The Education Gadfly Weekly

Ohio students have yet to fully recover from pandemic-era declines in achievement. Although English language arts scores for the average Ohio student have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, test scores in math remain approximately 10 percent of a standard deviation lower—equivalent to students missing roughly one-third of a school year of learning. This average decline masks the fact that current Ohio middle and high schoolers—those who bore the brunt of the pandemic—are behind by approximately 15 percent of a standard deviation.[1] These declines in math achievement are concerning because students’ future incomes, as well as our state’s economic growth, depend heavily on the type of knowledge and skills captured on mathematics exams. In other words, everyone’s economic well-being suffers when math scores decline.

The estimated financial impact of pandemic learning loss, based on the historical relationship between math scores and societal outcomes, is substantial. A 2022 study found that, between 1990 and 2019, an increase of 1 standard deviation in eighth-grade math scores corresponded to an increase of 8 percent in adult incomes, as well as “improvements in educational attainment and declines in unemployment, teen motherhood, incarcerations and arrests.”[2] This estimate implies that each student in the pandemic cohort that lost 15 percent of a standard deviation in math achievement will lose approximately 1.2 percent in lifetime income (approximately $14,400).[3] That’s a total loss of $720 billion nationwide (approximately 50 million students) and $25 billion in Ohio (approximately 1.7 million students). Some have suggested that these estimates are on the low end, however. For example, Stanford economist Eric Hanushek suggests the economic impact of the math achievement decline is comparable to shutting down the U.S.’s $28 trillion economy for a full year. And if such losses persist for subsequent cohorts (Ohio students currently in grades 3-5 remain 5–10 percent of a standard deviation behind and could fall further behind due to financial mismanagement), the losses will be staggering even if the most conservative estimates are used.[4]

Forecasting financial impacts is a tricky exercise that requires strong assumptions, so one should not read too much into the precise dollar figures above. The important takeaway is that it is reasonable to conclude that the economic cost of math achievement declines will be huge. Indeed, since many of these students have already graduated high school (or soon will), we can treat these economic losses as already having been incurred. The cost of failing to bring subsequent cohorts up to pre-pandemic levels will be even larger.

The good news is that, in addition to avoiding future achievement deficits, we can compensate for losses we have already incurred. To do so, however, we need to set our sights higher than simply helping current students recover to pre-pandemic achievement levels. Math achievement did not start declining in 2020. The decline started after math achievement peaked in 2012, in the wake of the Great Recession, when federal stimulus funds ran out and policymakers moved away from test-based school governance. The causes underlying this post-2012 decline are debated, but no one contests that achievement declines predate Covid and that the two decades leading up to 2012 featured significant increases in math achievement. In other words, we know that we are capable of significantly improving students’ math achievement because we’ve done it before. In Ohio, for example, the increase in NAEP scores from 1990 to 2019 (i.e., including the 2012–2019 decline) totaled 60 percent of a standard deviation—a magnitude four times greater than the pandemic-era declines I describe above.

The pre-2012 increase in math scores took twenty years of concerted, bipartisan effort to achieve, and there are reasons to believe that realizing such gains again would be more challenging in our current political environment. Politicians in general have expressed little concern about math achievement and, even if math achievement were a priority, the bipartisan education reform consensus is gone. Nonetheless, the pre-2012 math gains show that we are capable of making up for pandemic learning loss and then some. Doing so would take many years and significant effort, but it is doable if we remind people of the stakes involved. The economic benefits of once again realizing such gains could vastly increase the economic well-being of Ohioans. Importantly, we now also have a wealth of evidence indicating how we might achieve this feat.

What we know about the impact of more public spending

The evidence is clear that we cannot spend our way out of this mess. Recent studies have found that the $190 billion in federal Covid relief funds that districts received had a minimal impact on test scores. Whether those studies focused on all U.S. States (notably the Harvard/Stanford and CALDER/AIR studies) or Ohio (where federal funds exceeded $6 billion), they indicate that the relief dollars had modest effects. Specifically, for every $1,000 dollar spent per pupil, math achievement increased by 0.8 percent of a standard deviation. This estimate implies that additional spending would need to total approximately $10,000 per student (on top of what has already been spent) to address the remaining achievement deficit of 10 percent of a standard deviation. Of course, only a portion of relief funds were meant to address learning loss, but there is little reason to believe that districts would target additional money more efficiently—particularly given what we know about the average impact of spending increases. Indeed, the estimated impact of federal Covid relief funding is approximately what one would have expected based on a recent meta-analysis of the most rigorous quasi-experimental studies.[5]

The best estimates available on the returns to school spending imply that a full recovery for Ohio would require increasing public-school spending (which currently stands at approximately $15,000 per pupil annually) by at least $3,000 per pupil, in perpetuity, to get back to pre-pandemic achievement levels (when spending was lower than it currently is!).[6] “In perpetuity” because pandemic academic losses may be a long-term phenomenon that will continue to affect future cohorts of students, as opposed to a short-term phenomenon limited to a single cohort of students who can recover with a one-time investment. It is prudent to assume that we are in the midst of a new normal characterized by low achievement and chronic absenteeism, and history suggests the impending expiration of Covid relief funds could very well erase the little progress we’ve made.

