Education priorities for Ohio’s next biennial budget, part 1: Sustained investment for literacy reform

Ohio regularly creates and funds major education policies in a two-year biennial budget, so it’s never too early to start thinking about the 2025 cycle. This is the first of several posts where I’ll discuss issues that should be on lawmakers’ radars as they gear up. We open with one of the signature items from the last iteration: literacy reform.

Led by Governor DeWine, lawmakers passed landmark provisions that require Ohio schools to follow the science of reading—a research-based approach to reading instruction that emphasizes phonics and knowledge-rich curricula. Starting in 2024–25, elementary schools must use English language arts curricula aligned with the science of reading. They are also prohibited from using a debunked, though commonly used, method known as three-cueing, which encourages children to guess at words rather than sounding them out. The push for scientifically based instruction couldn’t come soon enough, as two in five Ohio students fall short of state reading standards.

Recognizing the heft of these reforms, legislators wisely appropriated $169 million to support the overhaul. As table 1 indicates, the bulk of these dollars subsidize the purchase of new instructional materials ($64 million) and professional development that helps educators better understand the science of reading ($86 million). Another $18 million supports literacy coaches who provide more hands-on, intensive training in the state’s lowest-performing schools. Finally, $1 million is allocated to help teacher preparation programs transitioning to the science of reading. Of that amount, the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) receives a paltry $150,000 to carry out audits of preparation programs to ensure they align their training to the science of reading.

Table 1: Funding amounts for Ohio’s literacy reforms, FY 2024 and 2025 (combined)

Given the importance of literacy for individual students—and to Ohio’s future, more generally—legislators should stay the course on these reforms in the next budget cycle. They should continue to commit significant dollars for literacy, though also consider ways that update the uses of these funding streams as implementation progresses and schools’ needs evolve. Here’s a look at several ways legislators could target literacy dollars in the next biennium (note, the following mostly covers funding for the initiative, with less discussion on policy).

• High-quality instructional materials: The last budget largely helped schools cover the costs of new “core” ELA curricula in grades K–5, with districts and charters that have been using non-approved curricula receiving more assistance. In the coming months, however, some schools may still be looking to upgrade their literacy curricula into middle schools (which aren’t part of the state mandate) or go further in overhauling their intervention programs. Dollars in the next budget could support a grant program for districts and charters seeking to implement literacy reform in areas beyond core ELA instruction in elementary schools. Funds could also be used to fully reimburse districts, if the current subsidy only partially covered their materials purchases in advance of the 2024–25 curriculum requirement.

• Professional development: Per requirements in the last budget, most teachers will be taking a general professional development course in the science of reading and receiving stipends upon completion. That’s a great start, but some teachers may still need additional support using the specific ELA curriculum their school has chosen or require extra help implementing it within their unique teaching context. Ohio should continue to encourage strong professional learning, perhaps again via grants that support schools seeking to provide curriculum-specific PD or adopt collaborative PD models that help educators learn from each other.

• Literacy coaches: High-quality teacher coaching has a compelling evidence base, and Ohio supported the deployment of coaches in the state’s lowest performing schools via the last budget. Lawmakers should preserve funding to support existing coaches and—assuming initial reports suggest it’s going well—bump up the allocation to expand their ranks. This would ensure that more teachers receive the extra support they need to implement the science of reading.

• Teacher preparation audits: As noted earlier, legislators provided a woefully inadequate sum to support ODHE’s nascent efforts to audit teacher preparation programs’ alignment with the science of reading. That may have reflected a timing issue, as these audits won’t start until January 2025. In the next budget, lawmakers should provide ODHE with the resources it needs to rigorously review preparation programs. These in-depth audits are crucial, as an NCTQ analysis from last year indicates that many of Ohio’s fifty-plus preparation programs do a poor job training prospective teachers in the science of reading. For the state’s literacy initiative to succeed over the long haul, preparation programs need to be on the same page as K–12 schools. These audits—with sufficient funding behind them—will help ensure that occurs.

• Research and evaluation: In the previous budget, lawmakers did not dedicate funding to evaluate literacy initiatives. That’s understandable, given that the reforms were just getting underway. But now that implementation is in full swing, legislators should fund studies that investigate questions such as which ELA curricula deliver the largest impacts, what types of PD give teachers the biggest boost, and whether the reform package as a whole is moving achievement in the right direction. Shedding light on questions such as these would help guide policymaking in future years and ensure the millions being spent on literacy deliver the strongest ROI possible. It would also assist districts as they seek to implement literacy programs that are most effective for students.

• Transparency and accountability: Also missing from the last budget are dollars for transparency and accountability measures. That should change. On the transparency side, state lawmakers should direct—and provide funds for—DEW to create a “dashboard” that displays the ELA curricula and intervention programs of each Ohio school (à la Colorado).[1] This would provide parents and citizens with easy-to-access information about which programs are being used in their local schools—information that isn’t always easy to find on district websites. As for accountability, the legislature should direct DEW—and, again, set-aside dollars—to conduct a random audit of 5 percent of Ohio schools each year to certify that they are indeed implementing a state-approved ELA curriculum.

Thanks to the bold leadership of Governor DeWine and the 135th General Assembly, Ohio is on its way toward improving reading instruction. Yet the last budget was just the start—a down payment of sorts—and literacy should remain a focal point in the coming months, as well. Ohio’s 1.6 million public school students will be counting on state policymakers to keep the push going for reading instruction that promises higher achievement and greater opportunity in life.