CLEVELAND, Ohio – The United States is in “a race with China to the moon.”
We’re talking about how NASA Glenn — and Cleveland — is playing a role in putting nuclear fission in space on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
Here’s what we’re asking about today:
Even though Ohio’s elected leaders all are 100 percent beholden to the oil and gas industry now, obviously a day is coming when the state will have no choice but to embrace all the other energy forms available. One, certainly, will be nuclear, and we might end up learning a lot from NASA Glenn on how to do it. How is Northeast Ohio’s NASA center becoming a nuclear energy powerhouse?
A lot of people are disappointed by this news. Who’s the key Republican who might have beaten Ohio pretender Vivek Ramaswamy for governor in the primary but won’t try?
Here’s some great Ohio news. What honor did the state’s parks just receive?
Another Cleveland immigration court case that was getting a lot of national attention has ended unexpectedly, and with the right outcome. No one seems able to explain it. What happened?
Every time we drive past a US flag these days, it seems, it is at half staff. Is that just our imagination? Has the number of declarations that governments in Ohio will fly flags at half staff increased under Gov. Mike DeWine?
Mike DeWine used a budgeting proposal to make a push for improving student vision, and we all wondered what that might look like. We have some clarity. What’s the latest to come from DeWine’s new OhioSEE program?
We had many unanswered questions about this news when it broke. Now we have some answers. It’s not really newfangled engineering that will stop raw sewages from rolling across Edgewater Beach. What old tech is the sewer district doing to halt this embarrassment?
East Cleveland, a school district in longtime distress, made an amazing leap in the most recent report cards. Both Parma and Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools did, too. How did they accomplish that?
One of the top names in the Cleveland Public Library’s young adults book festival is a major name from the news. Who is it, and what else can we expect from this event?
More Today in Ohio
DeWine’s hypocritical college recruitment push after signing harmful higher ed law
Dissecting Cleveland’s flawed safety argument as Browns stadium plan gets ODOT approval
Cleveland’s council censured Joe Jones without seeing the full report of his investigation
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:01.038)
We had a surprise missed day on the podcast yesterday because three of us took the day off, but we’re back on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Leila Tasi and Laura Johnston. And I know I sound a little bit different. I’m on a different microphone this week. I’ll be back on a regular microphone next week. Let’s begin. Even though Ohio’s elected leaders are
all 100 % beholden to the oil and gas industry now. Obviously, a day is coming when the state will have no choice but to embrace all the other energy forms available. One will be nuclear, and we might end up learning a lot from NASA Glenn on just how to do it. Laura, how is Northeast Ohio’s NASA Center becoming a nuclear energy powerhouse?
Laura (00:54.382)
Well, NASA wants to build a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2030 and NASA Glenn is heading up this project. 2030 is really soon, that is five years away. And the idea is that NASA wants to claim prime lunar real estate for a permanent base to be used for scientific research, resource extraction, military strategy, and launching a mission to Mars as well as asteroids in deep space. So to do that, they need energy. It’s kind of like a gas station on the way to Mars, I guess.
So they’d need both solar and nuclear fission. And this does have a little bit of a Cold War feel about it, that China and Russia also want to get something established on the moon. And they all want to stake out their claim, right? We’ve got that American flag up there, but they want to have this permanent base so that China and Russia can’t get the good spots first. They want an area that has both ice and sun. And it wouldn’t be a huge amount of energy to start. would be…
hundred kilowatt plants that NASA would help build and be working with contractors to do this nuclear fission to produce enough energy to power 60 to 80 homes continuously. But this just I had no idea. This feels very science fictiony to me.
Chris Quinn (02:07.629)
Well, you wonder what they’re going to do for cooling. I the one thing about nuclear power is it gets really hot. That’s why they build them on lakes and have those giant towers. And I get it that deep space is cold, but I would still think you need some kind of cooling. But look, the fact is, if they are developing this, industries from all over the place that care about nuclear power are going to set up here. This will be a draw to make us a center of nuclear power development.
