| The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Brandon L. Wright

3.19.2026

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The rise of AI has caused anxiety about the future of writing instruction. If the technology can write—or help people write—quickly and coherently on nearly any topic, and will likely get better and better at this, do we still need to teach students how to write?

I’m quite certain the answer among educators and school leaders is, overwhelmingly, yes—of course we do. But their rationale, from what I’ve seen, tends to point to cognitive benefits: organizing one’s thoughts, constructing persuasive arguments, faithfully reproducing observations and events on the page, anticipating objections, and the like.

All of that is true. But it’s missing another emerging, less intuitive reason why this instruction is crucial: AI is likely to make good human writing—whether produced independently or with assistance from a large language model (LLM)—rarer and more valuable. But producing authentically human content while using the technology calls for strong traditional writing and editing skills, as well as the ability to apply those skills in chatbot prompts. Schools should therefore teach students to write both with and without AI.

“Well sure,” you might say, “but very few people need to write well in life, regardless whether they use AI, so who cares?” I think that’s wrong for several reasons. There are the obvious cases like students who want to go into careers that require lot of writing—journalists, academics, lawyers, policy wonks like me. Some also want all American students to receive a good liberal arts education, which often entails writing well, being able to spot poor prose, and offering suggestions on how to improve it.

But the value of good human writing is broader than that. Rightly or wrongly, people are beginning to use chatbots for personal tasks, such as composing eulogies and serious messages to loved ones. As these uses become more common—and more available—we’d all be better off if people knew how to shape that content so it reflects genuine human thought and effort and signals that they didn’t merely outsource it entirely to AI and then claim that it represents their own thoughts and feelings. That they did, in fact, spend time writing it, even if they used a chatbot to help them. The skills needed to do that well are the same skills I’m talking about.

Consider what happens when a good writer works with an AI writing tool. They understand what makes a compelling opening, can spot awkward transitions, and have a good eye for sentence and paragraph structure and a good ear for voice. They know writing is stronger when it’s specific, when it draws on experience and concrete examples. So when someone with these skills uses a LLM, they craft prompts that generate better first drafts, and they can see which sections need or would benefit from human refinements—and know how to make them. The result is a sort of symbiotic relationship that produces writing that’s both good and human.

But what about someone who never learned to write effectively? With a simple AI prompt, they can generate passable text instantly, but they have a harder time recognizing when the chatbot has produced overgeneralizations, logical leaps, contradictions, or the kind of bland, repetitive prose that screams chatbot. They also have more trouble knowing what questions to ask or how to guide the AI toward more sophisticated, clearer thinking. And that’s because writing and editing are skills built over time through practice and exposure to good writing. Kids don’t know how to hit a baseball when they pick up a bat for the first time. It takes lots of work. Writing is no different.

This matters because low-quality machine-generated content—“slop,” as it’s called today—is already so widespread and tiresome as to become a sort of background noise unworthy of serious attention or consideration. This applies to virtually everything: images, code, applications, videos, tweets—and longer-form writing, with an explosion of content that’s technically competent but forgettable and lacking humanity. In my role as Fordham editor, I’ve recently been sent essay submissions and policy reports from prominent organizations that do little besides summarize existing information and propose vague, generic, almost meaningless recommendations—complete with LLMs’ tell-tale style. There is also, apparently, a deluge of academic papers that sound rigorous and correct but are actually based on fake, AI-generated data.

In this environment, content that’s recognizably human—that bears the unmistakable marks of individual thinking, personal experience, and authentic voice—will become increasingly valuable. Some readers can already distinguish between writing that emerges from genuine human engagement with ideas and writing that’s been assembled by a machine, and people’s eye for this will likely improve as their patience for it decreases. I believe people will come to gravitate toward and appreciate content that feels truly authored. Part of this will, I hope, be because such content is better. But probably more important is that such a human touch will signal that whoever made it cared enough to spend time on it—that it wasn’t lazily produced and passed off as their own.

If I’m right, schools should double-down on writing instruction. Recognize that writing has all the aforementioned cognitive benefits, but understand what else we’re preparing students for—and explain that to them. Organizing one’s thoughts and communicating clearly are important goals, but so is teaching them how to be effective partners with AI so they can create content that is distinctly human in an increasingly slop-filled world. This means learning to write independently while also learning to use AI productively—as a drafting assistant rather than a substitute for thinking.