Unfortunately, there is no way that simply increasing spending by $3,000 per pupil, in perpetuity, is financially worthwhile if increasing math achievement is the goal.[7] Not only is extra spending an inefficient way to address deficiencies in math achievement, it is also likely politically infeasible and won’t enable us to compensate for economic losses we’ve already incurred due to pandemic-era math achievement declines. At the very least, the goal should be to get back to math achievement levels from 2012, not 2019.

The most promising strategies for promoting math achievement in Ohio

Fortunately, extra spending is not necessary. There are at least three options that can yield superior achievement returns at no additional cost:

1. Personnel management reforms. As I detailed previously, reforming district personnel management so that schools have discretion in hiring and compensating teachers could be a very effective option, as research consistently indicates large variation in teacher quality and significant achievement improvements when students spend time with a better-than-average teacher. Providing schools with such managerial discretion—by disallowing collective bargaining over rigid teacher compensation schedules, for example—could empower schools to direct their funds towards their greatest teaching needs.[8] That would be particularly helpful for addressing math achievement deficits, as a tight labor market for math teachers has made filling these positions as difficult as ever.[9] “Step and lane” salary schedules that require equal compensation across teachers with similar experience and degrees, regardless of their subject-matter expertise or effectiveness, make it more difficult to attract and retain effective math teachers—particularly in schools serving low-achieving students from low-income households.

2. Strategic school closures. Holding schools accountable for student achievement could bring back the kinds of math achievement gains we saw during the golden age of public schooling. As districts right-size their budgets to deal with declining enrollments and the expiration of relief funds, they need to close underperforming schools so that students are directed toward more effective options. This strategy yielded considerable achievement gains in both district and charter schools during the 2000s. Specifically, Ohio students attending urban district and charter schools that closed experienced achievement gains of 7–9 percent of a standard deviation after moving to a new campus—just about the effect size needed to bring student achievement back to pre-pandemic levels. Importantly, these gains were driven by students who ended up in schools that were higher achieving than their closing schools. Since large urban districts often lack the political will to close schools of any kind—let alone prioritizing the closure of poorly performing schools—Ohio should consider enforcing its school closure law for low-achieving district schools, just as it should enforce the test-based automatic charter school closure law that helped strengthen Ohio’s charter sector in the late 2000s.

3. Charter school expansion. Ohio’s brick-and-mortar charter schools yield achievement gains in both math and English language arts (relative to district schools) of 2 percent of a standard deviation every 1–2 years. Roughly, this estimate implies that after 5–10 years of charter-school attendance, student achievement is 10 percent of a standard deviation higher than it would have been had those students attended district schools. In other words, if low-income students currently in third grade were to switch from their current district school to a nearby charter school, their average achievement would be back to pre-pandemic levels by the time they graduate, without any additional spending. To realize these gains, one needs to provide families with easy-to-access information on the quality of nearby schools (not all charter schools are high-quality), make it easy to enroll their kids in those schools, and support efforts that allow existing charters to expand (e.g., by supporting the financing of school facilities) if they have a track record of improving student achievement.

Critically, the above strategies—related to personnel management, school closure, and charter expansion—must be directly tied to student achievement. The era of strong growth in math achievement from 1990 to 2012 was characterized by test-based accountability systems. These systems were far more heavy-handed than the strategies I suggest above (the federal No Child Left Behind was unpopular in part for this reason, in spite of some positive impacts), but their essential feature is that they used test scores to drive school closure, changes to personnel management practices, and school choice. Research has shown that these primarily-state-designed, test-based systems incentivized districts to realize superior student achievement with the state funds they received.

Student achievement deficits in mathematics cost all Ohioans, and they will continue to cost us and our children long into the future. Some argue that these expected economic consequences justify throwing more money at the problem, but rigorous research makes clear that this is a poor strategy. We have strong evidence that other options can address pandemic-era achievement declines at no additional cost and far more effectively. Indeed, if we pursue all three of the above strategies—making sure that they are explicitly tied to student outcomes—we may very well exceed pre-pandemic achievement levels in the years to come.

District leaders—from the board to superintendent to principal—are responsible to parents and communities for running schools that maintain high expectations and deliver results for students. To create these types of schools, they must be able to effectively manage staff. Leadership should be able to reward employees who push for rigor and go the extra mile, while also having authority to put an end to bad habits and poor practices.

Unfortunately, a raft of state laws ties the hands of those charged with leading Ohio’s school districts. Loosening these constraints is important, but it can be difficult to pinpoint how to do so. That’s why two recent court cases merit attention, as the questions in both cases involve statutes detailing procedures that district leaders must follow in order to dismiss employees who are not meeting expectations. State legislators should remove these job-protection provisions to help ensure that districts’ personnel decisions are respected and final, instead of being open to endless legal wrangling.

Job protections for non-tenured teachers

The first case involves a non-tenured teacher who was hired by Kent City School District on a one-year limited contract. According to court documents, the teacher, Shawn Jones, received a three-day suspension for leaving school early on multiple occasions. Even after being disciplined, he went AWOL for a day later in the year, leaving his class completely unsupervised. Unhappy with his job performance, the district superintendent recommended that the school board non-renew his contract. The board voted to do so, thus presumably terminating Jones’s employment at year end.

