All families deserve the opportunity to choose schools, whether public or private, that meet their needs and wants. To its credit, Ohio has been a trailblazing state when it comes to supporting private-school choice via state-funded scholarships, a.k.a.
All families deserve the opportunity to choose schools, whether public or private, that meet their needs and wants. To its credit, Ohio has been a trailblazing state when it comes to supporting private-school choice via state-funded scholarships, a.k.a. “vouchers.” But it might surprise you to learn that hundreds of students are being denied their school of choice simply because Ohio hasn’t yet provided sufficient funds to meet the robust demand for these scholarships. This situation is especially unconscionable because the very students being shut out are those who need the help the most—children from low-income families who face the greatest barriers to getting their top choice of schools.
Since Ohio’s scholarship programs first began in the fall of 1996, they have helped thousands of families gain access to schools they otherwise couldn’t afford. The chart below, taken from our “Ohio Education By The Numbers” webpage, shows the implementation of the various scholarships, which include programs geared to special-needs students and children slated to attend low-performing district schools. It also reveals an impressive upward trend in participation, with nearly 50,000 students today using one of the state’s five scholarship programs to attend private schools.
Starting in 2013–14, Ohio began offering scholarships to low-income students living anywhere in the state. Known as Income Based EdChoice, this program has been phased in by one grade level each year, with fifth graders becoming eligible in 2018–19. Under Governor Mike DeWine’s budget plan, Income Based EdChoice would continue its phase-in with sixth and seventh graders becoming eligible over the next two years. Children from any family with income at or below two times the federal poverty level ($50,200 for a family of four) are eligible for this scholarship.
Regrettably, the supply of scholarships for Income Based EdChoice hasn’t kept pace with demand. In a budget analysis, the state Legislative Service Commission (LSC) notes: “In recent years, ODE has conducted a lottery for expansion slots [i.e., Income Based EdChoice scholarships] because the available appropriation was not sufficient to meet demand.” Translation: More families applied for scholarships than were available. Hence the need for a lottery to determine which low-income students luck out and who goes home empty handed. The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) should, as a matter of practice, publicly disclose how many applicants were denied, but our understanding is that at least 1,000 students applied but did not receive scholarships for the 2018–19 school year. The denials may have been even higher had ODE opened a second application window during the summer.
As indicated by the LSC note, the mismatch in supply and demand is due to insufficient funding. The Income Based EdChoice program is funded through a line-item appropriation in the state budget, and because that amount is fixed, the number of scholarships available is effectively capped. For instance, Governor DeWine proposes a FY 2020 appropriation of $57.2 million, providing enough funding for roughly 13,500 scholarships, or about 2,000 per grade level. (The maximum scholarship is $4,650 for grades K–8.)
As the state budget bill moves through the Senate, legislators should consider ways to ensure that no child is denied a scholarship. There are two possible ways to do this.
Eight years ago, during the debate over lifting the traditional EdChoice cap, my former Fordham colleague Jamie Davies O’Leary raised the incisive question: “What would you personally tell families who got locked out of the voucher lottery?” One possible response is “tough luck.” But that’s no way to answer parents who long for a better choice but are denied just because the lottery balls don’t bounce their way.
To their credit, Ohio legislators have unleashed more school-choice opportunities via Income Based EdChoice. But when unmet demand remains, those opportunities remain illusory for some. Lawmakers should finish the job by providing the funds necessary to support all families—especially our most economically disadvantaged—seeking a private-school choice. No child should be left on the outside looking in.
In a recent floor debate, Representative Phillip Robinson made an Orwellian “pro-business” case for eliminating state interventions in chronically low-performing districts, saying: “When businesses are looking to come to Ohio, they want to go into competitive communities where they can attract employees to bring their children [to schools] there.” Criticizing the state’s approach to school ratings, State Board of Education member Linda Haycock told the Lima News, “It’s like, ‘All of your schools are failing, why would I want to bring my business here?’”
The argument is full of baloney. You simply can’t plaster schools with “A’s” and believe that companies will flock to areas where students—the future workforce—aren’t being well educated. Let’s not be naïve: Any responsible employer looking to invest millions in a community is going to get behind the façade and find out the truth.