Notably, this means students will need to develop sophisticated editorial judgment, in addition to basic writing competency. They should learn how to spot strong arguments, evaluate evidence, and understand how style and tone shape a reader’s experience. They have to know when AI-generated content serves their purposes and when it needs significant human intervention. And most crucially, they must develop their own authentic voice—the kind of distinctive thinking and expression that can’t be replicated by LLMs. One way to do this could be the use of “mentor texts” in writing instruction. Classes study effective human writing—a good op-ed from a prestigious publication or a chapter from an acclaimed novel—and then imitate its specific structures and styles in their own drafts.

The students who master these skills will be better equipped to thrive in an AI-dominated world. They’ll use AI tools to amplify their capabilities, to be extensions of themselves, while ensuring their written words remain human—and therefore worthy of people’s attention and appreciation. Meanwhile, students who never develop strong writing and editing abilities will have less professional options and be less able to create content that is compelling, valuable, or their own. The stakes are, I believe, larger than people think.

Policy Priority:

High Expectations

Topics:

Curriculum & Instruction

Teachers & School Leaders

Dale Chu

3.19.2026

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Next month, my 11-year-old will join her classmates to take the state assessment. Like nearly every student across the country, she’ll do so on a school-issued Chromebook—a device that has become nearly ubiquitous in K–12 classrooms. Paper-and-pencil testing, once the staple of state accountability systems, has largely vanished. The transition to screen-based assessments began in earnest in the mid-2010s, accelerated by the rollout of Common Core–aligned exams from PARCC and Smarter Balanced. At the time, the shift seemed sensible. Computers eliminated the need to print and ship test booklets, allowed for adaptive questions, and made more complex item types possible. But given everything we’ve learned about screens, attention, and technology in schools, is it worth asking whether the move away from paper was a mistake?

Sonja Santelises, the CEO of Baltimore City Schools, certainly seems to think so. As part of an effort to reduce screentime in classrooms, the district is trying to scale back student device use. But third graders will still receive their own laptops because state assessments are administered digitally, and she doesn’t want Baltimore students at a disadvantage. Santelises isn’t happy about it, though. She has called it “absolutely absurd” to have “eight- and nine-year-olds with their earphones on, sitting and plugging into a computer to be able to tell whether they read or not.” State education agencies often defend digital tests as a way to return results faster, yet nationwide, scores routinely take longer to reach families today than they did in the paper-and-pencil era.

If there’s one certainty in education, it’s that assessment drives instruction. As David Coleman, the CEO of the College Board, once put it:

Teachers will teach towards the test. There is no force strong enough on this Earth to prevent that. There is no amount of handwaving. There is no amount of saying, “They teach to the standards, not the test”… The truth is teachers do. Tests exert an enormous effect on instructional practice, direct and indirect.

When state exams moved onto screens, that pull extended far beyond the spring testing window. Schools felt pressure to make sure students were comfortable reading, writing, and navigating tasks on a computer—often starting at very young ages. This dynamic is further amplified by the fact that the gold-standard NAEP is also administered digitally. The irony is hard to miss. At a time when national reading scores are falling—and literacy experts suspect screens play a role—our major reading assessments are themselves delivered on screens. Taken together, these forces have created a subtle but powerful incentive structure that nudges instruction onto digital devices.

Indeed, the shift to computer-based testing helped fuel the massive push for 1:1 device programs. In a recent piece for Education Next, my colleague Meredith Coffey traced the meteoric rise of the ed tech boom:

By 2016, half of K–12 schools had given students 1:1 devices. Many other schools, including the one where I was teaching English language arts, offered access to carts of shared laptops or tablets. Another 12.6 million devices⸺enough for a quarter of that year’s public-school student population⸺shipped to K–12 buildings. Apple offered an astonishing 80,000 “educational” apps. By the following year, the New York Times was sounding alarms about the “Googlification of the classroom,” and educational technology investments reached $9.5 billion.

Districts bought laptops and tablets not only to administer state tests but also under the promise of personalized learning and preparation for 21st-century skills. A vicious cycle ensued. The more instruction and assessment happened on screens, the more schools felt compelled to integrate technology into everyday learning. Today, that reliance is baked in: Roughly half of teachers report that their school’s core curriculum requires students to complete assignments online. Now, with artificial intelligence entering the classroom, that digital grip feels even harder to loosen.