The legal buzz saw that Kent City ran into is a statutory requirement that districts perform “at least three formal observations” of a teacher before they non-renew a contract. Jones appealed on grounds that the district did not meet this requirement. While both parties acknowledged that two formal observations had been completed, Jones contended that the third was not properly conducted. His case went to the Ohio Supreme Court, and in a recent decision, the justices overturned the board’s decision.

The problem here isn’t the court ruling but rather the underlying statute that requires districts to jump through the three-observation hoop. In most other professions, an employer can end an employment relationship without a “formal observation” (much less three of them). This creates workplaces where employees who put in less than full effort—as Jones seems to have been doing—are quickly shown the door. State legislators should eliminate the observation requirement to non-renew a limited contract. This would help ensure that a school board’s decision to dismiss a non-tenured teacher at the end of a contract is final. Lawmakers could take it a step further, and make it easier to remove non-tenured teachers before their contract term ends by explicitly stating that an “ineffective” performance evaluation—the lowest possible rating—is “good and just cause” for immediate dismissal (this should apply to tenured teachers, too).

Job protections for district administrators

Another case—this one currently being appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court—deals with policies that districts must have in place to suspend an administrator contract. According to court records, Switzerland of Ohio Local School District underwent leadership changes several years ago, and the new superintendent recommended the dismissal of five central-office administrators by suspending their contracts.[1] The school board agreed with the recommendation, but four of the administrators soon after filed a lawsuit claiming that the district’s contract suspension policy did not meet statutory requirements. They pointed to provisions in state law that require districts to establish policies that, at a minimum: (a) articulate one or more reasons for suspending a contract, (b) outline procedures for determining the “order of suspension…within the employment service areas affected,” and (c) include provisions about possible restoration of employment after a contract has been suspended.

Earlier this year, a state appellate court found that the district policy aligned to state requirements, though as noted above, the case remains open. But the bigger question for policymakers is whether administrators—given their authority, responsibilities, and higher salaries—should be entitled to job protections in the first place. Should state law require school boards to directly express a reason for letting go of an administrator, something that could lead to controversy or, as in this case, litigation? And why must boards create a framework for determining which administrator is dismissed before another? What if that formula relies on seniority rather than performance and requires them to dismiss a talented and well-respected junior administrator rather than the senior one they’re actually seeking to remove?

State lawmakers should repeal these requirements. In doing so, they would allow boards and superintendents to more effectively manage their administrative teams, which is especially critical during leadership transitions such as Switzerland was going through. Bold legislators could go even further and simply permit school boards to hire administrators via “at-will” employment, whereby the board could let go of an employee at any moment (and conversely he or she could leave at any time). This arrangement, which is common in the private sector, would provide school boards with maximum flexibility and stronger oversight of their leadership teams. But it’s currently forbidden, as state law entitles administrators to an employment contract. Critics may argue this could lead to tyranny and unfair firings, but boards would still be held in check, as administrators—including talented ones worth their weight in gold—could easily leave for opportunities elsewhere if they are frustrated with their bosses. Communities would also hold school boards accountable, whether by voicing their concerns at meetings about what they believe to be a wrong personnel decision or via ballot box.

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Effective school leadership places families and students at the center of the mission, but that’s hard to do when outdated state laws protect adult interests. These court cases shine light on just a couple policies that state lawmakers should fix immediately, as doing so would be steps toward more streamlined school management. Of course—as detailed in this report—lawmakers should address other obstructions, including tenure laws that make it nearly impossible or extravagantly expensive to dismiss low-performing teachers with seniority. They should also be willing to tackle the biggest blockade of all: collective bargaining and bloated employee contracts that tie the hands of school leaders in all sorts of ways. Yes, removing these obstacles is apt to rankle the unions. But doing so will make it easier for district leaders to lead, and allow them to build teams of dedicated educators who give their all to serve students.

The Learning Policy Institute recently released The State of the Teacher Workforce, a state-by-state examination of factors impacting teacher supply and demand and student access to qualified educators. Using a broad set of indicators derived from a variety of data sources, each state was assigned a rating in two key areas: teaching attractiveness and teacher equity. Ohio does reasonably well on both scores but still has plenty of room for improvement.

The teaching attractiveness rating indicates how supportive states are of teacher recruitment and retention. It measures five indicators: compensation, working conditions, school resources, teacher turnover and hiring, and qualifications. Ohio’s 3.3 out of 5 rating places it higher than neighboring Michigan and Indiana (both earned 2.4), on par with Pennsylvania (3.3), and lower than West Virginia (3.5) and Kentucky (3.6). The equity rating, meanwhile, indicates the extent to which students have equitable access to well-qualified teachers. Ohio’s rating of 3.9 is better than nearly all of its neighboring states—Michigan (2.4), Indiana (3.1), Kentucky (3.5), and Pennsylvania (2)—but lower than West Virginia (4.1).

These overall ratings shed some light on how Ohio’s teacher workforce stacks up against other states. But drilling down into individual indicators can give state and local leaders more detailed information about what’s working and what’s not, especially with teacher recruitment and retention. With that in mind, here are four Ohio-specific takeaways.

1. Teacher compensation continues to be a sore spot.

The average starting teacher salary in Ohio, adjusted for cost-of-living differences, is $43,800, slightly lower than the national average of $44,530. Ohio also pays less than most of its neighboring states. Pennsylvania, for example, offers a starting salary of $51,010, and Indiana pays $46,540. For newly minted teachers who are struggling with student loan debt and other rising costs, these are sizable gaps that could make them question whether the Buckeye State is the right place to call home.

