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Guest column: Overhaul colleges that flunk teacher prep

This commentary is written by Gregory Bernhardt and Thomas J. Lasley II. Bernhardt is dean of the College of Education and Human Service at Wright State University. Lasley is dean of the School of Education and Allied Professions at the University of Dayton.

It’s time for Ohio to get tough with colleges that aren’t making the grade when it comes to preparing future teachers and turning out graduates who know what works in the classroom.

Getting good new teachers in Ohio classrooms is an essential goal. Underperforming institutions, whose graduates show a pattern of failing to get their students to make at least one year of academic growth, should be closed or reconstituted with new leaders, new curriculum and better instruction.

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Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Education, Guest Columns, Higher Ed

Guest column: Overhaul colleges that flunk teacher prep

This commentary is written by Gregory Bernhardt and Thomas J. Lasley II. Bernhardt is dean of the College of Education and Human Service at Wright State University. Lasley is dean of the School of Education and Allied Professions at the University of Dayton.

It’s time for Ohio to get tough with colleges that aren’t making the grade when it comes to preparing future teachers and turning out graduates who know what works in the classroom.

Getting good new teachers in Ohio classrooms is an essential goal. Underperforming institutions, whose graduates show a pattern of failing to get their students to make at least one year of academic growth, should be closed or reconstituted with new leaders, new curriculum and better instruction.

Continue reading "Guest column: Overhaul colleges that flunk teacher prep"...

Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Education, Guest Columns, Higher Ed

Editorial: UD’s winning plan is working

For University of Dayton sports fans, last weekend had the feel of a dream being fulfilled.

Since the early 1990s, Dayton has aimed for a day when it would field intercollegiate teams that earned respect for the way they competed, succeeded and represented the university. That time seems to have arrived, considering the accomplishments in 2009 in men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, football, volleyball and baseball.

The blossoming of UD athletics has resulted from a purposeful effort to improve management, facilities and coaching.

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Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment More: Editorials, Scott Elliott, Sports and Recreation

Editorial: Clearcreek Twp. firms should foot water tower bill

Warren County has a serious public safety concern when it comes to a fuel terminal in Clearcreek Twp. — one that the 10 companies doing business there have a responsibility to address.

Everyone would benefit if a water tower big enough to douse a major fire at the terminal is constructed. Negotiating a deal about who pays would prevent a legal fight, which would be costly. In any agreement, though, the companies must pay the most for a project that primarily protects their interests.

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Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities

Kevin Riley: Street-smart officers have bright ideas for downtown

Do you feel safe when you’re walking alone on a dark, unlit and abandoned street that lacks signs?

Of course not. We go out of our way to avoid those situations.

Therein lies one of the challenges for people trying to revitalize downtown Dayton.

Even though downtown is safe — and statistics prove it — many people have the perception that it isn’t. In other ways, it can be intimidating if you don’t go there often.

Michael Ervin, a retired physician and health insurance executive who is behind an initiative called the Greater Downtown Plan, believes his group has to address safety. And Ervin says it will.

Two Dayton police officers who work downtown have become key contributors, and they have innovative ideas worth supporting.

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Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment More: City of Dayton, Columns, Kevin Riley, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Local Business

Editorial: Dayton Region Rally never revved

Good intentions, awful form.

That’s how it felt at the Dayton Region Rally on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Seventeen speakers on a program that ran two-plus hours. Maybe if the event had been less passive, maybe if even the spontaneity hadn’t been scripted, it might have been energizing.

But, man, this was homework. Thank goodness there weren’t many young people there, the very people the community desperately wants to attract to “work, live and play” in Dayton.

They would have been unimpressed. They would have been out of that arena.

After all, here we have an event — billed as a rally, as in pep, as in get excited, as in feel good about your team — that was built on lectures.

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Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment More: Editorials, Ellen Belcher

Editorial: Hospital’s rules slam into the rights of single women

The idea that a woman seeking in vitro fertilization would be asked to first show that she had a husband — and then get turned away only for being unmarried — feels like a throwback to another age.

That’s what happened to 40-year-old Karri O’Reilly at an office on the campus of Kettering Medical Center . Ms. O’Reilly is single, wants to have a baby and was seeking fertility treatment at Kettering Reproductive Medicine. The center is affiliated with Kettering Health Network, one of two large health care organizations — the other being Premier Health Partners — that dominate Dayton’s market.

Kettering is a private hospital, affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist faith. It is common for faith-based hospitals to decline to perform services, such as abortions, that violate their teachings. Apparently helping an unmarried woman become pregnant falls in this realm for Kettering, although the hospital says it is rethinking its policy following Ms. O’Reilly’s complaints.

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Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment More: Editorials, Health Care, Scott Elliott

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