Last month, Governor Mike DeWine cruised to a second term, easily dispatching challenger Nan Whaley by a 63 to 37 percent margin. Congrats to the governor, Lieutenant Governor Husted, and their team on the win. Now comes the real work—and the rewarding part—of the job: helping to secure a stronger and brighter future for Ohio.
Last month, Governor Mike DeWine cruised to a second term, easily dispatching challenger Nan Whaley by a 63 to 37 percent margin. Congrats to the governor, Lieutenant Governor Husted, and their team on the win. Now comes the real work—and the rewarding part—of the job: helping to secure a stronger and brighter future for Ohio.
In K–12 education, Governor DeWine has already made a mark during his first term. His most notable accomplishments include launching a supplemental funding program for quality charter schools that narrows funding gaps and supports the expansion of great schools, creating an incentive program that encourages high schoolers to earn in-demand industry credentials, and pushing for stronger non-academic supports in schools such as mental health, mentorships, and counseling.
Of course, much of his first term was understandably consumed by the pandemic, including helping schools navigate the unprecedented challenges. In this area, he recognized the importance of promptly reopening schools for in-person instruction and put educators at the front of the line for vaccines to help make it happen. Seeing the impacts on student learning, he asked schools to craft academic recovery plans in early 2021. He even nudged the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to reopen after reports surfaced that the district planned to delay reopening, even though nearly every other school system had already done so.
While the pandemic has thankfully passed, students are still reeling from the disruptions. National and state assessment data released earlier this year unambiguously show that large numbers of students remain far behind. Ohio’s 2022 scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress slumped to their lowest levels since 2003. Likewise, student achievement on state exams in 2021–22 fell well below pre-pandemic marks. Both assessments indicate that Ohio’s low-income and minority students have suffered the greatest academic setbacks. The declines have hit nearly every community in Ohio: 563 out of 607 districts, for example, registered lower performance index scores last year compared their pre-pandemic marks.
If these losses are left unaddressed, tens of thousands of Buckeye State students will leave high school with weaker academic skills, thus diminishing their likelihood for success in higher education or technical training, lowering their earnings capacity, and imperiling the long-term growth of Ohio’s economy.
No one wants a dimmer future for Ohio’s next generation. But getting students back on track is a big lift—one that could certainly use the governor’s muscle. While Governor DeWine is undoubtedly aware of the academic challenges facing students, it’s not yet clear whether educational recovery will be at the top of his second-term agenda. He didn’t say much about it on the campaign trail, and his forthcoming budget proposals have yet to be unveiled (that blueprint, which will be released early next year, will more clearly signal his priorities).
As the governor considers policy priorities, he should put learning recovery front and center. But how, specifically, could he tackle learning loss? Consider the following:
Ohio’s 1.7 million students need an advocate in high places who can stir Ohioans to act on their behalf and ensure that they do not suffer the long-term consequences of a crisis not of their own making. Governor DeWine has already achieved much during his tenure in public service. Leading the charge in helping students get back on track might just become his signature accomplishment.
Industry-recognized credentials, which indicate that a student has mastered a specific set of knowledge and skills, offer a plethora of potential benefits. They can lead to well-paying jobs, identify qualified job applicants for employers, and contribute to a healthy statewide economy. A Fordham-commissioned study published this summer found that students who earn industry-recognized credentials during high school tend to have somewhat better work and college outcomes, with the largest impacts seen among students who concentrate in and earn a credential in the same field.
But all this potential comes with an important caveat: Credentials are only valuable if they are in-demand by employers. Students who spend time (and sometimes money) mastering skills that employers aren’t looking for can be shut out of well-paying jobs just as easily as those who have no credentials at all. As such, it is crucial for state leaders to make sure that the credentials they promote—and those that students earn—are aligned to employer demand. This is especially true in Ohio, where credentials are included in the state’s high school graduation requirements and school accountability system, and are a key feature of several statewide workforce initiatives.
A recent analysis of Ohio’s K–12 industry credential landscape by ExcelinEd, a national educational advocacy organization, and Lightcast, which specializes in labor market analytics, sheds some much needed light on the issue. The analysis examines two types of credentials in Ohio—those that were “promoted” via a 2022 master credential list, and those that were earned by students in the 2020 graduation cohort—to determine whether they are aligned with employer demand.
Unfortunately, the findings indicate significant misalignment between the credentials employers demand and those that are promoted by the state. A whopping 68 percent of credentials—314 of the 464 that appear on the promoted list—do not have “meaningful labor market demand,” which means there are fewer than twenty-five annual job postings statewide that requested the credential. An additional 3 percent are oversupplied (there are more credentials earned than requested by employers in job postings), and 3 percent are general career readiness credentials that are not occupation-specific. That leaves just 25 percent that are identified as undersupplied, and an additional 2 percent that are considered “aligned” between supply (the number of credentials earned) and demand (the number requested in job postings). When advertised wages are added to the mix, only 22 percent of credentials on the list have at least twenty-five job postings a year, offer hourly wages above $14.90, and aren’t considered to be oversupplied or general career readiness.
For a different view of this misalignment, consider Ohio’s Innovative Workforce Incentive Program (IWIP), which provides grant funding to school districts to help them establish new programs for students to earn qualifying credentials in “priority” industry sectors. Approximately $25 million in state funds were allocated for this program, and when a student earns a qualifying credential, their school receives an additional payment of $1,250. But according to ExcelinEd and Lightcast, 63 percent of the credentials on the state’s IWIP incentive funding list—which contains 110 credentials—were not demanded by employers.