When it comes to wage competitiveness, Ohio fares slightly better. Wage competitiveness refers to the average public school teacher’s weekly wage as a percentage of the estimated weekly wage for other college educated workers within the state. At 85.6 percent, Ohio scores better than all five of its neighbors and the vast majority of other states. But even with a good ranking, Ohio teachers still appear to fall victim to the so-called teacher pay penalty, or the gap in weekly wages between teachers and college graduates in other professions. There are important nuances to recognize. Teachers often receive better benefits packages than those in other professions, and they have more time off. But prospective teachers might not be aware of these differences. And in Ohio, at least, teacher retirement is a bit of a mess.

To address these issues, Ohio policymakers need to follow a multi-pronged approach. Raising salaries for early career teachers is a good place to start (and lawmakers have already shown they’re amenable to doing so). They should consider investing in initiatives that minimize student loan debt, pay teachers more flexibly, and pay them more for teaching in high-need schools and subjects. They also need to tackle teacher retirement. None of these solutions are a silver bullet on their own. But together, they could make a difference. 

2. Ohio seems to be doing better with teacher turnover and hiring than many other states.

Anecdotes of troubling turnover (too many teachers are leaving the profession) and difficulty hiring staff (there aren’t enough teachers to go around) have shaped the teacher shortage narrative. The data included in this analysis back up some of those assessments, but also indicate that Ohio is doing better than many other states. Consider the following:

• Only 5 percent of Ohio teachers left the profession between 2020–21 and 2021–22, compared to nearly 8 percent nationally. Of Ohio’s five neighboring states, only Pennsylvania did better (3.8 percent).

• Slightly less than 5 percent of Ohio teachers plan to leave teaching as soon as they can or when a more desirable job opportunity comes along. Nationally, that number is more than 8 percent.

• Almost 39 percent of Ohio schools with teaching vacancies reported finding it very difficult to fill them or not being able to fill them. Meanwhile, nearly 47 percent of schools nationwide reported the same.

Going forward, Ohio leaders must take the initiative to ensure they have access to detailed annual data on teacher vacancies, supply, and demand. Otherwise, it will be difficult to effectively address shortages.

3. Working conditions are an area of concern.

Research indicates that working conditions have a strong influence over teachers’ employment decisions. Moreover, the working conditions teachers prize most are social in nature. School leadership and relationships with colleagues matter immensely. And according to this analysis, those are two areas where Ohio performs the worst. Only 43 percent of Ohio teachers strongly agree that their school administration’s behavior toward staff is supportive and encouraging, compared to more than 51 percent nationally. Meanwhile, only 34 percent of Ohio teachers strongly agree that there is a “great deal of cooperative effort” among staff. If Ohio is going to get better at retaining teachers, district and school leaders need to step up and do more to improve culture and let teachers teach.

4. Teachers want more say in how schools are run.

Roughly 28 percent of Ohio teachers reported that teachers have “no influence” over school policy in the areas of student performance standards, curriculum, in-service professional development, teacher evaluation, teacher hiring, and discipline. It’s worrisome that nearly a third of teachers believe they have no influence over these issues, as that kind of frustration can drive teachers out of the classroom. But it’s also worth noting that this is another area where lackluster local leadership comes into play. In-service professional development, teacher hiring, and discipline typically fall under the purview of district and school administrators. And thanks to recently passed legislation allowing districts to develop and use their own frameworks for teacher evaluation, that falls into the hands of local leaders, too.

There are things state leaders can do. The Department of Education and Workforce (DEW), for example, could follow the lead of Louisiana and establish a workgroup of teachers to offer feedback about policies and initiatives. But for many teachers, more of a say in local policymaking seems to be what they want—and only district and school administrators can make that happen.

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Bolstering the teacher workforce should be a top priority for Ohio. The data in this analysis prove that, contrary to common media narratives, it’s not all doom and gloom. But there is a lot of work to do, especially at the local level, and now is as good a time as any to start.

This is the sixth in a series in which I examine issues in K–12 education that Ohio leaders should tackle in the next biennial state budget. Previous pieces covered the science of reading, funding for low-income pupils, interdistrict open enrollment, guarantees, and public charter schools. This essay looks at private-school scholarship programs.

Understanding that education isn’t one-size-fits-all, state lawmakers have worked to ensure that the individual needs of Ohio students are met. One way they’ve sought to accomplish this is through state-funded scholarships that help make private school options more accessible and affordable.

The earliest of these efforts focused on supporting families whose children were slated to attend low-performing schools and those raising children with disabilities. That was the right thing to do, as they were most in need of the financial assistance that allows them to access schools that work for their children. More recently, lawmakers have moved to expand scholarship eligibility to middle-income households, who also feel a financial pinch when paying tuition. And last year, lawmakers made all students eligible, with the proviso that wealthy parents receive scaled-back scholarships.

During the 2023–24 school year, some 150,000 students—just shy of one in ten statewide—participated in one of the state’s five scholarship programs (Autism, Cleveland, EdChoice, EdChoice Expansion, and Jon Peterson Special Needs). This almost doubles the number of participants compared to the prior year, with much of the uptick reflecting the new inclusion of private school students who had previously paid tuition without state-funded scholarship assistance.