Could states realistically reverse course and return to paper-and-pencil testing? The short answer is not easily. Much of the infrastructure that once supported large-scale paper testing—secure printing contracts, distribution logistics, and trained personnel—has atrophied, and rebuilding it would be costly and time-consuming. Even if logistics weren’t a barrier, switching back would slow everything down: Testing windows would be longer, scores would take more time to compile, and the potential for manual processing errors would increase. A return to paper would also feel like a step backward, a move toward Luddite-style resistance to technology that many educators and policymakers would likely resist. And beyond the practical challenges, there’s the political calculus. There is little constituency for slower, pricier tests simply to improve the student experience.

Even assuming states could overcome these hurdles, any academic gains would likely be modest. Research on “mode effects” suggests that students, on average, perform slightly better on paper than on screens, but the improvements are small and uneven. Yet the potential second- and third-order effects—reduced screen time and fewer technological frustrations—could benefit students’ mental health and help rewire schools for belonging and achievement.

Ultimately, reverting to paper-and-pencil testing would not solve these problems on its own. The logistical and political hurdles are enormous, and the immediate effect on test results would likely be small. But the discussion is worth having because it surfaces a broader issue, which is: What kind of learning environment do we want for our children? Even small changes in how and where students engage with assessments can ripple through instruction, classroom culture, and student well-being. As Santelises warned, “Technology eats executive functioning for breakfast, but we’re giving it to kids every day.” While few are likely to call for a return to the days of analog testing, the growing attention to screentime suggests that educators and policymakers are concerned with creating calmer, less device-dominated school days. Whether these efforts will be enough to slow—or even halt—the march toward digital everything without rethinking digital assessments remains an open question.

Policy Priority:

High Expectations

Topics:

Accountability & Testing

Curriculum & Instruction

Governance

Teachers & School Leaders

Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

3.19.2026

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In recent years, states and especially districts have turned to financial incentives to encourage high-performing teachers to work in low-performing or otherwise hard-to-staff schools. The idea is appealing—let’s reward great educators for helping students who need them most—and so far, the research seems promising. We know, for example, that when teachers independently choose to transfer to a new school, they remain at least as effective as they were previously, and we know that when incentives bring high-performing teachers to low-performing schools, those schools receive better teachers than they would have without the incentive. In a new contribution to this body of work, a recent study published by the Annenberg Institute explores whether teachers remain as effective when they transfer schools in response to a large financial incentive.

As my colleague Amber Northern discussed on Fordham’s podcast, the study relies on data from the Transfer Talent Initiative (TTI), a 2009–11 study funded by the federal Institute of Education Sciences. The TTI researchers selected ten large, economically diverse districts with at least forty elementary schools, at least ten of which were low-poverty and at least fifteen of which were high-poverty. Within each district, schools were defined as low-performing if they were in the bottom 23 percent of either average student achievement or school accountability ratings. Chosen from the other 77 percent of schools, high-performing teachers were defined as those performing in the top 20 percent of similar subject-grade teachers, based on their impact on student academic growth over a three-year period. These teachers were then eligible to apply for vacancies at the low-performing schools in the same district, with a $20,000 transfer stipend as an incentive ($30,000 in 2025 dollars). They would commit to remain at that school for at least two years. Out of 1,520 identified candidates, 330 applied, and ultimately 80 elementary and middle school teachers participated in either the 2009–10 cohort (seven districts) or the 2010–11 cohort (three districts). The present study relies on the TTI data, district-level data, and survey data from the incentive-eligible teachers. The data, however, do not extend beyond 2011.

The researchers compare the “incentivized-transfer teachers” to “control vacancy-filling teachers,” who filled vacancies without any special incentive. Compared to their control-group peers, the incentivized teachers had previously been more effective, and their transfers led to a larger change in the characteristics of students whom they taught (e.g., achievement, poverty, and minority status). In the first year following the transfer, the change in performance among control-group teachers was not statistically significant, whereas the effectiveness of incentivized teachers dropped, on average, from the 85th percentile to the 66th. The decrease in teacher value-added was larger in math (-0.15 standard deviations) than in English language arts (-0.09 standard deviations). According to one of the analysts’ models, the second year saw these teachers recover almost all their effectiveness in ELA, though very little in math; another model found that their effectiveness did not recover at all.

