The House has passed its version of the state budget, and its K-12 education provisions run the gamut from good to bad to even worse. We look at some marquee examples of each.
Last week, House lawmakers passed their version of Ohio’s biennial budget. As usual, the measure contains billions of dollars in appropriations and nearly as many policy changes. In K–12 education, the chamber’s headline proposal dealt with the school funding formula—for our take on that issue, see Fordham’s analysis and testimony—but the House budget also touches on many other areas of education policy. Here’s our analysis of seven key provisions that run the gamut of good, bad, and ugly. Some have attracted little attention but deserve scrutiny as lawmakers put finishing touches on the budget.
The good
1. The House slimmed down the State Board of Education from nineteen members to five, all of whom would be gubernatorial appointees (currently, eleven are elected and eight are appointed). The last General Assembly reduced the powers of the board and transferred authority over policy implementation to the governor and the Department of Education and Workforce (DEW). Yet the board still handles educator licensing, evaluation, and misconduct policy—all areas that matter for Ohio schools and students. Even when it had greater responsibility, the state board was much too large to function well. Especially now with lighter duties, reducing the number of cooks in the kitchen makes sense. Fewer members, particularly with better-aligned views, could also reverse years of bureaucratic ineptitude and strengthen board oversight of key educator policies.
2. The House also put forward an intriguing proposal—drawing almost no attention—that could improve education research in Ohio. It calls on the chancellor of higher education to collaborate with DEW and other entities to create a consortium that would develop a statewide research agenda to tackle “real-world issues of direct relevance to the state’s social, economic, and civic well-being.” Based on this agenda, the chancellor would award competitive research grants, up to $10,000 per project, to college faculty and doctoral students. It further requires the chancellor to disseminate research findings via multiple media, including policy briefs and presentations to the General Assembly. The lack of quality research in these vital areas hobbles policymaking in Ohio, and this initiative could be a step forward.
The bad
3. The House’s major new initiative on educational choice is a headscratcher. Instead of bolstering interdistrict open enrollment, public charter and STEM schools, and existing private-school scholarship programs, House members opted to create an educational savings account (ESA) program for students attending nonchartered, nonpublic schools. For those unaware, this refers to lightly regulated private schools that—because they choose not to be “chartered” by the state—cannot participate in the EdChoice scholarship program. The initiative is highly detailed, but its bottom line is spending a lot of money—the ESA is worth 75 percent of the EdChoice amounts—to cover students who attend such schools. It’s one thing for nonchartered, nonpublic schools to be free to operate and serve students, but spending taxpayer funds in their support is questionable, as they have elected not to accept state oversight and accountability. The House would have been wiser to increase the existing tax credit for families choosing this option—while boosting the choice programs that incorporate reasonable oversight and quality control—rather than creating a new, complicated, and potentially expensive ESA program.
4. Also dubious—and maybe impossible—is a new House proposal requiring DEW to create a system to compare private-school scholarship students’ performance with public school students. While such data are worth having, actual comparisons will be extremely difficult, given that scholarship students are not required to take state exams. Because private schools are presently allowed to administer alternative tests, their pupils’ results won’t be comparable to public school students taking state exams.
The ugly
5. The House scrapped Governor DeWine’s proposal that schools use a standard, universal screener to identify reading and math deficiencies in grades K–3. The governor’s plan is a big step forward in catching learning struggles early, rather than letting them fester and go unaddressed. In reading, the hodgepodge of assessments that schools are currently allowed to use leads to misidentifying students as being “on track.” As for math, Ohio currently has no early-grade screening requirement, meaning parents have no assurance that schools do anything even to identify children struggling with the math basics, much less to rectify that condition. The governor’s budget would bring greater rigor and uniformity to the reading screener while filling a huge void in math. Unfortunately, the House dumped this proposal.
6. The House also removed the governor’s proposal to overhaul the industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) framework used for high school graduation. Likely in response to data indicating that schools are inappropriately pushing students to collect low-quality IRCs to meet graduation requirements, Governor DeWine proposed a thoughtful revamp. This would do much to boost rigor in the career-technical pathway and curtail the “gaming” of graduation requirements. But again, the House shot down this proposal.
7. House lawmakers ditched provisions that would give charter schools more access to vacant or underutilized district buildings. The governor’s budget wisely rewrote existing laws that—due to weak language—have allowed districts such as Columbus to avoid selling or leasing underused buildings to charters. But the House, appearing to bow to anti-charter pressure from the public-school establishment, removed these changes. If they aren’t restored, districts will continue to play keep-away games with their underused (and taxpayer-funded) facilities, leaving students and families with fewer high-quality school options.