Now that Ohio parents are more firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to their children’s education, the question is what choice-friendly lawmakers should do next. Should they keep pressing forward, or simply defend these gains? The answer is some of both. Here’s a look at how policymakers can work to advance and protect private school choice in the forthcoming budget.

Advancing choice

Low-income students typically benefit from having access to more resources. To its credit, the state provides extra funding for economically disadvantaged students attending public schools via a funding stream known as DPIA. However, it does not do this for low-income students in Ohio’s scholarship initiatives. In the next biennial budget, the legislature should add a poverty weight for low-income students in the Cleveland and EdChoice programs. Students from families with incomes below 185 percent of the federal poverty level—the historical income threshold for DPIA, as well as federal free-or-reduced-price lunch—could receive scholarships that are worth, for instance, 20 percent more than the base scholarship amount. An enhanced scholarship would fund valuable extra supports—e.g., tutoring or other supplements—while also helping to ensure that private-schools can serve low-income students well. The boost in scholarship amounts would also encourage private schools to serve more low-income students.

Another way that lawmakers can strengthen private-school choice is by providing resources for capital projects. Scholarships generally cover regular operating expenses, such as paying teacher salaries and utilities. But they are nowhere near sufficient to help fund larger projects like building renovations or expansions, which usually require hefty philanthropic support.

Some schools have access to deep-pocketed foundations, but not every school is as fortunate. To support more private schools’ facility needs, legislators should explore credit-enhancement or revolving-loan type programs that reduce debt servicing costs and make capital improvement more affordable. These could mirror the types of programs we’ve recommended for public charter schools, which also face significant facility challenges. Providing facility supports would allow existing private schools to expand, as well as incentivize education leaders to start new schools in underserved parts of the state. This could mean more private school options for more Ohio families.

Protecting choice

It’s no secret that the public school establishment is up in arms over the expansion (or as some put it, “explosion”) of private-school choice, as they see it as threatening their education monopoly and financial interests. They pull out all the rhetorical stops, and one of their most oft heard lines of attacks is that scholarships “siphon” money from public schools and leave them “underfunded.”

These criticisms are more myth than reality, and choice-friendly state lawmakers should consider ways to help clear up common misconceptions. Though not discussed below, they can also educate the public about the various ways in which private schools are held accountable—an issue I recently covered at length in another piece.

First, they should use their platforms to remind Ohioans of the significant taxpayer investments being made in public education. In FY23, traditional districts spent on average $15,428 per pupil, with big-city districts such as Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati all spending more than $20,000 per pupil. These funding levels—the highest on record—far exceed the value of Ohio’s scholarships. In addition, solid empirical evidence shows that the growth in private-school choice has done absolutely nothing to lessen per-pupil spending in Ohio’s school districts.

Second, policymakers should continue to make smart budgeting decisions. In spite of critics’ claims of funding cuts, lawmakers in the last budget cycle signed off on a hefty increase in traditional public school funding (on average, a 12 percent bump), even as they expanded scholarship eligibility. This was possible because they foresaw growth in scholarship participation and wisely enlarged the overall K–12 education budget to ensure sufficient funds for both public schools and scholarship programs. Despite the media portraying last year’s roughly $1 billion scholarship expenditure as a surprise, the amount came in just a touch above the Legislative Service Commission’s projected $965 million outlay. Future general assemblies—like this one successfully did—need to continue making sure that budget allocations take into account any anticipated growth in scholarship programs.

Third, lawmakers should improve the reporting of school finance data to ensure a clearer understanding of district funding levels. Specifically, they should:

• Include actual per-pupil funding amounts on district report cards. Presently, only an “adjusted” per-equivalent-pupil amount appears. While allowing for more appropriate spending comparisons between districts with varying demographics,[1] the equivalent amounts also significantly understate actual per-pupil funding. The report card, for example, indicates that Columbus spent $15,372 per equivalent pupil in FY23. Yet on an actual student basis, the district spent $24,467 per pupil—a figure that can only be found buried on another state web page. Reporters or citizens using the report card to locate a district’s basic per-pupil funding could easily get confused and mistakenly compare the equivalent amounts to the scholarship amounts, which aren’t “adjusted.”
   
• Report the amount districts generate on the state-required minimum 20 mill (or 2 percent) local property tax. A common trick employed by school choice opponents is to cite districts’ direct state funding, which may be lower than the scholarship amounts, to imply that lawmakers are gutting district funding. But this tactic ignores the state’s progressive approach to funding education, as well the state requirement for districts to levy a property tax of at least 20 mills to receive state aid. This minimum tax rate generates billions for districts—more in high-wealth ones—and is a crucial element that ensures public schools receive sufficient baseline funding. Lawmakers should provide a more complete picture of districts’ overall foundation aid by requiring both direct state support and revenues generated on the 20 mill tax to appear on their report card. In addition to providing more clarity about how Ohio provides sufficient base funding, this would ease concerns that scholarships are being funded at higher levels than public schools’ total foundation funding. 

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Ohio’s private school scholarship programs have provided countless families with the financial support needed to access private schools. In the next budget, state lawmakers should seize the opportunity to further advance choice while also working to protect the opportunities that so many Ohio families rely on to find a school that best meets their child’s needs.