The study identifies three main drivers of the effectiveness drop among incentivized teachers:

Student-specific human capital. Incentivized teachers were more likely to go to a school with a student population significantly different from what they were accustomed to. When students’ needs and skill levels are different, the work of teaching becomes different—and in this case probably more difficult, since these teachers were necessarily moving into lower-performing schools.
Teacher-school match. When teachers freely choose a new school, they take into consideration factors like curriculum, technology use, and overall school culture. They may prioritize choosing a school that aligns with their individual strengths and preferences. Here, however, the incentivized teachers’ options were limited not only to the bottom 23 percent of schools, but also by the TTI research managers, who further narrowed applicants’ options in order to expedite hiring for the purposes of the study.
Indirect school effects. The teachers’ new schools tended to have less favorable systemic conditions for teaching. For example, incentivized teachers were less satisfied with their new schools’ discipline policies, resources, opportunities for autonomy, and parental involvement.

Notably, neither changes in adult human capital (i.e., quality of colleagues) nor direct school effects (e.g., tutoring, extended days, or other activities with a direct impact on students) seemed to have a substantial impact on effectiveness.

So, if the top teachers lose effectiveness when they follow financial incentives into low-performing schools, should states and districts forget about these programs? Not necessarily, for three reasons. First, the incentivized teachers remained more effective than those whom the schools would otherwise have hired (and, as was reported at the time, elementary school achievement rose—though middle school performance did not). Second, the study didn’t track data after the second year, so it’s entirely possible that the teachers continued to improve as they learned to work with a new student body and in a new setting. Finally, if the TTI process had not nudged incentive applicants toward specific schools, they might have chosen schools that were a better match, thereby better supporting their effectiveness.

Note, though, that even with a large incentive, few teachers pursued the opportunity. As Amber noted years ago, only 5 percent of the total eligible pool participated. Eighty jobs across ten large districts isn’t a lot. In a small or medium-sized district, there likely wouldn’t be enough movement to make much difference.

State and large-district leaders contemplating such a program should thus consider: How much can they reasonably afford to spend on incentives, and will it be enough to motivate potential candidates? How much need is there in the lowest-performing schools? And to what extent can receiving schools foster conditions that will best support incentivized teachers? Paying high-performing teachers to work in low-performing schools can benefit the students most in need—but education leaders ought to weigh the logistical and financial tradeoffs.

SOURCE: Matthew A. Kraft, John P. Papay, Jessalyn James, and Manuel Monti-Nussbaum, “Is Teacher Effectiveness Fully Portable? Evidence from the Random Assignment of Transfer Incentives,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (February 2026).

Policy Priority:

High Expectations

Topics:

Evidence-Based Learning

Governance

Teachers & School Leaders

Jeff Murray

3.18.2026

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News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. Just sayin’.

In case you were thinking that—as I was—that Ohio’s effort to create innovative pilot programs to test out improvements in busing was a washout, here’s a piece by my new favorite news outlet to dissuade you….sorta. In it, we learn that both programs did actually get off the ground (one in Montgomery County and one in central Ohio), we find out who they served (13 kids in the Dayton area, most of whom had special needs; 60-some kids in the Columbus area, all attending charter schools), and a little about their prospects for the future. The central Ohio program has already concluded—finding that use of smaller vans was effective at moving students (attendance improved to the tune of 13 more days of school and most families expressed satisfaction with the service) but not particularly efficient (costing five times the amount of traditional yellow buses and burning more than $5 million overall). The Montgomery County program, similarly using smaller vehicles while also utilizing advanced software “to ensure a secure and user-friendly system”, seems a bit more promising. STN reports it is currently planned to continue through the 2027 fiscal year at a cost of about $250,000 annually (after a $500K start up). Fascinating stuff. (School Transportation News, 3/16/26) And in case you were thinking that maybe these pilot programs aren’t important enough to demand all this money and attention, take a look at the serious allegations against Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s transportation system in this piece first—including some squirm-inducing details from parents—and then get back to me. (News5 Cleveland, 3/16/26)
I know that St. Patrick’s Day was yesterday, but here we are talking about the green stuff today. By which I mean money, of course. Case in point: Kettering’s Clerk of Court has an op-ed in the Dayton Daily News today where he lays out his take on where school funding comes from here in Ohio. Not sure his analysis fully passes muster, but it’s better than others I have read. (Dayton Daily News, 3/18/26) Another case in point: Spare a moment to pity the (not actually) poor folks in Lakewood City Schools. They sound so brave about it—and even a little proud—but their elementary school planetarium is in a closet. A closet! Won’t someone have a heart and send them some money, please? Then their kids can ignore the stars and work on their computers in a real planetarium. (Cleveland.com, 3/18/26)
Finally today. School choice haters will often assert that small communities in Ohio lack meaningful education options and use it to cast aspersions on the entire movement. I doubt it’s actually true in all but the most sparsely populated areas, and here is a bit more evidence to back me up. A small, private, Catholic-affiliated Montessori school has been growing slowly but steadily in tiny Steubenville for the last 10 years. That’s right: The same hardscrabble riverside hamlet whose school district has been the subject of white hot, worldwide attention due to its longstanding academic awesomeness also has a private school alternative. Go figure. To the haters: I’m definitely not sorry to burst your bubble. But to all Steubenvilliers (for surely that is what they must be called): I heartily apologize if highlighting this obvious truth somehow draw even more gawkers your way. (Catholic Vote, 3/17/26)

