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National School Choice Week hearing in DC
Earlier this week, the United States Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing on the topic of “Empowering Families Through Educational Choice in America”. Important and timely during National School Choice Week. It featured a strong Ohio focus, including Buckeye State senator (and long-time supporter of school choice) Jon Husted—who sits on the committee—and Cris Gulacy-Worrel, who is vice president and founding team member of Oakmont Education. Among other testimony, Gulacy-Worrel told committee members that what matters most to her is “educational plurality, a system with room for many models and many pathways to success.” Good stuff.
Meanwhile…
Coincidentally, education news outlet The 74 published a piece looking at recent math achievement scores among all public school 8th graders in the District of Columbia in 2025, finding that charter school students generally outperformed their traditional district school peers. This includes the Center City Public Charter School’s Congress Heights campus, where a majority of students are classified as low-income, and where 70 percent of 8th graders scored proficient on the Algebra I exam last year, besting some of the highest-income district schools. School staff attributed their kids’ success to co-teaching, data collection, and other factors. Awesome news!
News from West Virginia
Also worth celebrating this week: The West Virginia Supreme Court this week lifted a lower-court stay on creation of new charter schools in the Mountain State while a lawsuit against new charters in specific parts of the state works its way through the appeals system. No decision on that appeal is expected until June at the earliest.
Important new legislation
Iowa governor Kim Reynolds announced this week that she was introducing a bill that would, among other provisions, allow state education funding—in full—to follow students who move from traditional district schools to charter. Gov. Reynolds said in a press release that the legislation is intended to align per pupil funding and educational opportunities among all public school students. “As demand for public charter schools grows,” she said, “we should ensure that state funding—provided for the purpose of educating students—follows them to whatever public school they choose.”
Getting an education in Cleveland
Here’s a great profile of Ohio Wesleyan University sophomore Brianna Montgomery, who spent last summer in Cleveland, interning at the Intergenerational Schools charter network. She seemed to love the experience—using her entrepreneurial talents both to pursue community partnerships for the schools and to recruit potential students—provided via the Summer on the Cuyahoga (SOTC) program. Maybe northeast Ohio will get a new young resident when Brianna’s time at OWU ends.
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