In 2003, as part of a broader education reform package, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began requiring high school students to pass Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams in math, English language arts, and science in order to earn a diploma. A timely new report examines the impacts of this momentous change in Bay State education policy. Why timely? Because a teachers-union-backed initiative on the November ballot threatens to permanently eliminate the testing requirement.

A team of analysts from the Annenberg Institute’s Educational Opportunity in Massachusetts initiative—a research-practice partnership with the Massachusetts Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education and Higher Education—examined the first twenty years of student cohorts required to pass MCAS exams to determine how the policy has impacted college enrollment, performance, and graduation, as well as labor market outcomes. College data come from both the National Student Clearinghouse and the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, while labor market data come from the state unemployment insurance system. Limitations include the inability to follow high school or college graduates who leave the commonwealth for work and the fact that the latest testing cohort with a full suite of outcome data took their exams way back in 2012.

The main findings are a mixed bag that echo some larger education trends. First and most importantly, MCAS test scores accurately predict long-term outcomes. The higher the scores, the better the college and career outcomes. While there were analogous findings regarding high school course grades in the first several years of the data (that is, stronger course grades predicted better long-term outcomes), starting around 2011 the analysts noted that the share of students earning As and Bs began a substantial upward trend. Over that time, MCAS scores declined overall (even controlling for several increases in cut scores that were implemented), and the mismatch between course grades and test scores appears to have widened during the pandemic. The upshot is that MCAS scores have become an even better predictor of later success, versus course grades, than they used to be. The authors express concern that many parents and students are being misled about college and career readiness due to the ongoing inflationary pattern in course grades continues. If MCAS is wholly abandoned, their concerns will become a near certainty.

Next, the analysts zero in on students just around the passing margin, trying to get at the causal impact of passage versus non-passage of similar students. They find that those who barely pass the tests on their first attempt have better post-secondary outcomes than those who fall just below the cut scores. (Most students did pass the assessments on their first attempt.) However, nearly all of those who failed were English learners (ELs), students with disabilities, or students with inadequate course preparation (such as those who were taking below-grade-level courses at the time of MCAS testing or who earned very low grades in their on-grade-level courses).

But most students who initially failed went on to pass the tests upon retake. Appeals of non-passing scores after multiple retakes were also generally successful. (An appeal requires students to “demonstrate through their coursework that they have the knowledge and skills to meet or exceed the passing standard.”) The small cohort of students with successful appeals—almost entirely ELs or students with disabilities—earn a “certificate of attainment” rather than a diploma. Those students generally fare worse in outcomes than their peers who pass the MCAS tests at any point during high school. However, the MCAS scores of ELs underpredicted their later earnings relative to other students—whether they ultimately passed or not—which is a notable exception to the general results. The analysts speculate that their test scores reflect a lack of proficiency with English rather than their overall academic ability.

Finally, most high schools that boost test scores also improve their students’ long-term outcomes. However, some schools, including some of the Bay State’s highly-regarded career and technical education schools, improve students’ long-term earnings without raising test scores.

The report’s authors offer no recommendations, and the report was completed before the ballot initiative was approved. If MCAS survives and continues as the central arbiter of graduation status, their findings suggest that Massachusetts schools must better prepare English learners and students with disabilities to take and pass the tests. Inflated course grades and non-standard portfolio projects are not fitting substitutes for rigorous exams, which this report shows are an accurate predictor of long-term success. If the effort to remove MCAS as the pathway to a diploma is successful, however, those may be the only options remaining.

SOURCE: John P. Papay et al., “The MCAS as a Graduation Requirement: Findings from a Research-Practice Partnership,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (July 2024).

Northridge Local Schools was in the vanguard of Ohio school districts that have adopted reading curricula based on the Science of Reading.

The district started on the path in 2018, five and a half years before Gov. Mike DeWine signed a budget bill in July 2023 requiring that Ohio public schools teach students using the evidence-based approach and dedicating $168 million to the effort.

Even without a mandate, Northridge was motivated to embrace the Science of Reading, which was beginning to gain traction nationally. The small district, just north of Dayton, ranked in the lowest 5 percent of districts in the state by performance, triggering state education officials to step in with offers of help.

“When you’re not performing well, it’s easy to change,” Superintendent Dave Jackson said in an interview. On the other hand, many districts that historically have had strong reading scores are struggling to make the dramatic and expensive shift to Science of Reading-based curricula. Teachers and administrators in those districts are “not excited” about the change, Jackson said.

Harkening back to 2018, Todd Petty, who was then Northridge’s Pre-K and kindergarten principal and now is an elementary school student success administrator, said, “My data were not good. I was doing the best I could, but I wasn’t getting results.”

Today, things are looking up in the district of 1,576 students, all of whom are identified as economically disadvantaged.

In February 2024, administrators learned its elementary school is no longer in “Comprehensive Support and Improvement School Status,” a federal designation for a low-performing school. For two consecutive years, it has made enough academic improvement to shed that label.

Jackson is most proud of the uptick in early elementary students’ reading progress, a success that he said is attributable to the adoption of curricula based on the Science of Reading.

Though Jackson readily concedes that the district has much more to do—only 36 percent of students passed the third-grade reading proficiency test in 2022–23, the most recent year for which statistics are available—its youngest learners are making impressive, though erratic, gains.