Despite some bright spots, the House education plan is mostly a letdown. Lawmakers picked apart constructive proposals put forward by Governor DeWine while doing little themselves to advance student-centered policies that help boost achievement in Ohio. The budget still has a long way to go, and with any luck, the final product will look much different than the disappointing House plan.
Governor DeWine first announced his interest in principal apprenticeship during his 2024 state of the state address. He rightly noted that principals are “vitally important to a school’s success” and that they “create the conditions” for students and staff to thrive. Soon after, he directed the Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) to create a principal apprenticeship program to bolster the state’s pipeline of school leaders. Like Ohio’s teacher apprenticeship program, it would provide aspiring school leaders with the opportunity to “watch veteran principals in action, through hands-on, in-school training that will better prepare them for the challenges of the job.”
In July, lawmakers signaled their support by passing Senate Bill 168, which called on DEW to develop and recommend a proposal for a principal apprenticeship program. By November, DEW was seeking feedback on its framework. And in February, when DeWine unveiled his budget recommendations, they included a requirement for DEW to establish a principal apprenticeship program. The program must provide “multiple pathways” for individuals to receive training and development in school leadership and administration, as well as the option to obtain a master’s degree. Licensed educators who are employed as teachers in public or chartered non-public schools and professionals who work outside education will be able to participate. They must be mentored by a school principal and complete on-site job training while on their way to a professional administrator license.
When House lawmakers released their version of the budget in early April, most of these provisions remained intact. But there was one big change, and it could easily impact the future success of the program. In his budget, DeWine proposed funding the program with an earmark of $5 million for each fiscal year. The House, however, eliminated the money. Instead, they shifted all costs to schools.
Without state support, it’s unlikely that schools will on-board principal apprentices. To be considered an apprenticeship, programs must offer paid, on-the-job learning experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor, job-related classroom training, and the chance to earn an industry-recognized credential. But doing so will require time, resources, and manpower—and that means money. Many schools are already hesitant to forgo the status quo in favor of innovation like an apprenticeship program. Placing the entire cost of the program at the feet of schools is not likely to incentivize participation.
It’s not just operational costs that schools would have to swallow. Paying apprentices for their work requires additional funds, too. And spending those dollars is non-negotiable. An apprenticeship isn’t an apprenticeship unless the trainee is being paid. If the state was helping schools cover operational and training costs, as DeWine’s budget recommended, then asking schools to pay apprentice stipends or salaries would be more than fair. But lawmakers in the House placed the entire fiscal burden on schools. That significantly decreases the likelihood they’ll participate.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In 2023, North Dakota became the first state to receive approval to include principals among federally-supported registered apprenticeship programs. While crafting Ohio’s framework, DEW officials spoke to leaders there, who likely told them that North Dakota established a grant that awards funds to preparation providers willing to meet state requirements. Those requirements include a written final report that provides participant progress data, an overall evaluation of program effectiveness, and recommendations for improvements. These findings could be instrumental to bolstering the principal pipeline in North Dakota. By eliminating DeWine’s proposed funding, House lawmakers have eliminated Ohio’s opportunity to do the same.
Over the last few years, apprenticeships have become an increasingly popular solution for school staffing shortages. Under DeWine’s proposed budget, Ohio was poised to join the ranks of states that are helping their schools implement innovative talent pipeline solutions. The House’s budget, however, significantly diminishes the likelihood that Ohio’s principal apprenticeship program will be successful. For the sake of students and schools, here’s hoping the Senate restores the funding set-aside.
Via the state budget process, House lawmakers this week proposed putting the brakes on the Cupp-Patterson plan, the state’s school funding formula. Facing an out-of-reach price tag and questions from House leadership on its sustainability, the chamber rebuffed calls by school groups to update the formula “inputs”, which have ballooned in recent years thanks to the Biden-era inflation burst. Instead, it proposed a “bridge” plan that gives every district and charter school what they receive this year in state aid—through a big old guarantee—plus a bit more.
Leaving behind Cupp-Patterson is a sensible move, given its structural problems and unsustainable costs. But the House didn’t get everything right. Disappointingly, its plan undermines a commendable push by Governor DeWine to slim down funding for districts with declining enrollments. The lower chamber also missed an opportunity to fix a glaring problem in the funding system—the method that the state uses to fund low-income students. Overall, while the House took a step towards fiscal sanity, lawmakers still have work ahead to ensure its proposal serves as a suitable bridge toward a better funding system for Ohio schools and students.