More pernicious, however, is that the claim ignores everything we know about the importance of knowledge and skills—“human capital”—to economic flourishing. Any number of anecdotes could illustrate this point, but consider a local story relevant to the issue of attracting businesses. Back in the 1970s, Honda was looking to build its first manufacturing plant in the United States. Wooed by former Governor Jim Rhodes, the Japanese company chose Marysville—a small town outside of Columbus—to open its plant. While records indicate that company management weighed a number of factors, they were won over by the talent, ingenuity, and character of the people, especially those working at the cutting-edge R & D center nearby. The rest, as they say, is history: Today, Honda has four plants at its Marysville site, employing more than 9,000 Ohioans.
What about some cold, hard data? Reams of research find a link between human capital formation, including K–12 education, and economic outcomes, whether at an individual or societal level. But one recent analysis by a trio of researchers, including Stanford economist Eric Hanushek, merits special attention. Based on historical returns to K–12 education, they forecast economic gains if states improved students’ knowledge and skills.
For Ohio, the returns would be enormous. If, over the next decade, Buckeye students were able to match the nation’s top-performing state, Minnesota, on math exams, Ohio would gain an additional $974 billion dollars in cumulative GDP over the next eighty years, the timeframe in which the better educated workforce would fully replace older workers. “There is a huge economic incentive for each state to improve its schools,” conclude Hanushek and colleagues.
While the authors don’t recommend specific policies, strong accountability measures ought to remain central in Ohio’s improvement efforts. Research at the national, state (including here in Ohio), and city levels indicate that accountability can help drive the improvements needed for Ohio to reach the highest echelons of student achievement. Based on this and the principled conviction that accountability can improve outcomes, business groups and civil rights organizations have long fought for tough accountability policies.
Knowledge and skills matter greatly when it comes individuals’ and communities’ economic prosperity. Though not the only contributor, K–12 education continues to play a crucial role in human capital formation. This is precisely why Ohioans continue to invest billions to support schools, and it’s also why accountability for academic quality remains essential. So, no, accountability isn’t “bad for business.” Just the reverse: It’s a crucial check on student learning—and a necessary push when pupils are falling behind—that seeks to ensure that all young people exit high school ready to take their next steps in life. When that happens, it’s good for business, it’s good for communities—and it’s good for all Ohioans.
In downtown Columbus last week, over four hundred business and industry leaders, educators, state policymakers, and advocates convened for Aim Hire, a day-long conference focused on workforce development. The event was hosted by Ohio Excels, a new non-profit coalition of business leaders dedicated to educational improvement, and the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation on the heels of the state’s In-Demand Jobs Week. Here’s a look at a few of the big takeaways from the conference.
The big picture
Kyle Hartung, the director of Pathways to Prosperity at Jobs for the Future, opened the event by discussing why improved connections between education and the workforce are so important. One reason is lackluster post-secondary outcomes. At the national level, high school graduation rates are sky high but college completion rates are alarming low. More low-income students are going to college than before, but the percentage who go on to graduate has remained mostly flat. Ohio-specific data aren’t much better. The number of working-age adults who have a postsecondary credential has increased in the last decade, but not at a fast enough rate to satisfy employer demand. In Ohio, 56 percent of in-demand jobs require postsecondary credentials, but only 43 percent of the population have one.
Another reason is technology. The economy and the types of work available are changing rapidly due to automation and other advancements, and in-demand workplace skills are proving difficult to teach in traditional classrooms. Hartung’s solution is to expand access to work-based learning, which allows students to master academic and technical skills in a real-world setting. But he also touted the need for cross sector partnerships between K–12, business and industry, government agencies, colleges, afterschool networks, and community-based organizations. He also noted that two-year colleges could be “the key” to improving attainment, as they serve younger students and adults, are already deeply engaged with employers, and are generally focused on specific regional areas.
Growing opportunities in Ohio’s education sector
Participants on an education-focused panel highlighted several initiatives that are already underway in Ohio, including partnerships between businesses, nonprofits, and education institutions. For example, a Family Career Awareness Day in Marietta gives seventh through twelfth graders the opportunity to learn about careers in their surrounding community, and Tiffin City Schools boasts a college-and-career-readiness program taught by volunteers from the business sector.