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Policy Priority:

School Funding

Topics:

Governance

Aaron Churchill

3.17.2026

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In 2021, Ohio lawmakers enacted a new school funding formula called the Cupp-Patterson plan. The model, named after its legislative sponsors, promised a fairer method of funding education and with an initial price tag of $2 billion in additional state funding, it promised lots more money to schools.

In the first four years of implementation, Cupp-Patterson certainly delivered more state aid to public schools. But in the most recent budget cycle, state lawmakers—facing a tighter budget and looking to cut taxes—applied the brakes. Specifically, they turned down advocates’ push to update the “inputs” of the formula, which would have added another roughly $1 billion per year in state funding, and instead provided a modest bump through formula supplements.[1]

In a recent paper printed in Hannah News, school funding expert Howard Fleeter decried “the failure by the legislature to update the base cost input data.” Others have also bemoaned that decision. Calls to “update the inputs” are bound to resurface, and perhaps grow louder, in the next budget cycle. But one question—not usually asked in funding debates—is whether pouring more money into the formula is the optimal approach. Are there other ways of spending state education funds that would generate a stronger return-on-investment?

The role of the funding formula

Before looking at alternatives, let us briefly review the function of the formula, which is indeed the backbone of Ohio’s equitable school funding system. In a hybrid state-local funding system such as the Buckeye State’s, a progressive funding formula ensures that poorer districts—those with smaller tax bases—receive more state dollars. Public schools currently receive just over $10 billion via formula out of roughly $12.5 billion in overall state funding for education.[2] On top of this, districts receive another $13 billion in local tax revenues, a sizeable portion of which is generated through a state-required 2 percent property tax. When combined with direct state formula aid, this minimum local tax serves as the foundation for education funding.

All told, Ohio public schools (district and charter) received approximately $25 billion in state and local taxpayer funding to educate 1.6 million students last year. That amounts to $15,000 per student,[3] which tracks national averages and represents a hefty $200,000 investment over the entire K–12 education of a typical Ohio student. The amount spent on education today is also significantly higher—even accounting for inflation—than what Ohio spent decades ago when the funding system was challenged in the courts via DeRolph.

Examining spending alternatives

By any reasonable standard, the amount Ohio spends today on education is “adequate.” To be sure, Ohio should provide increases in formula aid to cover inflation, which is running at relatively tame 2.4 percent. Yet whether Ohio should send a $1 billion per year to schools through the formula is another matter, especially as student achievement has remained stubbornly flat even as Ohio has significantly ramped up education spending.

What are alternatives to formula spending? Using finance guru Marguerite Roza’s “would you rather” framing to underscore tradeoffs, the following offers some ideas about how Ohio could use a billion dollars for education more effectively, split into five initiatives. This assumes that lawmakers would be a bit more willing to open their wallets next cycle, but the ideas here are meant to encourage more thinking about how Ohio could use dollars to improve education in a budget-constrained world.