The big picture
Table 1 shows funding projections under the House plan. Traditional districts receive a boost of $179 million from current year funding through FY27—a 2.2 percent increase—while charter support rises by $80 million, or 6.3 percent.[1] Joint vocational school district (JVSD) funding increases $38 million or 7.6 percent over the biennium. In total, public schools on average receive a 3 percent increase in state foundation funding.
Table 1: Foundation funding increases under the House funding plan
Compared to the DeWine school funding proposal, the House plan calls for a bigger overall increase ($297 versus $149 million from FY25 to FY27). But as the table above indicates, they did shift some money around. Their budget dials back the gains that charters and JVSDs—sectors with growing enrollments—would have received under the governor’s proposal and instead puts more dollars into a traditional district sector. The mechanics are complex,[2] but the House essentially caps the funding increases that some districts and nearly all charters receive under the DeWine plan and uses those “savings” to help pay for a guarantee that insulates districts from reductions otherwise prescribed under the formula. In other words, there was some robbing of Peter to pay Paul to ensure that all districts come out as “winners.”
Looking forward
Where does this leave us? Three thoughts.
First, with the governor and House showing little enthusiasm for Cupp-Patterson, it feels more and more like its days are numbered. The plan’s Achilles’ heel has always been its price tag and the question of how lawmakers would cover its costs during a budget crunch or a spate of high inflation, as the country recently experienced. Now with formula prescriptions spiraling out of control, Ohio seems to be heading back to a system in which schools are funded—at least in the near-term—via a patchwork of caps and guarantees.
Second, rather than reinforcing the governor’s push to stop funding “empty desks,” the House took the politically easier route of propping up districts that are shedding enrollment. As Table 2 shows, even districts losing significant enrollments receive funding bumps under the House plan. For instance, East Cleveland receives an uptick (albeit small), despite its freefall in enrollment. Statewide, districts lost 2.5 percent of enrollment over the past three years, yet the House gives them a funding increase of 2.2 percent. As the budget heads to the Senate, the upper chamber should consider removing some dollars from districts losing students and redirecting them to schools more in need of state aid, including charters whose enrollments are on the up.
Table 2: Funding estimates for districts with the largest enrollment losses from FY222 to FY25
Third, despite being well-informed of the problem and offered a solution, the House did not address a critically flawed element of the funding system: disadvantaged pupil impact aid (DPIA). As discussed on this blog many times before, the way Ohio currently funds low-income students is a mess. Due to artificially inflated “economically disadvantaged” rates—resulting from changes in federal school meals policy—the state no longer effectively targets DPIA to high-poverty schools. This misallocates state dollars and draws resources away from students who most need the supplemental aid.
The fix is direct certification, a process that more accurately identifies low-income students (and is already used by the state). Using these numbers to drive DPIA to schools (instead of meals-based disadvantaged rates) would significantly improve the allocation of funds. And in the context of this year’s budget, such a change would help correct an imbalance in the increases of low- and high-poverty districts. Under the House plan, wealthy suburban districts receive bigger increases than the high-poverty Ohio Eight urban districts (4.9 to 1.3 percent). The reason isn’t necessarily favoritism—suburban districts tend to have growing enrollments—but the discrepancy is still concerning. Shifting DPIA to direct certification—something the Senate should do—would boost funding for the Ohio Eight districts, and move their increases closer to parity with their suburban counterparts.
Figure 1: Change in funding under the House plan, FY25–27
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House lawmakers were clearly trying to navigate complicated political and budgetary concerns. In the end, they landed somewhere in the middle on school funding. On the one hand, they took the fiscally prudent step of clipping the wings of Cupp-Patterson. On the other, they failed to make urgently needed structural changes to the way Ohio funds education. As lawmakers finalize the budget, they should keep their sights on this basic principle: Education dollars fund students, not the needs of systems.
[1] Within the charter sector, e-schools receive bigger increases than brick-and-mortars (10.0 versus 5.1 percent), likely reflecting the House’s extension of DPIA funding to e-schools.
[2] The DeWine plan continues using Cupp-Patterson (fully phased in), but does not include an input update. The House plan likewise continues to use Cupp-Patterson calculations but puts a cap on prescribed funding increases—schools receive just half the increase above FY25—while also adding a guarantee based on FY25 funding levels that buoys districts that would otherwise lose money under a non-updated formula.
Can a parent-education initiative help a school district to boost the readiness of three-year-olds who will soon enter pre-K? One Texas district has been implementing such a program for almost a decade, and a new working paper documents outcomes that are both promising and problematic.