Despite this promising work, Ohio struggles to get youngsters onto in-demand pathways, and—not surprisingly—businesses face significant supply shortages. When asked how schools could help solve the supply side of the problem, Pamela Lankford from Building Bridges to Careers explained that student surveys conducted locally over the last ten years indicate that personal experience is the number-one contributing factor for which career students choose to pursue. “If kids don’t get that experience,” she said, “they won’t go down that pathway.” Providing students with the opportunity to participate in multiple career-related experiences and engaging with employers so that they offer those experiences are key.
The responsibility of businesses
Immediately following the education discussion was a panel featuring leaders from a diverse group of businesses. Lana Hillebrand, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer at AEP, noted that, when it comes to addressing workforce needs, it’s important for employers to be proactive. Businesses have a responsibility to their customers and communities to develop robust talent pipelines, and that means partnering with education institutions so that they can leverage their expertise. When asked about attracting top-tier talent to Ohio, panelists acknowledged that it can be difficult to compete with places like Silicon Valley, New York, and D.C. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Alex Derkson from JPMorgan Chase noted that Ohio has plenty going for it, including an attractive cost of living and great colleges and universities. When prompted for ideas about how smaller businesses could lure talented employees, Derkson pointed out the importance of consortia and partnerships, which can “share the work” of identifying solutions.
A changing state demands changing policies
Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted was also in attendance, and he didn’t mince words about the importance of workforce development. “The future of our state and our economy depends on it,” he said. “Over the next ten years in Ohio, demographic projections say that we will lose more people from our workforce than we will gain. More people will turn sixty-five than will turn eighteen. We have the challenge to make sure that the people who follow have the right kind of skills…and the states that do this right will be the ones that prosper.” He pointed out that the economy has shifted from focusing on natural resources and proximity to prioritizing knowledge, which “can exist anywhere. It’s not bound by geographic barriers.” To address this change and its implications for the future, the new administration is focusing on early childhood education, wraparound services, and industry-recognized credentials.
Partnerships for the future
Eric Burkland, President of the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, offered up a succinct analysis of why workforce development is so important: “We are facing right now a set of interactive, global trends that nobody prepared us for in manufacturing and other professions. I don’t think we think too much about how new this globalization is. But it is new…so it’s creating all kinds of strains and all kinds of uncertainties. But those pressures are also a great opportunity.”
Several on-the-ground partnerships are already taking advantage of these opportunities. Jessica Borza, Executive Director of the Mahoning Valley Manufacturing Coalition, spoke about how her members have worked with both K–12 and postsecondary institutions to leverage industry-recognized credentials. She explained that, in the past, career centers used vastly different standards and curricula, so employers struggled to find graduates who had similar skill sets and competencies. But by aligning curricula, apprenticeships, work-based learning opportunities, and other offerings with industry-recognized credentials, the coalition has been able to establish better alignment between systems and ensure that student skills are validated. Even better, students have the opportunity to earn the same amount of college credit regardless of where they earn their credential.
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Overall, the conference struck a nice balance between celebrating what’s worked so far and acknowledging that the state still has plenty of room for improvement. Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the day came from David Harrison, President of Columbus State Community College and the Central Ohio Compact. He advised conference attendees to maintain a bias toward intentional action. “This is messy work,” he said. “But students need us to figure this out. So jump in and get started.”
“Credentials Matter,” a new report released by the Foundation for Excellence in Education and Burning Glass Technologies, joins other recent studies in offering an in-depth look at the industry-credential landscape by examining how states collect data on attainment, employer demand, the types of credentials that high school students earn, and whether demand aligns with credentialing supply.
The report defines credentials as third-party verifications of an individual’s qualification or competence in skills. It further defines industry recognized credentials as those that are sought by employers and preferred or required for recruitment, screening, hiring, retention, or advancement purposes. Most credentials available to high school students are offered as part of career and technical education (CTE) programs, and the report identifies five types: license, certification, software, general career readiness, and CTE assessment. Although the report considers all available credentials reported by states, it does not assess the value of specific credentials beyond employer demand. It also does not assess the postsecondary attainment of industry credentials, since too few states provided postsecondary data, or the relationship between attainment and CTE program quality.