At the start of the 2023–24 school year, 21 percent of kindergarteners were at or above the appropriate early literacy level for entering school, according to Acadience assessments, a popular progress monitoring tool for teachers. By the end of the school year, 66 percent tested at or above grade level. In other words, almost half of children had caught up and achieved more than a year’s growth.

The year prior was especially remarkable—28 percent of kindergarten students started the school year at or above literacy benchmarks expected of children entering kindergarten. By the end of the year, 82 percent had mastered the skills they needed to be considered achieving on grade level for kindergartners about to enter first grade.

Disappointed though they are regarding the most recent data, administrators believe they are moving in the right direction. They will be looking hard at the ongoing reading progress of the 2023– 24 kindergartners and first graders, who were the first groups taught solely with curricula based on the Science of Reading, after several years of district preparation for the instructional transition. As literacy achievement increases “slowly but surely,” Jackson believes, students’ scores should improve as they progress into the upper grades. He also believes that achievement in other subjects will improve because reading is so central to learning.

Teachers note that quick gains in literacy are made most easily with kindergarten students, but Northridge’s success is significant even so.

As children advance in their school careers (and especially so for those experiencing poverty), it becomes increasingly difficult to gain more than a year’s worth of learning in a year’s time, with gaps compounding year over year.

Likening the challenge to catching up to a lopsided basketball game, Petty said, “If you’re getting beat 65–2 at the end of the first quarter, you’re probably going to lose. That’s why getting kids on grade level (early) is a very big deal.” The district, he said, is focused on “defying the predictive power of demographics” and sustaining that achievement in succeeding grades.

 

Teachers are asked to do much more

The six years since Northridge began adopting Science of Reading-based curricula have been difficult, administrators and teachers agree. They insist that intensive professional development and coaching have been at the heart of the work.

They add that new systems around data analysis, intervention and progress monitoring, and an administrative restructuring have been important, too. Taken together, the changes have ensured that Science of Reading principles are increasingly practiced well and institutionalized.

The first step the district made toward adopting Science of Reading curricula was requiring all K–5 teachers to take demanding training in LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) starting in 2018. Today, all new teachers must complete the course unless administrators are confident that they’ve had similar training in college or at a previous job.

Northridge teachers have come to love LETRS, once they make it through the program’s two weighty, spiral-bound textbooks. Initially, they were trying to complete the training in one year, but the modules were so time-consuming that they asked administrators to give them double that time. They were paid for eight hours at their contracted rate as they completed each unit.

“It was like taking multiple college courses while teaching,” said Petty. “It was technical. You couldn’t breeze through. Teachers were accountable to know the material.”

Progress arguably should have stalled during the second year of LETRS training, when the district struggled with a cascade of overwhelming events.

When students came to school in fall 2019, many were still reeling from that year’s Memorial Day weekend tornadoes, which leveled swaths of the school community, destroying many families’ homes and ripping off the roof of one school. Teachers and students also were moving into a new $55 million building that consolidated all the district’s schools into one complex; school started a month late because of construction delays. Then, in early 2020, COVID-19 broke, sending students home for weeks and forcing them into online learning.

At the same time teachers were immersing themselves in LETRS, a committee had begun choosing a new reading curriculum based on the Science of Reading, replacing instructional materials that used Whole Language, Balanced Literacy and Three-Cueing. Those methods encourage students to guess words based on context and to look at pictures—practices that are not rooted in the Science of Reading, which emphasizes phonics and decoding of words. Ultimately, the district chose Amplify’s Core Knowledge Language Arts.

Switching to a new curriculum is invariably challenging, but in this case, teachers had to learn dramatically new ways of teaching.

Because of the gradual ramp-up that accompanies instituting a new curriculum, it wasn’t until the 2022–23 school year that Amplify was fully implemented. Two years in, educators, including former naysayers, say they’re sold on the program because of its rigor—and the improvements in reading they’re seeing.

“We didn’t think our kids could handle it,” said Julie Russell, a kindergarten teacher. “We were the stuck-in-the-mud ones. Now, we’re like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’”

 

“I’ve not seen things work like they’re working now”

Prior to the district adopting Science of Reading curricula, teachers could choose whatever materials they wanted to teach reading. But now, using Amplify is non-negotiable.

“I’ve not seen things work like they’re working now,” said Tina Kretzer, the district’s K–5 literacy coach and a 38-year education veteran. “I’ve been in places where initiatives are rolled out, materials are adopted, and I’ve not seen the impact it’s making here,” she said. “The expectation is clear that this is how we operate in Northridge.”

With the district’s success, Superintendent Jackson said some teachers have been reduced to tears as they’ve realized the shortcomings of their previous instruction, especially for struggling readers. He, too, has remorse, explaining that it wasn’t until “eight years into my superintendency” that the district adopted curricula based on the Science of Reading.

“You start to feel like you failed kids,” Jackson said. “You start to think, ‘I didn’t lead well.’”

When Jackson imposed an administrative restructuring in 2021–22, emphasis increased on implementing Science of Reading practices. Some teachers mourned the loss of the classroom autonomy they once had, arguing that Amplify is too rigid and that the “art of teaching” was being lost. A few teachers quit.