Alief Independent School District, which serves around 39,000 students outside Houston, created the Jumpstart Program (JSP) as a means of teaching local parents how to support the pre-K readiness of their children. Approximately 83 percent of district families are economically disadvantaged and 43 percent of students are English Language Learners. Topics covered in the twenty-two-week JSP curriculum include learning colors, acquiring fine motor skills, counting, name recognition, and book handling, all of which are considered foundational for success in Alief’s pre-K program. The hour-long communal programs are held in district buildings during the school day three times each month throughout the school year. They are facilitated by a family liaison and, although they focus on parent education, children attend every third meeting to allow liaisons to gauge how the curriculum is being implemented by parents.
Compared to other early education interventions reviewed by the research team elsewhere, JSP is low-cost, as it uses existing district resources rather than purchasing outside curriculum or contracting with third-party providers. It is also directly applicable to local needs and readily scalable. In fact, creating the randomized control trial required a huge boost in participation above the sixty families that typically participate each year. Those added costs (approximately $200 per additional family) were covered by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation for purposes of this study.
Using these new resources, JSP was advertised to families of age-appropriate children in the catchment zones of all twenty-four Alief elementary schools, up from the previous eight, starting in 2016–17 and continuing for the next two school years. The intent was to get twenty families in each school zone to apply to the lottery so that researchers could implement a randomized control trial. In practice, there was varying interest from school to school, despite recruitment incentives. Some schools had more than twenty applicants, some had less, and the effort never resulted in a full complement of 480 families applying. Further, 25 percent of families awarded spots in JSP attended five or fewer sessions, and 10 percent never attended a single session, although attrition rates did decline from year to year. Cumulatively over the three years, 1,216 families entered the lottery, with half from each school randomly assigned to JSP (treatment) and half assigned to control.
All students whose parents agreed to be in the study (treatment and control) were evaluated using Alief’s own “Jumpstart Assessment Tool”—geared to determine children’s fine and gross motor skills, knowledge of colors, and a few other foundational skills identified by the district—as well as Pearson’s Bracken School Readiness Assessment, which adds number and shape knowledge, among other skills. Each test was re-administered at the end of the twenty-two-week program. Researchers then compared scores on the overall tests, as well as for individual components.
On the Jumpstart Assessment, both groups showed test score gains over the twenty-two-week period—meaning that while control group student didn’t receive the district’s programming, some substantive learning was going on—but the treatment group showed a 7.2 percentage point advantage over their control group peers. Scores on the name recognition and book handling components were most striking. For example, less than half of control group children could recognize their name in writing during the post-test, while nearly 70 percent of the treatment group could do so. Impacts of JSP participation were markedly higher for children whose parents reported not having a high school diploma.
Similar patterns were seen on the Bracken Assessment, although the gains shown by both control and treatment groups were more muted. JSP participation increased overall Bracken test scores by 2 percentage points over the control group, with no one component standing out. However, robustness tests indicate that the Bracken findings are not statistically significant after student attrition is factored in.
Interestingly, indicators of parental involvement in children’s education (measured by surveys administered before and after the 22-week timeframe) rose for both groups, although two of those indicators—amount of time parents read to their children each week and owning ten or more children’s books—were significantly higher for JSP families than for control families. A detailed analysis of potential mechanisms indicates that 75 percent of the program’s impact is attributed to direct effects—parents actually implementing the strategies that JSP teaches—while 25 percent is mediated through changes in habit formation in children. That is, when parents establish and reinforce consistent, high-quality preparatory routines, children assign value to the interactions and activities.
While the impacts of the Jumpstart Program’s pre-K preparation are generally positive, two realities undermine them somewhat—neither of which is discussed in the working paper. First, intensive recruitment efforts were required just to get families in the queue—only to see dozens of them vanish upon the start of actual programming. (Recall that only sixty families were participating annually in the entire 39,000-student district before the research program began.) Perhaps it indicates a lack of value placed on JSP by parents or maybe just difficulty committing to the required dates and times. Whatever is holding parents back from participation in JSP must be addressed before this or similar programs is likely to have substantial impact. Second, we don’t know how any of the students actually fared in pre-K or beyond. Evidence from other early education program studies leans heavily toward a fading out of even the strongest academic impacts by third grade or sooner. So the modest initial improvements associated with JSP need to be studied over time before any real conclusion can be made.
SOURCE: Flavio Cunha et al., “An Evaluation of the Alief Independent School District Jumpstart Program: Using a Model to Recover Mechanisms from an RCT,” NBER Working Papers (March 2025).
