Dropping a cool billion dollars into Ohio’s school funding formula sounds like a no-brainer, especially if it’s done with no performance expectations on schools. But if we’re going to spend the money, how about using it specifically to drive higher achievement, narrow achievement gaps, and increase students’ post-secondary readiness?
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.
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.
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:
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.
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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.
For over a half century, Ohio has sought to ensure that every student who needs a ride to and from school gets one—no matter their school of choice. Under longstanding state law, districts must offer transportation to all resident K–8 students, with only a few exceptions such as students who live within two miles of their school or more than thirty minutes away.
This requirement helps working families—all taxpayers—as they can count on the district for morning and afternoon busing. It also promotes efficiency and safety. Instead of multiple vehicles passing through, a single, yellow bus—the safest form of transportation—can serve a whole neighborhood. The state provides generous subsidies to support busing, currently amounting to $825 million, up from $602 million just four years ago. This is on top of local funds, which include a state-required minimum property tax.
Unfortunately, some districts are making transportation a headache for families choosing public charter and private schools. Columbus City Schools is the most egregious example. It has used an “impractical to transport” loophole to duck busing responsibilities (provoking lawsuits), and it has provided service so poor to others that the state has imposed millions in fines. Columbus isn’t the only one giving choice students the cold shoulder: Some 23,000 charter and private school students from 342 districts were denied busing last year, while only 600 district students were refused.
The shabby treatment of private and charter school students has not gone unnoticed. In an effort to further examine the situation and unearth potential solutions, the state legislature created a transportation workgroup last summer. With its report due June 30th, it’s worth weighing in with suggestions on how Ohio could make the transportation work better for students attending schools of choice. The following would all strengthen the current law, though it should be noted that the state must at a baseline preserve the expectation that districts offer all resident students transportation.[1]
1. Tighten the “impractical to transport” loophole. As noted above, districts can and do deny busing through a poorly-written provision that allows districts to declare students “impractical to transport.” The ongoing abuse of this provision to discriminate against choice students must stop. To this end, state lawmakers should strengthen the language of this section, so that districts have to “demonstrate” or “prove” that at least three of six factors set forth in statute make a student “impractical” to transport.[2] This would require districts to provide clearer evidence that it cannot bus a student, and help limit impracticality to truly exceptional cases.
2. Increase the “payment in lieu of transportation” and ensure that parents receive it right away. When districts refuse busing on impracticality grounds, they must offer parents a payment in lieu of transportation.[3] The current amount is a measly $607, or just half the statewide average per-pupil transportation expenditure. For low-income families who may not own a vehicle, this amount is wholly insufficient, amounting to less than two bucks for each trip to or from school. For others, the payment helps but won’t cover the time and out-of-pocket expense to give rides 180 days a year. State lawmakers should increase the minimum payment to the statewide average ($1,214 this year) and require full payment to families within 30 days of a declaration. This would better assist parents who must bear the responsibility of transportation. Just as importantly, a higher payment would deter districts from making impracticality declarations in the first place.
3. Require high school transportation in districts with severe chronic absenteeism. Ohio does not require districts to offer busing to high school students, though many do provide this service and receive state aid to assist. However, an increasing number of districts are slashing high school bus routes—Youngstown and Dayton being notable examples. The lack of district-operated busing compounds the attendance problems in many high schools, as it makes it more challenging, complicated, and less safe for students to get to school. It also means that students attending private and charter high schools no longer receive busing. In sum, cutting high school busing is a lose-lose all around, especially in areas with serious attendance challenges. Lawmakers should require districts with chronic absenteeism rates above 40 percent (roughly 1.5 times the state average) to offer busing to all students in their community—including those in high school.
4. Strip transportation responsibilities (and funding) from a district in cases of serious noncompliance. The state has issued millions in fines when districts regularly fail to meet basic state transportation laws, such as making sure busses actually arrive to pick up students and drop them off on-time. In fact, last year, the state levied $9.8 million in fines, of which $7.6 million were against Columbus. It’s not known how many violations affect private and charter school students versus district, but the bottom line is that a few districts are simply not getting the job done. When fines aren’t enough, the state should charge another entity with assuming responsibility for busing in that district. The chosen entity should receive the state and local funds that would have gone to transport those students. While this may sound abstract, Ohio could look toward the governance changes happening in Indianapolis. There, an appointed body—independent of the district school board—will soon be tasked with overseeing transportation, facilities, and more, with the goal of creating a more level playing field between district and charter schools.