To analyze the supply side of the credential landscape, the Foundation for Excellence in Education asked each state to answer questions about data collection. They report using varying methods, though nearly all of them rely on self-reported data by schools or districts. That’s troublesome, since self-reported data have an increased chance of being incomplete or inaccurate. There are four states—Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, and North Carolina—that have data-sharing agreements with credential vendors, a more reliable source for the information. States were also asked by analysts to provide data on credentials earned by public K–12 and two-year college students through CTE programs. As of the 2018–19 school year, twenty-eight states collect quantitative data on attainment, and twenty-four of them provided data for this report. Overall, their dataset includes over 780,000 credentials earned from 367 unique vendors.
Across states, there is considerable variation in which credentials students earn among the five identified types. In Mississippi, for example, 100 percent are certifications. Utah, on the other hand, reports that only 12 percent are certifications and 78 percent are software credentials. Nationally, almost half are certifications. These can provide entry-level and advancement opportunities, but their overall alignment is poor. Only two—Automotive Service Excellence and ServSafe Certifications—are on both the top-supplied and top-demanded lists. Licenses, meanwhile, are the least common credential, and are mostly misaligned with industry demand due to both an “extreme oversupply” of those associated with low-wage occupations and an undersupply of licenses for middle- and high-wage jobs.
To analyze employer demand, Burning Glass Technologies, a software company that offers job market analytics, used its database of more than 150 million unique online job postings. Its focus was limited to postings that were localized in states; requested specific credentials, occupations, or skills; matched the same year as supply data; and paid a living wage, defined as $15 per hour. Results show that, although certifications and licenses are the credentials most likely to be required, employers often neglect to specifically request them in job descriptions. This manner in which employers communicate their needs and requirements to potential employees—known as employer signaling—is one of the key areas where states need to improve.
None of the twenty-four states with available data were highly aligned in terms of supply and demand. Twelve were rated as having moderate alignment, while the other half had low alignment. The most significant source of misalignment comes from an oversupply of credentials that are not in demand in the labor market: Only 19 percent of credentials earned by K–12 students in this analysis are actually demanded by employers. In fact, of the top fifteen most commonly earned credentials, ten are oversupplied. They include W!SE Financial Literacy Certification, NCCER Core Curriculum, and Basic First Aid. Despite the common oversupply problem, states must address misalignment on an individual basis because labor markets are vastly different from state to state.
The report includes several recommendations for a variety of stakeholders. For states, it’s important to establish statewide definitions for industry recognized credentials, codify processes to identify which credentials are valued by employers, and establish data-sharing agreements between state and credentialing agencies. Schools must improve alignment between CTE offerings and workforce demands. Businesses should better their employer signaling by clarifying the required credentials and skills needed for jobs. And credentialing entities should provide data that can be used to improve program quality—such as attempts to earn credentials, raw scores on credentialing assessments, employee placement, and wages.
In the coming months, the two authoring organizations plan to continue their partnership and add to their research. In the meantime, policymakers and advocates would be wise to give their report—and interactive website—a close look.
SOURCE: “Credentials Matter,” ExcelinEd and Burning Glass Technologies (May 2019).
Early college high schools are those in which students pursue college credits as a requirement for graduation. A new report from American Enterprise Institute (AEI) authors Amy Cummings and Frederick Hess looks at the early college model built by the leaders of The 21st Century Charter School at Gary (21C) in Indiana, finding it unique, important, and worthy of replication. But the report raises questions.
It is probably fitting that what’s considered to be the pivotal breakthrough in building 21C’s early college model was a fluke. The leader of the Indiana charter school was trying to show a student who was bright but felt adrift in high school that he was “college material” and should persevere rather than drop out. In doing so, the leader discovered that the nearby community college had only one requirement for admission: passage of the ACCUPLACER assessment. No age limit, no prerequisite courses, no high school diploma. That student was the first at 21C shown to be “college material” after easily passing the test. Shortly thereafter, the leader decided to have every eighth grader at the K-12 school follow in his footsteps and take the test. Those who passed would begin college courses the following year.