Supporting effective academic interventions. Last year, 21 and 29 percent of Ohio students scored “limited” (the lowest level) on state reading and math tests. Such students need effective interventions to help them catch up. High-quality interventions are costly, however. Bona fide high-dosage tutoring, where a trained tutor works one-on-one or in small groups at least three times a week, can cost around $1,500 to $3,000 per pupil. Meanwhile, the Rand Corporation estimated that intensive summer school costs about the same (in 2011 dollars). Would you rather create a $200 million grant program to support 50,000 struggling students at $4,000 per pupil—one that includes stringent quality requirements and evidence of improved outcomes—or put that money into the formula?
Expanding high-quality career-technical education. Effective career-technical education can put students on pathways to good-paying jobs. While the state has invested heavily in career-tech, it can still do more. The Innovative Workforce Incentive Program (IWIP) encourages students to earn in-demand industry credentials, but it has been consistently underfunded (reimbursements have been prorated) diminishing its role as an incentive. Some career-tech centers have waitlists, and high-quality programs are all too rare in Ohio’s urban communities. Meanwhile, only a small fraction of Ohio students participate in apprenticeships and internships. Would you rather invest $200 million to provide high-quality career-technical education and work-based learning to another 40,000 middle and high school students, or put that money into the formula?
Rewarding Ohio’s most effective educators. My Fordham colleague Jessica Poiner (and others) have touted Texas’s successful teacher incentive-pay program, which rewards and helps retain high-performing teachers. Ohio should consider a merit-pay program, as—done well—they have proven to significantly boost student achievement. This cannot be done on the cheap, however. Texas, for instance, provides bonuses of up to $32,000 for its most effective teachers and spends almost $300 million overall on its merit-pay program. Would you rather set aside $200 million for a program that rewards 10,000 Ohio’s best educators with an average bonus of $20,000, or put that money into the formula?
Sharpening core math and reading instruction. Thanks to the leadership of Governor DeWine and a supportive General Assembly, Ohio’s science of reading initiative is off to a strong start, while serious efforts to improve math instruction are afoot, as well. Efforts to improve core reading and math instruction promise higher student achievement, but also require resources to implement. While Ohio has already put more than $180 million toward the science of reading, the state should continue to nurture the initiative, whether through reading coaches and state-support teams, curriculum-specific professional development, or subsidies to help schools upgrade materials (including middle and high school, which haven’t yet been covered). A parallel math initiative could likewise support schools in that content area. Would you rather spend $200 million to improve core math and reading instruction, or put that money into the formula?
Investing in quality school choice. Research demonstrates that Ohio’s charter and private schools provide low-income students quality alternatives. Despite their benefits to families and students, Ohio continues to underfund choice programs. The average charter school operates on less per-pupil funding than their district counterparts, while private-school scholarship amounts fall even below the charter school mark (and much lower than district funding). Would you rather spend $200 million to support quality choice options that provides an extra $2,000 per pupil to benefit 100,000 low-income students—including enhanced support for charters and a weighted private-school scholarship—or put that money into the formula?

Putting a cool $1 billion into the formula has its political appeal, as it ensures bigger sums for everyone without an expectation of higher achievement in return. Some surely would rather go that direction with state education funding. But will pouring that much money into the formula drive higher achievement? Narrow achievement gaps? Increase students’ post-secondary readiness? Anything’s possible, but I would rather put my bets elsewhere.

[1] This refers to updating the year of “input” data (e.g., teacher salaries/benefits) that are used to derive base per-pupil formula funding.

[2] The remainder supports smaller programs, such as private school scholarships, supplements for high-quality charter schools, reading coaches, and industry recognized credentials. Districts also receive state-funded property tax reimbursements, casino revenues, and school construction funds, which do not flow through the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and are not included in the $12.5 billion figure. They also receive about $2 billion per year in federal grants.

[3] This doesn’t include federal funding or non-tax revenues, which would add a few thousand more per-pupil.

Policy Priority:

School Funding

Topics:

School Finance

Jessica Poiner

3.17.2026

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The Commission on Purposeful Pathways is a national initiative aiming to help young people successfully transition from high school to careers. In early March, it published a report that recommends moving away from the patchwork programs that currently prepare students for the future and toward more coherent, integrated options that it calls “purposeful pathways.” The report identifies three key components that comprise a purposeful pathway: high-quality advising, accelerated coursework, and career-connected learning.

Over the last decade, Ohio leaders have been working toward establishing these three components. But the state still has a long way to go before it can say that it’s offering students the “coherent set of experiences” that define purposeful pathways. Too many students still graduate with no idea how to pursue their interests or even what they’re interested in. They know it’s important to determine career plans before graduation, but most feel unprepared to do so. According to hiring managers, few high school graduates are ready for the workforce straight out of school. And soon, the vast majority of “good jobs” will require a bachelor’s degree or other industry-recognized credential.