5. Increase the state aid charter schools receive when they provide transportation. Under state law, charters may provide their own transportation and receive state funding in support. Given the lack of cooperation from districts, more charters are going this route. In FY25, they bussed 7,973 students, while in FY26, they are now transporting 9,611 students, or slightly more than 10 percent of all brick-and-mortar charter students. Charters currently receive the statewide average transportation expenditure when they take on this responsibility, but that amount doesn’t fully cover the busing expense in higher-cost urban areas, much less the startup costs of purchasing vehicles and equipment. The state should increase charters’ transportation subsidy to 1.5 times the state average, a multiplier that is actually used in the district transportation formula when they provide transportation to charter school students.[4]
Transportation for charter and private students isn’t a new “burden” on districts, as several news reports have erroneously suggested. Ohio has required district busing for more than five decades, including a time past when schools (public and private) educated far more students than today. This longstanding law has served millions of Ohio families and students, but it’s being undermined by school officials who seem to want to make life hard for private and charter school families. That’s not right, and it’s time for state lawmakers to step in and ensure fair busing for all.
[1] There are rumblings about weakening current law, such as limiting transportation to students who attend charter and private schools located within their home district. This proposal should be rejected, as it would cut busing for students who attend nearby schools (within the 30-minute rule) but located across a district border.
[2] Current law requires districts to merely “consider” six factors (e.g., time, distance, cost, etc.) that might make it “impractical” to transport a student.
[3] Though rare, parents can reject the payment and request mediation from the state.
[4] The district formula counts a district student receiving transportation as 1.0 students, a charter student as 1.5 students, and a private school student as 2.0 students.
The Commission on Purposeful Pathways is a national initiative aiming to help young people successfully transition from high school to careers. Launched in 2025 and facilitated by Education First, the commission consists of national experts—leaders, practitioners, and researchers from K–12, higher education, and workforce—as well as young adults. For the past year, the group has been developing an agenda-setting report that synthesizes existing research and identifies how to provide students with the experiences they need to be successful after high school.
The finalized report was published in early March and does a commendable job explaining why this work is necessary. For starters, an estimated 15 million young adults are currently either “unemployed, churning through low-wage jobs, or working in roles beneath their educational attainment.” Clearly, the current system didn’t work for them. And it doesn’t seem to be working for the students still in school, either. More than two-thirds of Gen Z students say they believe it’s important to determine career plans before graduation, but only 13 percent actually feel prepared to do so. And while the media loves to celebrate sky-high graduation rates, a high school diploma isn’t what it used to be. In just five years, experts predict that 85 percent of professions that put earners in the middle class—so called “good jobs”—will require a bachelor’s degree or other industry-recognized credential.
Today’s students need more than a traditional high school education to be successful in adulthood. To ensure they get what they need, the Commission calls for communities to offer purposeful pathways that begin in high school, continue after graduation, and include three key components.
First is high-quality advising, which refers to consistent support for students that helps them make informed decisions about their future. A range of strategies fit the bill, including traditional one-on-one meetings with a school counselor, tech-enabled tools, or partnering with an organization like OneGoal.
Second is accelerated coursework, 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.” Dual enrollment, AP, and IB programs all meet this standard, though the report emphasizes that these options should be organized into coherent sequences aligned to postsecondary pathways to avoid “random acts of dual enrollment.” Other options include progressive sequences of CTE courses and innovative school models like early college high schools, P-TECH, and state-designated STEM schools. Regardless of the delivery model, coursework should lead students to credentials of value that are aligned with high-wage, in-demand careers.
Third is career-connected learning, an umbrella term that refers to a continuum of experiences that connect classroom instruction with real world applications. These experiences include career awareness (learning about work through opportunities like field trips and career days), career exploration (learning for work through things like job shadowing and mock interviews), career preparation (learning through work via training programs and simulated experiences), and career training (learning at work through experiences like internships and youth apprenticeships).
Part of what makes purposeful pathways different is that they aren’t siloed or disjointed like many of the current offerings available to students. Under this new framework, the big-three of advising, accelerated coursework, and career-connected learning wouldn’t be optional or isolated. Instead, they’d be “a coherent set of experiences” that every student encounters “early enough and consistently enough to shape real choices.” To further boost their effectiveness, the commission argues that purposeful pathways should also cultivate three specific mindsets in students: purpose (they feel empowered and motivated), belonging (they feel supported by adults and are encouraged to seek help as needed), and social capital (they have access to and the ability to leverage relationships that further their goals).
The report closes with four recommendations. The first two advocate for communities to follow the Commission’s blueprint to provide all students with purposeful pathways, and to “hardwire” those pathways with the three mindsets. A heavy lift, to be sure. But the remaining two are arguably even heavier: moving the goalposts from a high school diploma to economic mobility and ensuring that student transitions are a shared responsibility across K–12, higher education, and workforce.
To help leaders across these systems implement their recommendations, the commission published three action guides: one on high-impact practices, a second on enabling conditions, and a third that deep dives into measuring success. Even with these helpful resources at their fingertips, enacting the vision laid out by the Commission will take considerable effort and resources. But sticking with the status quo—one where the majority of kids aren’t prepared for what comes after high school—isn’t an option.
SOURCE: “A Launchpad for Life: A Vision for Purposeful Pathways for All Students,” The Commission on Purposeful Pathways (March 2026).
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”.