That was back in 2010, and the program has evolved steadily over the years. Unlike most early college high schools, 21C is not located on a college campus. But school leaders still wanted their students—83.5 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and most of whom would be the first in their families to go to college—to have the fullest possible experience of higher education. So the school decided to provide transportation for all the students taking college courses to and from campus every day—a huge and important commitment which required hundreds of thousands of dollars in startup funding and a complete revamping of the high school schedule, not to mention getting parents and students on board with it.
Even more impressive is the expansive menu of courses that students are allowed to choose from. They can attend any of four institutions in the area, including four-year colleges, such as Vincennes and Purdue, with very few limits on eligible classes. And all paid for out of the charter school’s budget. Students are offered ongoing counseling and support for their college work. And expectations are high: By 2012, 21C required every student to complete three college credit hours to graduate. By 2018, that number increased to twenty-four—the equivalent of a full year of college. The focus with which 21C has embraced every part of their rapidly-expanding model has even allowed many students to go far above those minimum requirements. For example, during the 2018–19 school year, nine students will earn associate degrees—two years of college—concurrent with their high school diplomas.
21C’s efforts to get students to and through college and on the path to the middle class are generally laudable, but questions arise in the form of a table of data provided by Cummings and Hess in the report. Those data show that 21C’s youngest students—grades three through eight—perform better on Indiana’s state math and English language arts tests than their Gary district peers. However, the overall passing rates for those youngsters are still very low, especially in math. Come the tenth grade tests in both subjects, 21C’s overall passing rates nearly flatline and fall well below those of Gary district students. In any other school—district or charter—those test scores would be extremely concerning.
So what to make of the dissonance between the low achievement of 21C students, on the one hand, and the loads of college credits they are clearly earning, on the other? It’s hard to say. Perhaps the hyper-focus on college means a shift in student attitudes. If kids are gunning for an associate degree starting in ninth grade, maybe tenth grade math tests just don’t matter. Perhaps Indiana’s changing graduation requirements—which will make the tenth grade tests optional for graduation starting in 2019–20—have something to do with those low numbers at 21C. Or perhaps the ACCUPLACER assessment and the college coursework taken by most students are actually below the level of even the tenth grade tests. To be clear, the leaders of 21C are not responsible for ACCUPLACER’s level of rigor or for the admissions criteria adopted by any of the colleges with which they work. They have built their early college model using the raw materials at hand.
However it’s happening, the AEI report makes clear that 21C students are succeeding at earning college credit. Early, quickly, and free of charge. The good folks at The 21st Century Charter School at Gary have taken tremendous positive steps for their students and are seeing some notable wins. But the very first key point made by the AEI authors is the most important: It is far too early to tell if this model actually “works.” They are right; the evidence at hand leaves more questions than answers.
SOURCE: Amy Cummings and Frederick M. Hess, “’A Small School with Big Chances’: The 21st Century charter school at Gary,” AEI (May 2019).
Editor’s Note: Back in September 2018, awaiting the election of our next governor, we at the Fordham Institute began developing a set of policy proposals that we believe can lead to increased achievement and greater opportunities for Ohio students. This is one of those policy proposals.
With Mike DeWine sworn in as Ohio’s 70th governor, and with his administration now well underway, we are proud to roll out the full set of our education policy proposals. You can download the full document, titled Fulfilling the Readiness Promise: Twenty-five education policy ideas for Ohio, at this link, or you can access the individual policy proposals from the links provided here.
Proposal: Streamline Ohio’s school report cards by repealing several redundant, confusing, or problematic ratings such as the Indicators Met, 5-Year Graduation Rate, and K–3 Literacy components. Ohio should also create a better balance between the achievement and growth-based metrics by placing a stronger emphasis on growth in the overall rating formula. As the state makes changes, key features of the present report card should be preserved, including—most critically—the A–F grading system and the overall school rating.