If state leaders want Ohio graduates to succeed, this status quo must change. Senate Bill 328 offers an excellent opportunity to usher in that change and build on Ohio’s existing foundation. Here’s a closer look at the three components identified by the commission and how the bill addresses them.

High-quality advising

What is it?
Advising refers to consistent support for students that helps them make informed decisions about their future. According to the commission’s report, effective advising “weaves together key programmatic experiences; supports students and their families in preparing for the costs and next steps associated with postsecondary education and training; and provides guidance and ongoing reflection.”

Why does it matter?
High-quality advising is the glue of a purposeful pathway. It helps students identify their strengths and interests and then link them to a career field or occupation. Effective advisors point students toward courses, work-based learning, and mentorship or networking opportunities that support their goals. Advisors can also provide important information like tuition costs, application deadlines, certification or licensure standards, and salary and job outlook data. Without high-quality advising, students are more likely to enroll in coursework that doesn’t help them earn credentials, miss out on work-based learning opportunities, and make big decisions without critical context and data.

What would Senate Bill 328 do?
The bill requires Ohio’s Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) to establish a statewide career coaching framework. It also requires districts to ensure that every middle schooler receives at least one career coaching session that aligns with DEW’s standards. Unlike current state law, which only expects districts to develop a plan for providing career advising to students, this provision requires a distinct form of advising specifically for middle schoolers. One session might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s more than what many middle schoolers currently have access to. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. This is a good first step.

Accelerated coursework

What is it?
Accelerated coursework is defined as “a sequence of coherent college and career acceleration courses culminating in transferable college credits and/or industry-recognized credentials at little or no cost to students.” Examples include dual enrollment, Advanced Placement (AP) courses, International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, progressive sequences of CTE courses, and innovative school models like early college high schools, P-TECH, and state-designated STEM schools.

Why does it matter?
Accelerated coursework offers students a chance to explore specific career fields. For example, an AP, IB, or dual enrollment course in math could help a student determine if she’s interested in math-heavy careers like engineering or finance. Similarly, progressive CTE courses could help an aspiring nurse determine which field of healthcare he wants to specialize in. Accelerated coursework also helps students get a head start on credentials and degrees that are aligned to high-wage, in-demand careers.

What would Senate Bill 328 do?
The bill requires Ohio students to create an academic and career plan before they leave middle school and update it each year in high school. Each plan must include a list of the student’s strengths, interests, and aptitudes; academic, career, and financial goals; and a description of the pathway the student will take to meet not only diploma requirements but also post-graduation career goals. To properly complete this plan, students—with the help of teachers and advisors—will need to identify the courses they’ll have to take in high school to remain on track to meet their career goals. This level of preparation should increase the likelihood that students are not only aware of accelerated coursework opportunities, but also more prepared to take advantage of them.

Career-connected learning

What is it?
Career-connected learning is an umbrella term that refers to a continuum of experiences that connect classroom instruction with real world applications. It includes awareness, exploration, preparation, and training activities.

Why does it matter?
When students participate in career awareness and exploration opportunities like field trips, career days, or job shadowing, they see firsthand how education relates to the real world. Those kinds of connections can bolster motivation and purpose, increasing the likelihood that students succeed. Career-connected learning also provides purpose and relevance to advising and accelerated coursework. Training programs and work-based learning experiences like internships and apprenticeships give students an opportunity to practice what they’ve learned in their accelerated courses. Meanwhile, high-quality advising ensures that a student’s coursework and career-connected learning opportunities are aligned to their interests and goals.

What would Senate Bill 328 do?
The bill requires districts to provide career exploration instruction to middle schoolers. Although districts have some flexibility regarding when and how they deliver this instruction, it must include all of the following:

Career field exploration, including an overview of the state’s sixteen career clusters.
Experiential learning opportunities such as research projects, guest speakers, and job shadowing.
Life budgeting and financial planning exercises.
Interest and aptitude assessments.
Professional skills development.
At least one quality career coaching session per student.
Career academic planning, including the completion of the academic and career plan mentioned above.