Which is terrific because it will play a role in the future. You can call it green energy because you’re not burning fossil fuels. You still have to get rid of all that waste and it’s radioactive for the rest of time, basically. But it’s a wonderful form of energy. Much of Europe uses it and it’s far better than the stuff we’re burning now. We’re burning all this gas and…
Laura (02:50.565)
No problem.
Laura (03:00.675)
Cole.
Chris Quinn (03:01.289)
And yeah, and it just makes a mess of the air and it’s climate change and all those problems. So to get this here is really cool. When you look at the reason, we’re really, we’re going to fight over the moon. We don’t have enough to fight about on earth. We’re going to fight with China and Russia on the moon.
Laura (03:13.699)
Yeah?
Laura (03:19.842)
I know there’s also part of me that’s thinking, you know, there’s always this idea we’re going to find another planet that we could colonize. It’s like, wait, we have one right here. Why don’t we take care of this one first? It’s been doing quite nicely. So let’s take care of it. But I see what you’re saying that the idea of this as a economic development mecca for that is what the economic development experts are talking about, that they say this is going to be so good for that.
for technology here in Cleveland that a manufacturing moonshot is what Magnet is calling it. So manufacturing benefits right now may be limited to specialized companies, but longer implications for the entire regional economy. We’ve talked forever about how manufacturing the rust belt is going away, but this would be a new form of manufacturing and bring really smart people to Cleveland. New Albany’s got its
intel stuff like maybe we could have nuclear in Cleveland.
Chris Quinn (04:21.919)
Yeah, I think it’s a wonderful development. Again, I think it’s bizarre that just the whole race for the moon. My feeling is if Russia really wants to expand its territory and they would agree to get out of Ukraine and stop invading others, give them the moon. It’s a big dead rock in space, not the most valuable real estate. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. A lot of people are disappointed by this news. Laila, who’s the key Republican who might have beaten Ohio pretender Vivek
Ramaswamy for governor in the primary, but won’t try.
Leila (04:55.579)
That’s Lieutenant Governor Jim Trussell, the former Ohio State coach turned politician. He announced Friday that he’s not going to run for governor in 2026. He says he just wants to keep his focus on education and workforce issues instead of launching a statewide campaign. And that clears the path for Ramaswamy, who’s already raised nearly $10 million. He’s secured Trump’s endorsement and the state GOP’s backing.
And he scared off just about every other contender. So Trussell had been seen as the one Republican with enough name recognition and crossover appeal to give Ramoswami a real fight, but he never built a campaign team or signaled he was ready to jump in. So now the only other Republican left in the race is an insurance agent from Dayton with really little profile. And on the Democratic side, Amy Acton is in and Tim Ryan says he’ll decide by the end of the month. But for now.
Rameswamy looks like he has the Republican nomination locked up.
Chris Quinn (05:54.431)
And I understand Dick Celeste endorsed Amy Acton today, the former governor. The saddest thing about this to me is we had Dave Yost making a run and he dropped out. We had Jim Trestle possibly making a run, not going to make it. And the worst of those three is Vivek Ramaswamy. He doesn’t know Ohio. He doesn’t understand how the state works. He’s just a rich guy, a guy who moved his entire business to Texas from Ohio, by the way.
Leila (06:13.479)
Right.
Chris Quinn (06:23.156)
And we’re going to be stuck with him because Trump endorses him. And unless the economy turns really bad, it’s almost impossible for a Democrat to win. What I just wish Yoast would have stuck with it. mean, we’ve had disagreements with some of his policies, but he’s a smart guy that’s done a lot of things right. He is far and away the best candidate for this. And as soon as the Republican party of Ohio endorsed Ramoswami, he dropped out and now Tresa won’t make it go either.
This is pathetic for the voters.