Background: For the past fifteen years, Ohio has released report cards that offer an objective overview of district and school performance. Report cards serve several purposes: parents use them to inform decisions about which schools their children will attend, while communities and policy makers rely on them to identify schools deserving greater investment or those needing significant improvements. Today, Ohio’s report cards are superior to those deployed in the early 2000s. They use intuitive A–F school ratings and incorporate multiple academic measures, including indicators of both student achievement and growth. Yet two key problems limit their utility. First, they place too much weight on achievement or “status” measures (for example, proficiency or graduation rates), which tend to correlate with pupil backgrounds; in turn, they underemphasize measures of student growth that account for students’ prior achievement and are thus better gauges of school effectiveness. The result is a system that has blanketed high-poverty schools with D’s and F’s, including those where children are making solid learning gains. Second, the report cards have grown too long, complex, and difficult to comprehend. Some contain as many as fourteen separate A–F ratings, with little indication about which ones users should focus on. The overall A–F school grade—released for the first time in September 2018—improves public understanding, but the array of school ratings that undergird the overall rating is still likely to lead to much confusion.
Proposal rationale: For parents, communities, and policy makers, school report cards remain critical checks on institutional (and pupil) performance. Ohio needs to maintain a robust school report card that includes transparent ratings—and rebuff efforts to weaken it, as a legislative proposal in the last General Assembly sought to do. Introduced in 2018, House Bill 591 would remove A–F ratings and instead transition the state to an even more complicated “data dashboard” system. To enhance their value to Ohioans, report cards should be decluttered and simplified. A stronger emphasis on student growth would also provide a clearer picture of school effectiveness, a view of educational quality that is particularly crucial when gauging the performance of Ohio’s high-poverty schools that typically struggle on achievement-based metrics due in large part to factors outside their control.
Cost: No fiscal impact on the state budget.
Resources: For an analysis of Ohio school report cards, see Aaron Churchill’s report Back to the Basics: A Plan to Simplify and Balance Ohio’s School Report Cards, published by the Fordham Institute in 2017; for discussion on research related to accountability, see David Figlio and Susanna Loeb’s chapter in Handbook in Economics of Education, Volume 3 (2011) entitled “School Accountability”; for an overview of other states’ grading systems, see Brandon Wright and Michael Petrilli’s report Rating the Ratings: An Analysis of the 51 ESSA Accountability Plans, published by the Fordham Institute (2017); and for detailed information about Ohio’s report cards, see ODE’s “Report Card Resources.” For rigorous research connecting A–F ratings with improved achievement, see the 2007 National Bureau of Economic Research paper “Feeling the Florida Heat? How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure” by Cecilia Rouse and colleagues and the 2008 National Bureau of Economic Research paper “Short Run Impacts of Accountability on School Quality” by Jonah Rockoff and Lesley Turner.
Editor’s Note: Back in September 2018, awaiting the election of our next governor, we at the Fordham Institute began developing a set of policy proposals that we believe can lead to increased achievement and greater opportunities for Ohio students. This is one of those policy proposals.
With Mike DeWine sworn in as Ohio’s 70th governor, and with his administration now well underway, we are proud to roll out the full set of our education policy proposals. You can download the full document, titled Fulfilling the Readiness Promise: Twenty-five education policy ideas for Ohio, at this link, or you can access the individual policy proposals from the links provided here.
Proposal: Require all Ohio school districts to participate in interdistrict open enrollment. This would require a change in state law that currently allows local school boards to prohibit open enrollment entirely (ORC 3313.98). However, current rules allowing districts to limit open enrollees based on schools’ capacity should be maintained.
Background: Since 1989, Ohio has allowed districts to admit students who live outside their geographic boundaries via interdistrict open enrollment. But district participation is voluntary; that is, each district decides for itself whether to accept nonresident pupils. Today, roughly four in five Buckeye districts participate in this choice program, which enables nearly 80,000 students to attend schools outside their districts. Students may choose to open enroll for any number of reasons, including access to special academic or extracurricular programs, closer proximity to their homes, or the ability to go to class with close friends. Research also indicates that students benefit academically when open enrolling over multiple years—and the gains are greatest for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Yet more than one hundred Ohio districts forbid open enrollment—with most such districts located in suburban areas surrounding the state’s big cities (figure 2). This is a very cramped view of “public education,” and it removes quality school options for tens of thousands of needy children just because of their home addresses.