In 2022, the first year Samantha Eischen used Amplify CKLA, a reading curriculum based in the Science of Reading, the second-grade teacher at Escuela SMART Academy in Toledo was sold.
Of the school’s thirty-two mostly Spanish-speaking second graders, eleven went on to pass Ohio’s reading proficiency test on the first try in the fall of third grade. Just four students had passed the year before.
Fast-forward to the 2023–24 school year, and almost 43 percent of Escuela students passed the third-grade reading proficiency test. Particularly impressive, the PK–6 public elementary school has received the highest rating—five stars—on the “Progress” component of its Ohio Report Card for the last three years. Its five-star distinction means the school’s nearly 300 students—all of whom are considered economically disadvantaged—are achieving beyond their expected academic growth.
Administrators and teachers aren’t satisfied with students’ reading scores, but they like the direction they’re moving in, especially given that English is a second language for so many of the children.
Maria Bailey, a district literacy support teacher, said Amplify CKLA’s emphasis on phonics and decoding is laying the foundation students need to read well. By the time they leave for the holiday break in December, she said, kindergartners can break apart words and blend sounds—a first step in reading. Teachers “really notice if a student can’t do those things” and can intervene.
Hispanic families flock to Escuela
Situated on the edge of Toledo’s downtown, Escuela was formerly a charter school. Among Hispanic families, the school is seen as a welcoming and nurturing place where their children’s heritage is celebrated, and where language differences are treated as opportunities, not barriers.
The student population is about 75 percent Latino, with most students of Mexican descent. Lessons are taught in English, but non-native Spanish speakers—about 35 percent of the student body—have thirty minutes of Spanish lessons each day, while native Spanish speakers work on perfecting Spanish grammar and expanding their vocabulary.
“We want Spanish kids to learn English,” said Natasha Allen, who is Latina and now in her fourth year as principal at Escuela. “When they leave here, it’s a totally different environment.”
Students must apply to attend the magnet school, and the selection process includes a family interview, though few applicants are turned away if seats are available. A child’s enrollment can be revoked if their family doesn’t attend orientation or parent-teacher conferences.
Students recite the Pledge of Allegiance in English and Spanish, morning announcements are made in both languages, and students’ progress reports to families are written in both English and Spanish. Allen said families appreciate her speaking to them in Spanish. Her students, who constantly stop to hug her, tease her when she slips into “Spanglish.”
She is proud of Escuela’s low staff turnover and attributes it to the school’s familial atmosphere. “Who wants to leave your family?” she remarked.
Eighteen of the school’s forty-three staff members speak Spanish, including a nurse, two secretaries, and several cafeteria employees. Spanish-speaking faculty have given their non-Spanish-speaking colleagues language lessons after school, and the district offered teachers Rosetta Stone® language subscriptions in Spanish.
Two years into using Amplify CKLA, Eischen said she sees a “huge difference” in the reading abilities of her students who were taught using the curriculum in kindergarten and first grade. Now students are coming to her class with stronger foundational skills, and they know CKLA’s practices and drills. “We can move at a quicker pace,” the fourteen-year veteran said.
She particularly appreciates that CKLA gives her “all the resources I need” for remediation, and she likes the knowledge, background, and comprehension components. Her students have tackled topics including ancient China, learning about calligraphy, silk and the Great Wall. In October, they were learning about Greece and the origins of democracy.
When Eischen was using a “balanced literacy” curriculum in her reading classes, students struggled with phonics and phonemic awareness. They were learning to read by memorizing rather than decoding words. “It was very rote and whole-word reading,” she said, and children were often guessing when they didn’t know a word. With the Science of Reading, “They have the skills, they have the strategies,” Eischen said, “to be able to figure it out.”
While her students once favored math over reading, Eischen said it’s now the reverse. In January, Escuela’s forty second graders joined in a reading challenge, and in less than two weeks they cumulatively had read over 300 books.
Initially, Science of Reading practices were a challenge, Eischen said, but now she finds them easier than other methods she has used. She said the emphasis on phonics is particularly critical for ESL students, whose first languages have rules that aren’t the same as in English.
State grants support Toledo’s early implementation of the Science of Reading
Toledo Public Schools’ experience with the Science of Reading dates back to 2017, six years before Gov. Mike DeWine signed a budget bill in July 2023 requiring that Ohio public schools teach reading using the evidence-based approach and dedicating $168 million statewide to the effort.
In 2017, the district received a three-year, nearly $1.2 million Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant from the state, followed by a four-year Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant (CLSD).