Leila (06:54.801)
I really don’t quite understand why Yost made the decision that he did. Do you think that it’s because he maybe has other ambitions and thought that if he goes against the Trump anointed candidate that that would play out poorly for him years down the road? I don’t really understand because Ramaswamy would be a disaster for Ohio.
Lisa (06:59.899)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (07:18.464)
I don’t know. I think everything Yost did was building up to run for governor. I think it crushed him to pull out. It’s sad for the state of Ohio. If Ramaswamy is the guy, it’s another four years of really stupid decisions. mean, what he said about teachers, he just doesn’t understand education. I don’t know. Does anybody have a thought that Ramaswamy is worth anything to Ohio?
Leila (07:22.237)
Yeah, right.
Leila (07:37.927)
Yeah. Yeah. He’s just.
Lisa (07:39.421)
Not a thing. He’s a carpet bagger. You know, yeah, and he’s gonna tow the Trump line all the way up and down the spectrum.
Leila (07:46.13)
Right.
Leila (07:50.951)
He’s just stunts and sound bites, that’s it.
Laura (07:51.011)
don’t even know why he wants this. Right, why does he even want this job? He’s shown no interest in public service ever. Like, yeah, the governor is a powerful position, but it’s not in the federal government. I just don’t even understand his motivation here.
Lisa (08:07.405)
It’s a springboard, I think, for him. You know.
Laura (08:09.944)
So I hope he’s, he would be there for a very short period. I I feel like he could wreck the state very quickly.
Chris Quinn (08:10.23)
Yeah.
Leila (08:17.811)
How are we feeling about Amy Acton right now? I she’s, I like Amy Acton. She brings some credibility and compassion from her time leading the pandemic response here. But, you know, so far we haven’t seen many concrete ideas. I’d like her to lean less on reputation, more on proposals and policy, right?
Chris Quinn (08:40.408)
Well, hopefully we’ll get some debates between them too. I put a text out about it and many, many people would like to see that. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, let’s do some good Ohio news. Lisa, what honor did the state parks just receive?
Lisa (08:54.301)
Yeah, Ohio system of 76 state parks won the 2025 National Gold Medal for excellence and Park and Recreation Management. It was a five judge panel that chose Ohio and they beat out the finalists, Florida and Wyoming. The judging criteria for this includes conservation efforts, community engagement, sound fiscal policy and innovation. And in their award, they highlighted the recent opening of a 14 acre
Great Council State Park in Greene County, which is very near Governor DeWine’s house. And it’s on the site of the last official Shawnee settlement in Ohio. DeWine says the award validates what we’ve been telling people all along. He noted recent improvements and he said that we’re one of the few states with free admission. And actually our state parks won the inaugural National Gold Medal Award back in 1997. And we were a finalist in 2023.
And I guess that fracking under state parks didn’t affect our award.
Chris Quinn (09:54.113)
Not yet. We’ll see if they destroy any of the parks. Look, I don’t think people who grew up in Ohio understand just how much of a treasure the parks in this state are. It’s the same for the metro parks in northeast Ohio. If you live in other states, you don’t have this wealth of parks like this that are just so well taken care of and
I’m not surprised to see them getting national recognition because they are pretty special. And you lived in Texas, Lisa, did you have a park system anywhere near?
Lisa (10:27.625)
my gosh, no. I mean, there were two parks, two big parks in Houston, Memorial and Herman Park, and they were so over loved because they were the only two big parks and there was absolutely no metropolitan park system at all there. So I was so glad to come home.
Chris Quinn (10:44.45)
Yeah, it’s just, it’s again, I think for people who, who leave Ohio and come back, they get it. And for people that grew up elsewhere, they get it. I just think people in Ohio might take this for granted. It’s truly a special part of living here. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Another Cleveland immigration court case that was getting a lot of national attention has ended unexpectedly and with the right outcome. Lauren, no one seems able to explain it. What happened?