Figure 1: Ohio school districts by their participation in open enrollment, 2013-14
Proposal rationale: Although many parents are satisfied with their home districts—and many choose them intentionally via where they purchase or rent their homes—others have children who would benefit from attending a different school. For these families, public schools outside of their district of residence should be accessible. Requiring statewide district participation in open enrollment, as twenty-three other states do, would ensure that all Ohio families have opportunities to enroll their children in the schools that are best for them.
Cost: No significant impact on the state budget.
Resources: For an analysis of academic impacts on open enrollees, see Deven Carlson and Stéphane Lavertu’s report Interdistrict Open Enrollment in Ohio: Participation and Student Outcomes, published by the Fordham Institute (2017). The map displayed above also comes from that report (p. 12). For more on other states’ open-enrollment policies, see the National Center for Education Statistics’ “Numbers and types of open enrollment policies, by state: 2017.” Detailed information about Ohio’s interdistrict open-enrollment policies can be found at the ODE’s web page “Open Enrollment: Overview and Explanation,” and a list of participating districts is also at the ODE’s website, under “Open Enrollment.”
NOTES: On Thursday, May 16, 2019, the CEO of Lorain City Schools testified before the Ohio Senate Finance Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education on HB 166, the next biennial state budget. Lorain City Schools is one of three school districts in the state operating under the aegis of an Academic Distress Commission (ADC), an accountability measure which HB 166, in its current form, would end. Thursday was the first time lawmakers heard testimony from those whose job it is to carry out the day-to-day work of turning around a district via an ADC/CEO model. The following is based upon Mr. Hardy’s written testimony. Supplemental materials that accompanied Mr. Hardy’s testimony, along with testimony from other district parents and staff members who appeared on May 16, can be found here.
The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.
I humbly come to Lorain as an anomaly; my own demographics and disposition are statistically more likely to represent one who has and lives in poverty on either side of the bars in a jail cell—enslaved mentally and physically by a system that has yet to be just for people like me. However, I’m a lucky one; one that has more degrees than convictions and letters after my name rather than numbers. One that is not from a very proud Lorain, a Lorain with rich history, tremendous people, many unheard voices, nor its local politics.
You have heard from those associated with the former governance structure and I am sure you heard the narrative for the perceived devastation that has supposedly been created by an ineffective governing structure, the ADC, and the chosen leadership of the district, namely me.
What you have not heard to this point are a few different perspectives. Mostly, because I aligned with the brilliance associated with Eleanor Roosevelt when she stated that great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people. Even though I am far from a great mind, I strive to improve every day, because the kids of Lorain deserve more people like the ones you see around you, who work to eradicate their education experience of the incestual corruption that has governed their district for decades and has limited their ability to be successful upon entering the real world.
I am moving out of my normal leadership style today because of the narrative you heard is coming from elected officials and the former governance of Lorain City Schools that has carried less than 3% of the Lorain community’s vote. Largely because I want to speak for those who are afraid to speak out against the establishment or who do not see that there will be any benefit in doing so. However, the idea of living in fear of retaliation or worse—another generation of young people left uneducated, referred to as n-words, commented about because of their body parts, exploited for their athletic abilities and then left for the streets, and the complete disregard for their future needs to stop.
I rarely, if ever, directly respond to criticism from angry individuals who have suffered the feeling of accountability and the lack of power to wield their continued oppression on young people and the people who care deeply about educating them.
I rarely, if ever, directly respond because the travesty of educational neglect has taken the lives of too many and has suffocated so many more from the very promise our education system is supposed to provide. However, the weight of your decision and the impact of your collective voices will shape the future of cities like Lorain in Ohio; cities in Mississippi, California and states that are watching legislatures decide governance structures for schools systems of our most precious beings, our children. The idea of making a decision that could impact the country is no small feat and I hope that the words you hear today land with an understanding of the respect I have for you and the significance of the legislation that will have your blessing. Legislation that could truly put our children first in a space where adult, privileged agendas are deemed superior to that of our most vulnerable people. The comprehensive transformation that is needed is so vast that the very work that has not been done needed immediate and uninterrupted attention. I would compare the work that is necessary to that of someone who is brought into an emergency room, bloodied, with multiple open wounds that are so deep and unfortunately unattended that without immediate medical attention 24 hours a day, seven days a week, death becomes the only option. Except in this example as extended to Lorain’s circumstances has historically had leadership who does not want to fix the open wound, because it is more profitable to let the child bleed to the end of its own misery.
