The standards were quietly approved in 2010. But now critics like Kelly Kohls, the head of the Ohio School Board Leadership Council, say Common Core does not reflect the values of Ohioans.

Kohls says “Common Core is a bunch of standards put forth by people who are not Ohioans, not by the state of Ohio, adopted by the state but it was developed by people outside our state.”

But Emmy Partin, who oversees Ohio policy matters at the Fordham Institute, says states are free to opt out of the program all together or change teaching materials to reflect local values.

Partin counters “The curriculum decisions about how to teach the content, the texts that you read to the kids and teach them everyday in the classroom, that is all a local decision.”

Emmy Partin of the Fordham Institute and Kelly Kohls of the Ohio School Boards Leadership Council made their remarks today on All Sides with Ann Fisher.

Total revenues for the state’s four casinos was $72.1 million in April.

That’s down from $84.4 million in March.

Across the board revenues in casinos in Toledo, Cleveland, Cinncinati and Columbus dropped in April.

Here in Columbus, the Hollywood Casino’s revenues fell by by nearly $3 million, from a high of nearly $21 million in March to just over $18 million in April.

Mayor Coleman disagrees. After tweeting his support for Hale today, Mayor Coleman told 89.7 NPR News, if the diocese terminated Hale for being gay, it should re-consider the decision.

“I would hope that if it is the case, that the diocese would reverse its decision and rehire her, because that’s just not the Columbus way.”

Mayor Coleman says the city prides itself on supporting the GLBT community. Columbus has an ordinance which protects employees from discrimination including sexual orientation. The Catholic diocese has declined to comment on Hale’s dismissal.

Thomas is quoted as saying he will eventually return to OSU to finish his degree but now is the best time to begin his career as a professional basketball player. Scoring a total of 1,630 points, Thomas was ninth in all time scoring at Ohio State.

Lost Weekend Records owner Kyle Siegrist says his record sales are up an impressive 10 to 30 percent in recent years. Siegrist has owned the store on North High Street in Clintonville for ten years. He got started after the surge of compact disc recordings nearly wiped out vinyl records.

“We got lucky that over that 10 years we’ve been here the trend has really gone back to vinyl so we didn’t have to switch back. Where some of the stores that had gone the CD way like some of the campus stores and whatnot that might have went to CD’s in the nineties had to start increasing their vinyl back as vinyl came back. We were always just kind of going that path anyways.”

Siegrist says today artists like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Adele are now recording on vinyl. He says younger customers find listening to their favor tunes on vinyl a more social experience.

“Put it in your iPod it’s more personal you take it with you. But if you have friends over you have dinner you have people out whatever, you put a record on everyone’s kind of drawn into it. You pass the jacket around look at it. You don’t have that same experience with the digital nature.”

David Baldwin drove from Gahanna to Lost Weekend Records to find a particular vinyl record. But the 34-year old record lover says he’ll also look for other possibilities as well. Baldwin says he and his friends just enjoy hanging out listening to music.

“A lot of my friends have kind of had a re-awakening with vinyl. We grew up with it to some degree so it’s not that big a stretch that we would come back.”

In addition to its vibrant record store scene, Columbus also boasts its own vinyl record pressing and recording studio.

Tucked into a dead end street in a residential north end neighborhood, Musicol has been in business as a recording studio since 1966. Longtime owner John Hull says they’ve been pressing records in the basement since 1970.

“He loads the material, the polyvinyl chloride which is what we call vinyl into the press and then the press with the labels, label on the A side and B side. The press closes and squishes it out into a phonograph record.”

Hull says 2012 was his best year ever. He created 450 master recordings from which records are mass produced. That’s up from a low of 250 in the early 2-thousands. The 84 year old says he gets orders from all over the world.

“We’re doing records that go to Russia. We’ve done em in South America, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. Nothing in China that I remember,”

For younger listeners who don’t know what a vinyl record is or what the fuss is about or older ones who remember only the hiss, static and scratchiness of vinyl records, are two recordings of the same song are featured in the audio version of this story. The first sample is an example of a vinyl recording, the second is taken from a compact disc.

A private audit of JobsOhio indicates Schmenk signed two contracts for a grant with then-JobsOhio chief Mark Kvamme for at least $6.5 million to flow to a JobsOhio subsidiary — that’s above the $1 million lawmakers appropriated to cover JobsOhio start-up costs. The extension did not go through the State Controlling board raising questions of legality among Democrats.