Seventeen buildings—not including Escuela, which was still a charter school at the time—participated in the Striving Readers grant. After the Striving Readers grant wrapped up, the district chose five schools, including Escuela, to be model early literacy sites under the CLSD grant. Staff at the schools had to vote to be part of the effort.
Some administrators said Toledo teachers benefited more from the Striving Readers grant, which pulled them and their principals out of school all day four times throughout the year to dig into the Science of Reading practices. Professional development from the CLSD grant was significantly more limited—four two-hour sessions each year, where attendance effectively became optional. Because of a shortage of substitute teachers, the training had to be offered after school. Many teachers couldn’t attend, and those who came were worn out from teaching all day, said Bailey, the literacy coach.
Though formal CLSD professional development was limited, Escuela benefited immensely from having two reading coaches assigned exclusively to the school two days per week as part of the grant. “Embedded coaching was very helpful,” said Tamara Lemle, senior director of early childhood and elementary curriculum and instruction.
As part of that CLSD grant, teachers were required to take before-and-after knowledge tests of early literacy, the results of which showed that teachers at the model sites significantly improved their understanding of evidence-based practices. The documented professional growth, Lemle believes, is driving the improved test results.
While pockets of teachers in the district were learning the Science of Reading principles during the life of the two state grants, it wasn’t until 2022–23 that the district formally adopted reading curricula based on the Science of Reading for all its schools, choosing Amplify CKLA for grades K–2 and SAVVAS myView for grades 3–5.
That transition for the district, as with schools across Ohio, is a work in progress.
“I think the biggest shift was moving to a new curriculum, not so much moving to a curriculum aligned with the Science of Reading,” Lemle said. But, as time has passed, she said, “It’s just becoming what we do.”
Prior to adopting curricula based on the Science of Reading, the district used “balanced literacy” practices that reading experts say fail to give children the foundational skills of reading, particularly by shortchanging them in phonics instruction. In addition, reading instruction wasn’t standardized across the district.
"I wouldn’t say teachers could do whatever they wanted,” said Dr. Amy Allen (no relation to Escuela’s principal), chief of student supports. “But it was possible and very probable that teachers, while they might be teaching the same skill, might be doing it in a variety of ways.” The new curricula are more regimented, she said, and require “more intentionality and a lot more planning.”
Formal Science of Reading transition wraps up this year
To help educators transition to the Science of Reading, Ohio has mandated that by the end of the 2024–25 school year, all PK–12 administrators and teachers complete between eighteen and twenty-two hours of training using online modules created by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
Chief of Student Supports Amy Allen said the modules have been helpful and are well done, but she wishes there had been more flexibility in how large districts were allowed to train teachers in the Science of Reading.
The modules created the perception, Allen said, that teachers need to check a training box rather than become part of a learning community in which they are encouraged to feed off each other’s understanding and experiences. Allen encourages teachers to watch the modules in groups (which some Toledo teachers have done).
Bailey, the literacy coach, said that implementing Science of Reading curricula across a large urban school district (Toledo is Ohio’s fifth-largest school district and has forty-two elementary schools) is infinitely more challenging than introducing the materials in smaller districts where fewer teachers need to be trained and then supported if they’re struggling with new practices. Ensuring that the curricula are being followed to fidelity is also more difficult. In Toledo, that task has been left to building administrators who may not be as steeped in the details of the Science of Reading and the new curricula as reading coaches.
Everyone agrees that one misstep Toledo made was choosing two reading series—one for grades K–2, and a different one for grades 3–5. Each curriculum has its own protocols and comprehension content that is scaffolded, with each year’s lessons building on the previous year’s. The difference in nomenclature used by the two series is confusing for students, slowing their progress in the very year the pressure is on to pass Ohio’s third-grade reading proficiency test.
The district ended up adopting two series because under Toledo’s teachers union contract, curricula choices are made by teams of evaluators. The K–2 team chose Amplify CKLA, while the grades 3–5 team chose SAVVAS myView.
Natasha Allen, Escuela’s principal, acknowledged that having the two curricula is not ideal but said she and her teachers have adapted.
Students tackle advanced topics
Formerly a student teacher at Escuela, Liliana Barrera-Roman, who is bilingual, teaches third graders. She shares in the enthusiasm for the Science of Reading.
On a January day, she walked her students through a lesson explaining symbiotic relationships between animals that have seemingly unlikely “weird friendships.” The students looked for text evidence of answers to questions and referenced annotations.
Barrera-Roman, who is in her third year of teaching, was not trained in the Science of Reading during college. She appreciates how the Science of Reading braids instruction of phonics, comprehension, vocabulary and fluency.