Laura (11:13.902)
We might never know the details because immigration court is so secretive and I don’t expect the federal government to start talking. But Iman Salman is the Cincinnati hospital chaplain and imam who is scheduled to go to trial just this week. But he walked out of jail on Friday. The government dropped the case. And if he had lost, he would have been deported back to Egypt, whereas his attorneys said he faced almost certain death. He’s 51 years old. He was arrested by ICE in July.
He’s been in the US since 2014 after he was imprisoned and tortured in for helping journalists cover the Arab Spring uprising in 2010 and 2011. And he’s had asylum status since 2018. So that’s a long history of being here. And think about his role in the community as a hospital chaplain and an imam. And we don’t really know what happened here, other than they said he had links to a terrorist organization, as lawyers said, was completely untrue. He was on the board of a nonprofit.
They filed a whole bunch of things against the government here looking for the evidence and the case was just dropped.
Chris Quinn (12:20.918)
Yeah, we have to keep pointing out. It is so un-American what’s happening in our immigration courts. It’s like a Kafka novel. You are swept up. You don’t really know why. You don’t have a right to redress. I think the only reason he’s out is because people kept protesting. There were people that just kept hollering that this is wrong and the government had no case. But Donald Trump’s America is one where the government says, we don’t need to tell you anything. And the whole thing is secretive. It’s right out of a Vladimir
Laura (12:24.856)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (12:35.981)
Yes.
Chris Quinn (12:50.158)
Putin kind of court system. And we just need to keep pointing that out. This is not what America is about. Donald Trump is changing our country from the democracy that we’re all proud of, the Republic, to what you have in Russia.
Lisa (13:05.05)
And now they’re saying that the borders are Tom Homan did nothing wrong by taking that bag of cash.
Chris Quinn (13:09.868)
I know, it’s amazing.
Laura (13:12.654)
I agree with you, Chris. This was a very high profile nationally followed case. And that might be the only reason that Solomon was freed because we don’t know all these other cases. We know very few names to even follow because they won’t give them to you in the jail, right? The people who are held and they don’t even know why, they don’t have regular scheduled court hearings. This information is not public. It is going on in secret.
And all the government has to do is turn on the word terrorism and people think, well, we need to lock these people up forever, right? It is terrifying, actually, what is happening.
Chris Quinn (13:51.408)
Well, Trump is doing what dictators do. He owns Congress. That’s supposed to be a check and a balance. He completely owns it. They just salute him and say, yes, sir. And he owns the courts. Supreme Court just keeps giving him things that are not really supposed to be given to him because they’re cowtowing to him. And so we have no checks and balances. He owns the whole system and he just keeps making it worse and worse and worse. And nobody stands up.
Laura (13:56.13)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (14:14.168)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (14:19.203)
Finally, Jimmy Kimmel is going to be back on the air tonight because people were screaming about free speech. But small victory.
Laura (14:25.197)
And because how many people canceled their Disney Plus subscriptions, right? I mean, I don’t, it does feel like all you can do is post it to a void, talk about it, you know, obviously civil discourse, we keep preaching that, but it’s really hard when there’s still a proportion, a huge proportion of the country. I don’t think it’s the majority that wants this, you know, wants him to be in charge of everything. I don’t understand it. That is not the American system.
Chris Quinn (14:28.385)
Yeah… Yeah…
Chris Quinn (14:51.533)
Not at all. You know, listening to Today in Ohio. Every time we drive past the US flag these days, it seems it is at half staff. Is that just our imagination, Laila? Has the number of declarations that governments in Ohio will flag flags at half staff increased under Governor Mike DeWine?