Goodman takes over March 18th.

The Chicago-based company replaces Sodexo. Sodexo had come under fire from student groups in recent years for allegedly creating a hostile work environment. In 2010, Sodexo workers staged a protest at an Ohio State football game for what they called “unfair labor practices”.

The University’s new seven year contract with Levy goes into effect July First. It increases the University’s commission on sales from 32 to 43 percent.

Levy will provide concessions at Ohio Stadium, the Schottenstein Center and all other OSU sports venues.

The administration today agreed increase to six the number of tickets for each student.

Students originally were allotted only four tickets.

But after it was announced President Obama would speak at commencement, demand for tickets went up and some students were selling tickets on Facebook and Craigslist for up to $1,000 apiece.

It is illegal in ohio for private citizens to scalp or resell event tickets to public events.

Some 12,000 students are slated to graduate May 5th in Ohio Stadium.

OSU President Gordon Gee called the event an historic occasion for the university, the city of Columbus, graduates and their parents.

This will be the president’s fifth visit to Ohio State in the last 16 months and the third time a sitting president of the United States has given OSU’s commencement address.

At age 32, Becky Berger of Upper Arlington was laid off from her job as a pharmaceutical sales rep. She had few prospects and was pregnant with her first child.

“It was kind of hard to interview for a job with this big belly. I just felt like it was the elephant in the room. We kind of knew we wanted to open our own business. We thought now’s the time. It’s now or never pretty much. And so we took from February until November and just dove in head first.”

On a rainy, gloomy day early last fall, Berger and her husband Brian were looking for something fun to do with their two golden retrievers. That’s when they came upon an idea for a new business venture.

“We started googling: “Is there anything we can do with our dogs?” And nothing really came up for Columbus but we kept seeing this website for this place in California, Zoom Room. And we’re like ‘Wow, what a cool concept.”

Zoom Room offers agility and obedience training, puppy pre-school, training for therapy dogs, shy dogs and rescue dogs. It also provides dog birthday parties, breed meet-ups and fundraisers for local charities, even a Doggy Disco party with music and laser lights. It also carries a variety of canine training gear, toys and puzzles.

The couple talked it over and eventually contacted the company’s founders. Once they determined what they wanted they took the next step, flew to California and signed the papers to open a franchise in Columbus. Berger says locating in the Short North was a no-brainer.

“I had been to the one in Hollywood which I guess there’s nothing in Columbus remotely like Hollywood except kind of the Short North. The neighborhood here, the people. It’s such an athletic community. There are always people out walking their dogs, jogging in the park. And it seems like there are a lot of dog owners and people who want to have fun with them.”

The only facility of its kind in Ohio, Zoom Room has been open since November. Private obedience classes start at $95 an hour. It’s $50 for a half-hour lesson or $175 for a package of four. Private gym sessions are $15 a half-hour or $90 a ten pack.

Zoom Room is attracting people and dogs from all over the area. David Roberts drives down once a week from Powell with his ten month old Black Lab, Griffin.

“I bring him here just for the socialization and the training classes. They do obedience, agility and all different kinds of different classes for dogs.”

Louie is a five year old Great Pyrenees Lab mix owned by Peter and Leah Georgiadis. They brought the well-behaved pet to Zoom Room for a Canine Good Citizen Evaluation. Louie must demonstrate his ability to stay, sit and walk off-leash. A veterinary assistant, Leah Georgiadis, sees great potential in her pet.

“I’d like to have him be a book dog. Have kids read to him as well as take him into nursing homes things like that.”

Louie breezes through the challenges posed by evaluator Larren McBride. He performs like a star and McBride recommends a level two advanced obedience class, a notch below therapy training.

Canine therapy may be in the future of five-year old Jackson, a French Bulldog. Owner Emily Rush started bringing the little dog to Zoom Room to exercise out of the winter cold. But now the OSU oncology nurse sees greater things in Jackson’s future.

“I see a lot of patients who really miss their pets and they can’t have them in the hospital. So if I can get him in an environment where he can help people, I’d really enjoy it and I know they would, too.”

Not every owner with a pet enrolled in Zoom Room shares such lofty goals. Upper Arlington resident Annie Webber’s only wants her seven year-old Wheaton Terrier, Winston, to display less aggression around strangers and other dogs. They just completed their first lesson.

“He was doing really well today, but, time will tell.”