Jenny Hamel will be in the host chair.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

(bright music) Thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

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