Leila (15:10.421)
Well, I don’t think you’re imagining it, Chris, because flags in Ohio really have been at half-staff a lot this year. By late September, the governor had issued 18 separate proclamations, adding up to 105 days with flags lowered. That’s nearly 40 % of the year so far. That’s for everything from fallen public servants to prominent public or political figures. And only the president and the governor have the authority to order flags.
on public buildings to half staff, sometimes statewide and sometimes just in the county where the person being honored lived. Local governments and schools usually follow suit, but nobody can require private citizens to lower their flags. But while this feels like it’s constant, DeWine isn’t really out of step with past governors, it turns out. John Kasich averaged about the same. He even topped 30 orders to lower the flags in 2016.
So it’s more about perception, seeing those flags down week after week makes it feel like the new normal. But critics say the jester is kind of losing its impact. It’s like Christmas decorations going up earlier and earlier. But for families of the fallen, like a Wayne County firefighter’s widow who was interviewed this year, the sight of a lowered flag still carries real meaning. It’s a public recognition of their loved one’s sacrifice.
Chris Quinn (16:33.615)
But it seems like they’d back up on each other. Well, you announce it one day for something. Mary Rose O’Carr died, then Charlie Kirk gets killed, and they announce it’s down for Charlie Kirk. You’re not even sure which person we’re honoring half the time because of the number that roll out. I do, look, I’m old. And when I was a kid, it seemed like it would happen a couple of times a year. And maybe that’s just a fog of memory, but I just…
Every time you drive past the post office, what’s that doing down at half staff? I don’t even know the reason most of the time.
Leila (17:06.505)
Hmm.
Laura (17:09.016)
Well, what’s interesting is the governor’s office has a little spot on its website that tells you why it’s down. So I guess if you’re interested enough, you can go on that and read it because it is so confusing. And you’re right. Sometimes they do stack up on each other. And how do you decide if it’s one day or it’s four days? is that like, you’re really important if you get it down for a whole work week. I don’t know. But I didn’t realize this, Leila. I read it in Jeremy’s story. Kasich put it down for two police dogs who were killed.
Chris Quinn (17:14.492)
hahahaha
Leila (17:38.269)
Wow, that’s gotta be a first. Was that the first time that it ever happened?
Laura (17:38.958)
I was like, whoa. I would hope so.
Leila (17:45.896)
Honestly, when I think the flag should be down all the time because it feels like it mirrors the national mood, right? The symbolism matches the unease that so many of us feel about where the country’s headed.
Laura (17:49.518)
I
Right, right, and how do you decide?
Chris Quinn (17:55.385)
Well then it should be a…
then it should be upside down. That’s the distressing.
Laura (18:01.038)
Yeah. But I agree. It is disturbing.
Leila (18:01.585)
Yes, that’s the distress signal.
Chris Quinn (18:08.537)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Mike DeWine used a budgeting proposal to make a push for improving student vision and we all wondered what that might look like. Lisa, we have some clarity. What’s the latest to come from DeWine’s new Ohio SEED program?
Lisa (18:24.315)
Yeah, Governor DeWine earlier this year managed to get $50 million in the state budget to fund mobile vision vans and temporary school vision clinics. So that is moving forward. So they plan to buy these vans. This is going to give comprehensive eye screenings and exam for those children who fail the school vision test because they found out that 80 % of kids who fail that test don’t get follow-up care and they don’t get glasses.
So they’re focusing on those Ohio counties with really high amounts of kids who aren’t getting followed up. Cuyahoga and Lorraine are included in this program in Northeast Ohio. There are also 13 other counties scattered throughout the state. So this would be administrated by the Ohio Department of Health for students in kindergarten through third grade. And they really hope to serve about 14,000 children a year when they get fully established. They hope to start this in January.
And they also found that kids who get glasses right after their diagnosis had higher reading scores than those who got their glasses later after being diagnosed. And DeWine says it’s absolutely essential to the learning process to have good eyesight.