I rarely, if ever, directly respond because the focus has and will be on closing this open wound and eventually helping each child to reach their full potential the past 20 months. However, to do so, we must recognize that 1 out of 4 children reading on grade level by third grade is not acceptable; that 900 failing grades from one grade level alone is unacceptable; that 1% of a graduating class being deemed college or career ready—as it is in Lorain—is criminal and all of our time and energy must be allocated to create a culture that acts on these problems is the primary work. So please pardon our team for keeping our heads down on what is important.
However, this work, albeit time consuming, has left little time or energy to be political and cater to the powers who have neglected our children, misspent millions of dollars on duplicative services, and want nothing more than control of the purse strings of the largest budget in a dying city economy. Rightfully so. So much so, I will speak of the ills in previous governance structures for a minute more. Because the people you see around me are here because they are tired of the oppression that suffocates our community. Today is the day to hear from those who are most impacted by the possibility of changes in governance. Today is the day for the full story to be heard.
Those who have lost their duties to govern our district have colluded to keep a community at bay. Through the PowerPoint in front of you, you see the inner workings of a power structure that links individuals based on deep political guarantees, lies, and bullying that has compromised so many people.
People would rather share their voice in the grocery store, bakery, or at church, or through an email pleading with me not to share their name, than to face the wrath of their local politician and the three percent that has elected them to continue the disservice to a community that wants so much more than what it is able to produce in a town that is free of jobs and justice—absent of honesty—and who believe that the way to future prosperity is through educating its young people to be ready for a workforce that has growing needs across our state.
I think it is fair to say that no child should graduate from high school where 1 percent of its kids are deemed college ready when they are so much more brilliant than this; no child should be labeled incapable of learning and educated to the lowest denominator. No child of ours would make it to fourth grade with only one out of four of their classmates reading in grade level; nor would we want the adults who serve a community where our child attends school to talk about anything else until these realities are no longer existent. Somehow, and knowing the brilliance that sits in front of me in deep thought, commitment to servitude to its people, and soulful morality for thy neighbor you sit, realizing that the idea of reversing course on progress only satisfies the well-being of adults and again sacrifices the well-being of its future. The imperfections of legislation cannot be fixed by more legislation, but by the morality and just cause built into the policy that is investing in the future well-being of the people it serves.
Anything less would be catering to a voice of resentment for change rather than the voice of reason and progress.
Progress that is beginning to take hold. This year alone, we will have a 54% increase in the number of scholars who will graduate high school with an associates’ degree and the highest enrollment in our Early College Programming beginning in 9th grade in the history of our district. We have gone from 3 schools with Pre-K programming to 10 schools with 5-star-rated Pre-K programs. We moved out of financial caution and have a fund balance that remains steady and a budgetary process that is solvent after eliminating a $700,000 debt that was handed to me on the first 30 days of my job, along with millions of dollars allocated to multiple lawyers every year. This all accomplished in the short, 20 month tenure of our administration after 20 years of mismanagement and disregard for children.
Here is my ask:
There is a reason we are where we are in communities like Lorain and all across the country. Changing course now would do nothing more than create more, real chaos, significant dysfunction greater than what we inherited, and would derail all progress for kids and the community that has their future deep in their hearts and minds.
I truly tip my hat to you and the weight of the decisions you are set to make for the state of Ohio and its future, and its children. This is no is easy task. The idea of state intervention on local communities is significant, but I would argue in this case it is imperative and more importantly it’s your duty. The lives of 6,500 young people are at stake and the lives of future Ohioans will pay the price if local politics are the victor over its people and their children’s progress.
David Hardy, Jr., is CEO of Lorain City Schools.