Jackson said one veteran teacher who resigned said she couldn’t “keep up” with changing her teaching methods so dramatically after so many years, that she felt like a “first-year teacher” all over again.

Despite the difficulties, Kretzer said most teachers are learning and adjusting, making Amplify lessons “come alive” for children. “We’re talking about the Renaissance in the fifth grade. We’re no longer teaching to the lower-performing students.”

Teachers said they like that Amplify units are reinforced in each succeeding grade level, with increasingly complex vocabulary and deeper dives into subject matter.

In kindergarten through second grade, time is set aside every day to read aloud because students’ listening comprehension is always more advanced than their reading comprehension.

Samantha “Sam” Mack, who taught kindergarten for the first time in 2023–24, said that adjusting to Amplify was not difficult because her literacy preparation at the University of Dayton was based on the Science of Reading and she completed LETRS training in college. She believes that having previously taught second grade is an advantage because she knows “where my students need to go.”

She especially likes Amplify’s “skills block,” she said. “The students work with words. We analyze patterns, work with ‘tricky words,’” Mack said. Each unit’s “read-alouds” are about two years above grade level, with the unit on colonial times, for instance, introducing words like “barter,” “apprentice” and “cobbler.”

In April, students were eagerly tackling a book about a child with a friend who has diabetes and needs an insulin pump. This was after they had been writing and reading their “tricky” words that “do not play by the rules.”

Devoting Amplify’s required two hours to reading instruction pushes teachers to keep a “perky pace,” Mack said, but her students have settled into a routine that allows them to stay on track. The key is to “condense, not cut,” she said.

Teachers are sometimes overwhelmed by the constant progress monitoring that’s required and using that data to identify each student’s skill gaps, on top of implementing more demanding curricula. “(Using Amplify and LETRS) requires a lot more work,” Mack said.

Though teachers said Amplify has flaws (there’s little emphasis on writing words and sentences in kindergarten, for instance), Jenn Jackson, who teaches third grade, said it’s the best curriculum she has used in her ten-year career. This year, her students have tackled animal classification; the skeletal, nervous and digestive systems; ancient Rome; light and sound; and Norse and Native American cultures. In April, students were acting as “time travelers” and comparing day-to-day life in colonial America with other historical periods they had studied, learning vocabulary words like “distinct” and “originally.”

“You can ask any of my kids what the speed of light is, and they can tell you,” said Jackson. Five of the sixteen students in her class were on Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). “They love the (rich and complex) content. I have every kid in my class with their hand up.”

For children who struggle with reading—about half the student population in grades K–2—intervention is highly systematized. At the start of the school year, all students are assessed and assigned to a Tier 1, 2 or 3 reading group. Students in Tiers 2 and 3 receive an additional thirty minutes of reading help. Teachers or instructional assistants provide that intervention, often in cross-grade groups of six or fewer.

Children are formally assessed every other week, except those in the lowest reading group, who are assessed every week. A team of administrators and teachers meets weekly to go over students’ individual data and pinpoint what intervention is needed.

Tony Hiser, the elementary school building administrator, said ten instructional assistants (who must have at least an associate’s degree) and three instructional aides, who do all the progress monitoring, have been critical to students’ progress.

Teachers no longer say to assistants and aides, “Go out in the hallway and do flash cards,” Kretzer, the literacy coach, said. “They’re putting the right interventions in place.”

At the administrative level, Superintendent Jackson’s restructuring emphasizes shared leadership. Since 2021–22, the elementary school hasn’t officially had a principal. Hiser works alongside the three success administrators whose responsibilities include data analysis and coaching.

Hiser and the success administrators, two of whom are former principals, received training from Dr. Kimberly St. Martin, Director of Michigan’s Multi-tiered System of Supports Technical Assistance Center, who helped administrators create systems to ensure consistent and effective implementation of Science of Reading curricula.

Taking a systematic approach has been central to Northridge’s success. “I believe there’s a process for everything.” Hiser said. But collaboration was key, too. “There aren’t many decisions that are made without discussion through teams,” he said. “That’s a very important piece not to miss.”

Christie Healy, a kindergarten teacher and the teachers’ union representative for K–2, said teachers support the way the district has made the switch to curricula based on the Science of Reading. She said administrators emphasized that frequent Amplify “fidelity checks” would not impact their evaluations and that the goal was to help them improve.

“You can train somebody, but if you don’t provide the coaching and support and feedback, it’s not going to work,” said Petty, a success administrator. “We understand it’s going to take time.”

 

Acknowledgments

We at the Fordham Institute are deeply grateful to the many people who contributed to this work. Foremost, we extend thanks to Ellen Belcher and videographers Ransome Rowland and Colton Puterbaugh of B2 Studios, whom we commissioned to shine light on Ohio schools that are putting the Science of Reading into practice. We appreciate their professionalism in working with educators, as well as their ability to capture what this approach to literacy instruction looks like in classrooms. We extend special thanks to Dave Jackson, superintendent of Northridge Local Schools, for agreeing to participate in the project. We also wish to thank the educators who took time out of their busy schedules to share their thoughts and experiences. On the Fordham team, we wish to thank Jeff Murray who assisted with report production and dissemination. Kathi Kizirnis copyedited the manuscript and Stephanie Henry created the design. Funding for this report comes from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and our sister organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

—  Aaron Churchill, Ohio Research Director