Awareness and exploration opportunities are a key part of career-connected learning. Without the foundation they provide, the latter parts of the continuum—preparation and training experiences like CTE courses, credential attainment, and internships or apprenticeships—will be out of reach for students. By requiring districts to ensure that middle schoolers have an in-depth opportunity to identify their interests and explore career fields, state leaders will help ensure that students are ready for future opportunities with long-term benefits.

***

Over the last decade, Ohio leaders have done an admirable job of expanding and improving career pathways. Students have more options and better support than they did before these efforts were underway. But the work of these last few years should be viewed as a foundation, not a finish line. For many students, high-quality advising, accelerated coursework, and career-connected learning are still out of reach or inconsistent. Senate Bill 328 offers an excellent opportunity for policymakers to fix this problem and build on Ohio’s promising foundation.

Policy Priority:

School Funding

Topics:

Career & Technical Education

Jeff Murray

3.17.2026

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Researchers have long been interested in quantifying how inputs like school quality and years of education translate into personal earnings over time and individual contributions to the larger economy. The common consensus is that more school leads to more human capital, as demonstrated by higher wages for those with more formal education than their peers. A recent meta-study aggregates dozens of research reports on the topic and finds reason to question this prevailing belief.

An international trio of economics researchers focuses specifically on studies that exploit administrative changes—such as a change in the minimum school-leaving age for a state or country or labor law revisions that raise the minimum age that children can legally work—to identify causal relationships between individuals with more/less schooling and their later life earnings. They find 79 independent estimates of these types of relationships from 53 separate papers published around the world. The various studies involved data collected from 1945 into the 21st century, mainly in Western democracies, and affecting students between 10 and 16 years of age.

Overall, the combined findings mirror the common consensus, averaging an 8.2 percent boost in individual income for an additional year of education. But this robust return masks several rigorous studies that actually found null effects. The researchers also provide evidence that there are “missing” findings that have gone unpublished which would serve to reduce the impacts of more education even further. The authors argue that if there is a “true positive effect” of education—whatever percentage boost that may be—the findings of numerous studies on this effect, when mapped all together, should resemble a bell curve clustering around the “true number.” Some papers will show larger impacts, some smaller, and maybe even some negative results, but the distribution should be close to a normal one. However, these 79 sets of findings form a curve that is accurate at the top end but becomes irregular as it approaches zero and drops off sharply below zero.

The researchers’ analysis indicates that studies showing null or negative effects of increased time in school rarely see the light of day, and they attribute this fact to two forms of publication bias: a greater likelihood of a report being published when it is statistically significantly positive, as well as authors building or tweaking methodologies in order to get positive results which will be published.[1]

After correcting for both of these types of bias—essentially, constructing a normal distribution by filling in the missing portions of the curve—the authors conclude that the real effect of an additional year of schooling on individual earnings is likely somewhere in the 0 to 3 percent range. Much lower than the published research consensus. The report does not delve into reasons why additional time in school might not lead to higher earnings, but it may have to do with higher-quality studies that typically control for academic ability, given that kids who are better at school would likely be the ones staying in school longer.

In their conclusion, the report’s authors focus most strongly on the implications for economics research, noting that evidence of publication bias in favor of positive results is not new, and that its ongoing existence is a drag on the field’s integrity. But for education researchers and reformers, the likelihood that the economic return for an additional year of schooling is small to nothing should be the headline.

Manhattan Institute Fellow Robert VerBruggen, for example, writes in a recent Substack post that he sees three implications from these findings. First, indiscriminately pushing all kids to get the maximum amount of K–12 education possible does not seem to be a supportable policy position. Second, although pushing kids to the maximum amount isn’t the answer, the impacts of more school don’t go negative even after correcting for publication bias, so it follows that the amount of education students are receiving is probably just about right. Third, the point at which any given student has “enough” education to max out their future earnings—especially in relation to the postsecondary college vs. career debate—is still unknown and should be the focus of future analysis.

SOURCE: Gregory Clark, Christian Alexander, and Abildgaard Nielsen, “The Returns to Education: A Meta-Study,” Kyklos, the International Review for Social Sciences (February 2026).

[1] The authors did not uncover a drawer full of unpublished papers with null findings—that type of bias is implied—but they did observe use of many “weak instruments” in the published papers engineered to ignore or minimize null findings as “outliers”.

Policy Priority:

School Funding

Topics:

Accountability & Testing