Chris Quinn (19:33.221)
Yeah. I can’t imagine what it must be like for students that have vision problems, but nobody quite knows it yet. How much more trouble they have. Our daughter was diagnosed very young in need of glasses. I think yours was too, Laura. And I’m really grateful that that happened because you can see, you can read your problems. You can do the homework and what is necessary. And if you have a whole bunch of kids in Ohio who nobody’s looking out for,
then that does hurt the reading scores. When, when Dwyane first proposed it, you wonder what, what’s behind this? What’s making it tick? But it sounds like it’s, it’s exactly that. There are a bunch of kids that could perform better if they could just see.
Lisa (20:15.493)
I know when I was in second grade when I started to go blind, I was sitting in the back of the class and the teacher noticed immediately because I couldn’t read the blackboard. So she moved me up and then she referred me, you know, to get my vision tested. So.
Chris Quinn (20:29.23)
Yeah, good for Mike DeWine for looking out for this because I don’t think anybody else was championing it. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We had many unanswered questions about this news when it broke. Now we have some answers and it’s not really about newfangled engineering that will stop raw sewage from rolling across Edgewater Beach. Laura, what old tech is the sewer district doing to halt this embarrassment?
Laura (20:55.168)
It’s redirecting the overflow to the Westerly treatment plant. It’s adding this 1400 foot long tunnel and that should be able to send it further down the pipe that connects to that treatment plant. It’s about a half mile east of the beach and that will make the level of sewage in the Northwest Interceptor remain below the threshold that triggers the gate at Edgewater and sends it cascading, whole bunch of sewage into the beach and that
triggers all sorts of warn and it is embarrassing. It beaches in northeast Ohio. you can’t swim in it aft big rainfall because the lake is not a good look So this is gonna provide the gates of the Westl relieve the pressure to
Laura (21:46.691)
And that’s in part because new equipment has been installed at Westerly to increase the capacity there. So it’s all working together, but you’re right. This was never part of the original plan for Project Clean Lake, the consent decree with the EPA. And it doesn’t have to be done, but it is embarrassing. And that’s why they’re basically just spreading it out to Westerly, which will still have overflows into the lake. It just won’t be right next to a swimming beach.
Chris Quinn (22:12.344)
Yeah, everything they’ve said about this is pretty much nonsense. They’re capping it and they’re pushing that sewage somewhere else and they have to do a little bit of work to absorb the extra until it can flow out. This has got nothing to do with new technology. They’re just embarrassed because every time it happens, we have a story about it. There is raw sewage crap on our most important swimming beach.
And they finally got so embarrassed they figured, okay, let’s spend some money and cap that outfall. That’s all they’re doing. They’re capping that and moving it elsewhere. The sewage is still going into the lake. I guess there’s not a current that can bring it back to Edgewater from where they’re sending it.
Laura (22:55.384)
Well, it probably depends on the day, But, and so I don’t know, obviously it all goes into the lake, it all mixes up, but it’s gonna be a half mile east of that beach. So that’s not gonna travel there immediately.
Chris Quinn (23:09.494)
I’m glad they’re doing it. I mean, this is a jewel of a park and people should be able to swim there whenever they want, but it’s not really high tech to do what they’re doing.
Laura (23:19.064)
But just to be clear, any time it rains, a heavy rain like that, even if we’re not talking about storm water overflows, there’s pesticides on lawns, there’s stuff in creeks. It is not a great idea to swim in Lake Erie after a giant rainfall, even if this doesn’t go off. Even I will stay out of the water after a really big rainfall for a day.
Chris Quinn (23:42.001)
All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. East Cleveland, a school district in long time distress, made an amazing leap in the most recent report cards. Both Parma and Cleveland Heights University Heights schools did too. Laila, how did they all accomplish that?