She and the school’s other third-grade teacher have divided students into two reading groups, with Barrera-Roman assisting those who have not yet acquired a command of English. (Of her eighteen students, five are new to the country.) Once an ESL student herself, Barrera-Roman fluidly moves back and forth between English and Spanish if students are struggling with directions, ensuring no child is missing out. Lessons that are supposed to take one week might take two, she said, but her focus is on mastery, especially around phonics and vocabulary.
When it comes to adopting the Science of Reading, Escuela has been “a community of learners,” said Dr. Amy Allen, Toledo’s chief of student supports, “They (the teachers) have a growth mindset. …They’re all in. They’re invested.”
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 Dr. Amy Allen and Tamara Lemle of Toledo Public Schools for their leadership and support coordinating 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
NOTES: Today, the Ohio House Finance Committee heard testimony on House Bill 96, the next biennial budget. Fordham’s Vice President for Ohio Policy provided this written testimony on a number of education provisions in the as-introduced version of the bill. However, a substitute version of the bill was released after this testimony was filed and supplemental testimony was required.
For too long, our education system has struggled to meet the urgent demands of the 21st century. The stakes are high. This committee is doing far more—as you know—than merely adjusting spreadsheets. Your decisions will directly impact how prepared Ohio’s children will be to thrive in a world that is growing more competitive, less forgiving, and more dependent on knowledge and skill.
Let me begin with a central, if often overlooked, point: funding formulas should serve students, not institutions. The current model—well-intentioned though it may have been—continues to spiral in cost, largely because it allows outside forces, including local and federal funding outside of the formula, to influence the pace of spending. This is no way to run a railroad, much less a statewide education system. The legislature, not the federal government or local districts, must reclaim the authority to determine how—and how much—we invest in public education. We recommend increasing the base cost by 1.5 percent annually in FY26 and FY27. This increase is not only reasonable but essential as it both recognizes increased costs and avoids what is likely an unsustainable financial trajectory.
On the matter of Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA), the current approach is bordering on the absurd. When one-third of the students deemed “economically disadvantaged” aren’t because of quirks in a federal meals program, the term loses meaning—and with it, the ability to target resources where they are most needed. “Direct certification” offers a more accurate and honest count of truly low-income children. We should make this shift and increase the DPIA base amount from $422 to $775. Let’s send more dollars to where student need is greatest.
Then there’s the issue of guarantees—a euphemism, frankly, for handing out money to districts that are losing students or growing wealthier. Governor DeWine has proposed a prudent phase-out, and I would urge you to go further. Reducing guarantee bases to 90 percent in FY26 and 80 percent in FY27, and eliminating “supplemental targeted assistance,” would send a clear message: taxpayer dollars must follow students, not prop up outdated structures.
None of these recommendations are radical. In fact, they are modest in fiscal terms—$53 million more in FY26 and $127 million in FY27 than the governor’s proposal. But they represent a major step forward in policy coherence and fiscal discipline; and most importantly, they help ensure dollars go to where the students are and the needs greatest.
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Let’s talk briefly about school choice. Ohio has made admirable progress on this front, but much work remains. Charter schools—which are public schools, let us remember—continue to operate with one financial hand tied behind their backs. Boosting the facilities allowance to $1,500 per pupil helps rectify that inequity. So does giving these schools actual access to the district buildings that sit vacant year after year, despite being paid for by taxpayers.
The governor’s plan to codify the high-quality charter school program, and to maintain rigorous criteria for participation, deserves your enthusiastic support. We further recommend rolling these funding streams into the main K–12 budget to protect them from future whims and vetoes.
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Now, a word on career readiness, a topic that Ohio is rightly paying more attention to. The governor’s recommended restructuring of industry-recognized credentials is long overdue. Our system is too often incentivizing students earning low-level certifications that do little to prepare them for the real world. We also need to continue to resist the temptation to lower standards. Letting students earn a foundational element toward graduation based on 250 hours of work-based learning—without mastery of academic content—is a recipe for underemployment and disillusionment. This should be removed from the as-introduced version of the budget.
By contrast, we strongly recommend requiring a career exploration course in middle school. Too many adolescents are being left to drift. They need structured opportunities to discover their aptitudes and understand the pathways available to them, so they can have a meaningful high school experience.
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We also applaud the governor’s push for improved literacy and numeracy. A universal screener in K–3 is not bureaucratic overreach—it’s common sense. Too many children fall behind before anyone notices. The same is true in math, where a lack of transparency in curricula leaves us flying blind. Require districts to report what they’re using. Better still, publish a list of high-quality options, and make it easier for districts to identify the best math curricula on the market.