Leila (23:59.102)
Yeah, East Cleveland’s jump to three stars on the state report card is our true milestone. Seriously, few people thought that they’d see this. For decades, the district’s test scores were at the very bottom of the barrel. It was put under state control in 2018 and lawmakers often pointed to it as the case study and failure. But this year, for the first time in modern memory, the district met state standards. So what changed is that superintendent and CEO Henry Petty grew.
says this was a long layered effort. The district’s three-year improvement plan contained 20 different measures, and teachers, parents, and the community got quarterly updates on how students were doing against those benchmarks. So over time, performance in those areas started to lift the test scores. Tutoring was a really big piece of this, too. They used COVID relief funds at first to bring in tutors before, during, and after the school day. And when that money dried up, they made tutoring part of the regular budget.
They also got really creative about motivating kids, linking academics to sports or the arts, leaning on a coach or a favorite teacher to push a student to keep up with classwork and building programs like the Superior School for the Performing Arts so that students could pursue dance and drama or music while tackling math and English too. And like you said, Chris, East Cleveland wasn’t the only district to notch these gains. Parma jumped to four stars by training teachers in the science of reading.
and focusing hard on school culture, using surveys from families and students to make classrooms feel safer and more supportive. And Cleveland Heights, University Heights rose from 2.5 to 3.5 stars by boosting progress scores and closing achievement gaps, especially by improving how they identify and support gifted students. Willoughby Eastlake and Firelands also improved by emphasizing literacy gap closing and individualized intervention periods.
Chris Quinn (25:48.815)
In East Cleveland, I don’t think we pay enough attention to Pettigrew. He’s a special leader there. I moderated a forum during the pandemic in which he was a participant. He’s just an impressive guy who has quietly worked to make that district better and has some real vision. And clearly it’s working. I don’t think there was any more challenged district, probably in all of Ohio, but certainly in the Cleveland region. And yet…
through his leadership they managed to pull it off. Very special achievement there.
Leila (26:21.521)
Yes, and the real test is going to be whether they can keep climbing in a district where poverty and instability constantly threaten to erase their gains. Because nearly 30 % of East Cleveland students move in or out of the district each year, and that’s driven by poverty and homelessness and instability in families. And that churn makes it really hard to build momentum. It’s part of why the district still earned just one star in early literacy and graduation rates.
The median family income in East Cleveland is around $25,000, and that’s among the very lowest in Ohio. By contrast, we have the state’s wealthiest district, Indian Hills, outside Cincinnati. They have a median income nearly four times higher, and they earned a perfect five stars. So the leaders in East Cleveland are very careful to say that this is the beginning, it’s not the end of their journey.
Chris Quinn (27:14.736)
Remarkable achievement. They should be celebrated for where they are. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. One of the top names in the Cleveland Public Library’s Young Adults Book Festival is a major name from the news. Who is it, Lisa, and what else can we expect from this event?
Lisa (27:31.271)
Yes, it’s Amanda Knox. She will be the keynote speaker October 9th for the Cleveland Public Library’s CLE Reads Young Adult Book Festival, the theme being the right to be heard. Knox, as many people know, she was convicted, acquitted, reconvicted, and finally cleared for the 2007 murder of her roommate, Meredith Kircher, while they were studying in Italy.
She spent four years in prison. She’s written two memoirs since then. And there’s a Hulu series now streaming about her trial called The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. She has advocated for media accountability and criminal justice reform because of her experience. CPL outreach director, Erica Marks says, we hope that her talk encourages conversations about resilience, critical thinking, and the courage to speak up.
So she’ll be speaking in the morning, but there’s gonna be a fundraiser later that night from six to nine PM. It’s the black and white and black, white and read celebration. It’s a more intimate setting. It’s also a fundraiser I said. So this festival is free and open to the public, but advanced registration is required. There are other young authors and a New York Times reporter, I believe as well.
Chris Quinn (28:44.676)
I imagine a lot of people will want to go hear Amanda Knox, especially because as you said, she’s now the feature of a big Netflix series. That’s a pretty interesting get for the library system. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Tomorrow we’ll have a decent conversation about the redistricting situation in Ohio. It’s a mess. It will continue to be a mess because the Republicans are just running out the clock until they can do whatever they want. We’ll talk about how they got there.
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