And if we are serious about STEM preparation—and we should be—then automatic placement of high-achieving students into eighth-grade Algebra I is a sensible and prudent course of action. We have, for too long, left talent on the table, especially among low-income and minority students.
Lastly, no education system can function well without sound personnel data and clear-eyed staffing decisions. The call to collect vacancy data is long overdue. It’s an important first step in understanding the scope and nature of staffing challenges across Ohio. And school leaders must be free to assign teachers based on what’s best for students—as the governor proposed—not outdated tenure systems that prize seniority over skill.
Members of the committee, I urge you to embrace not just the letter of these reforms but the spirit behind them: that education should be about learning, not systems; about students, not politics; and about the future, not the past.
Let us have the courage to break with tradition when tradition fails our children—and to build an education system worthy of their potential.
Thank you.
NOTES: Today, the Ohio House Finance Committee heard testimony on House Bill 96, the next biennial budget. Fordham’s Vice President for Ohio Policy provided written testimony on a number of education provisions in the as-introduced version of the bill. However, a substitute version of the bill was released after this testimony was filed and the following supplemental testimony was delivered by Chad Aldis before the committee.
Let me begin with a sincere thank you. Crafting a state budget is no small feat—especially one that aims to reshape how we fund education in this state. Substitute House Bill 96 takes on what has quickly become a sacred cow: the Cupp-Patterson school funding formula. That formula, while well-intentioned, is fiscally unsustainable. It links state appropriations to inputs that are beyond your control—inputs that inflate costs whether they improve education or not. By moving away from that model, this legislature is beginning to reassert its constitutional authority over education funding. That’s a big deal—and a commendable step forward.
But just as we start to make progress, another provision of the bill threatens to pull us right back into the status quo: the entrenchment of funding guarantees.
Let’s be blunt. Guaranteeing that no district ever loses a dollar—regardless of enrollment loss or rising property wealth—is bad policy. It’s economically inefficient and educationally indefensible. These guarantees keep dollars flowing to empty seats and declining districts while limiting funding to places where kids actually are.
Yes, it may be politically easier to smooth over losses. But that ease comes at a cost. In two years, when you’re back in this room wrestling with the next budget, the 800-pound gorilla that is guarantees will still be there—costlier than ever. And once again, Ohio’s most underserved students will be left behind.
This isn’t just about dollars and cents—it’s about values. We should be investing in students, not systems. But this budget leans toward fiscal comfort for a few instead of educational justice for all. Nowhere is that clearer than in the failure to fix Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA). The current approach is bordering on the absurd. When one-third of the students deemed “economically disadvantaged” aren’t because of quirks in a federal meals program, the term loses meaning—and with it, the ability to target resources where they are most needed. The better path—shifting to direct certification and boosting per-pupil support—would ensure that aid reaches the students who need it most. But instead of solving that problem, the bill protects guarantees. That’s a missed opportunity of the highest order.
On the policy front, the situation is equally concerning. Ohio’s recent results on the Nation’s Report Card—the NAEP—ought to set off alarm bells. They show middling performance, flatlining progress, and persistent gaps. This is not the moment for half-measures or watered-down ideas. It’s a moment for urgency and boldness.
That’s why the decision to remove key reforms from the substitute bill is so troubling. These weren’t radical or untested policies. They were smart, practical moves with broad support—high-leverage strategies designed to improve outcomes where they matter most. I’m talking about:
Scrapping these reforms sends the wrong message. It suggests that mediocrity is acceptable. That we’re okay with tinkering around the edges when real transformation is needed. I urge you to restore these vital provisions.
Finally, a word of caution—from someone who’s spent his career championing school choice:
First, the proposed $35 million for education savings accounts at non-chartered, non-tax-supported schools is misguided. These schools, by design and conviction, have chosen to exist outside the state’s regulatory and funding frameworks. That choice should be respected—but not subsidized. Dollars used to educate the public should have a measure of accountability and transparency.
Second, Ohio has led the nation in performance-based charter school funding—rewarding excellence, incentivizing quality, and raising the bar. Weakening the criteria to access those funds, as the substitute bill proposes, would be a serious step backward. If anything, we should be strengthening the standards, not softening them. Ohio’s charter policy should remain laser-focused on quality.
In closing: This budget is a fork in the road. One path leads back to outdated structures and guaranteed funding that props up yesterday’s systems. The other moves us forward—to a student-centered, performance-driven, and more equitable model of public education.
Let’s choose the path that puts Ohio’s students first.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I welcome your questions.