There is also significant misalignment between the credentials employers demand and those that students actually earn. Only 20 percent of the credentials earned by the graduating class of 2020 are considered to be in demand. Among the top fifteen credentials earned, twelve are either not demanded by employers, are oversupplied, or are considered markers of general career readiness. The top two, CPR First Aid and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, are both general career readiness certifications. In fact, nearly 19,000 of the more than 51,000 credentials earned by students—approximately 37 percent—fell into the general career readiness category, even though those certifications made up only 3 percent of the promoted credential list. This indicates that, although plenty of students are earning credentials, more than a third of them aren’t linked to a specific occupation, and are therefore less likely to help students in the long run.
This isn’t the first time Ohio has been informed of its credential misalignment. ExcelinEd and Lightcast (which was known as Burning Glass Technologies at the time) conducted a similar analysis back in 2019. It found that, although Ohio was “moderately aligned” in terms of supply and demand overall, thousands of high schoolers were earning credentials that very few employers demanded. At the time, their findings were troublesome, given data showing that more Ohio students were earning credentials than ever before. Now, in the wake of a pandemic that’s impacted education and the job market, Ohio leaders should be even more concerned.
But there is an important caveat. In this analysis, employer demand is based on signaling, which means employers must mention the credential in their job postings in order to signal that it’s in demand. It’s possible that many of the credentials on the state’s list that have been labeled as having no meaningful labor market demand actually are in demand. Employers just aren’t effectively communicating what they value.
With this in mind, ExcelinEd and Lightcast recommend that state leaders encourage employers to do a better job of signaling which credentials they value—including whether those credentials are required or merely preferred. At the most basic level, improving signaling would ensure that we have accurate data about which credentials are actually in demand. But if employers identified valued credentials and credentialing entities in their job postings, it’s also likely that more schools and students would recognize which credentials are worthy of the time and effort it takes to earn them.
The analysis offers two additional recommendations. First, state leaders should focus on only promoting credentials that are part of pathways that lead to valuable occupational fields and high-wage jobs. Having a list of promoted credentials is great policy, but if that list contains credentials that aren’t in demand or that lead to low-paying jobs or industries that are already awash with job-seekers, the state becomes inadvertently responsible for steering students in the wrong direction. State leaders should work to establish linked experiences—combinations of postsecondary courses, industry credentials, and work-based learning—for students in valuable career pathways, and steer students away from credentials and pathways that aren’t in demand.
Second, state leaders must collect and analyze high-quality data on the credentialing sector. It’s important to identify which credentials are part of high-quality pathways, which students have access to those pathways, and which credentials and experiences have the best return on investment for students, communities, and the state. Without such detailed data, it will be impossible for Ohio to capitalize on the potential of industry-recognized credentials.
News reports make the situation crystal clear: School transportation in central Ohio, and elsewhere, is in disarray. While delays, cancellations, mistakes, and long rides are heavily impacting students attending schools of choice, pervasive problems are also plaguing district families attending their neighborhood schools. In suburban Reynoldsburg, for example, an inability to cover routes resulted in the large-scale return of fully-remote learning beginning in October, and is destined to last at least through the end of December.
Unfortunately, this is not a situation which can be solved by throwing money at it—at least not directly. Expensive software intended to revolutionize and optimize bus routing was easy to come by for Columbus City Schools, but has proved to be a pricey failure that now requires additional expenditure and a whole lot of labor to attempt to correct. We’ll return to this in a moment. Additionally, a decrease in the bus driver pipeline—both regulars and substitutes—has been brewing for several years and has finally reached its peak. Potential drivers are, for the most part, already employed at other, better jobs, even if these jobs don’t necessarily result in higher pay (although they probably do). It is the same situation faced by the fast food and hospitality industries, and by health care services. Even if paychecks for bus drivers are boosted overnight (which they have been in many places to little avail), the scarcity of drivers would prevent a rush to the districts’ recruitment hotlines. Worse yet: Even if new recruits could be lured away from their warehouse floors, customer care centers, or rideshare gigs, it would still take months to onboard new drivers.
There is some good news. Interim state superintendent Stephanie Siddens and Ohio Department of Education (ODE) staff deserve kudos for getting district and charter leaders together in Columbus to reset expectations and parameters of cooperation amid the chaos. And back in February, ODE released a Driver Shortage Playbook that laid out several ways the state was responding to pipeline issues (including reinstating an online training module and speeding up state background checks). ODE staffers were working to expedite driver certification training as recently as July.
These are important efforts, but clearly aren’t enough. School Transportation News has suggested changing bell schedules (a solution proposed in Reynoldsburg recently, to worrisome pushback) and utilizing smaller vehicles to boost the pool of potential drivers beyond those holding CDLs (a fix that would require changes in Ohio laws and rules). There is also ample evidence that routing software, properly implemented, can be a gamechanger. So while Columbus couldn’t dial it in on their first attempt doesn’t mean they shouldn’t keep trying. Pick up the phone—reach out to those districts where software has been effective at streamlining complicated routings. I’ll bet they can’t wait to share how they managed the alchemy. Public transit can be of assistance for older students in urban settings, especially if passes are free to families and unrestricted in days and times of use. Offering payment to families to utilize their own or rideshare vehicles—which many are already doing—would also help. Schools could also create hybrid positions so that drivers are driving morning and afternoon routes and then working full time during the day in other capacities for the district to make the job more practical and attractive. The list isn’t endless, but viable options remain unexplored.
Whoever solves school transportation permanently should win the Nobel Prize—and it’s going to take that level of disruptive, sounds-crazy-but-it-just-might-work, reinvention-type effort to make student busing family-centric and less susceptible to its current woes. But for now, all measures to stop the bleeding must be taken. Students cannot miss more school due to busing failures.
Of the three main postsecondary pathways for American high school graduates—college enrollment, job employment, and military enlistment—the last is arguably least studied in terms of outcomes for those who follow it. A team of analysts led by West Point’s Kyle Greenberg helps fill the void with newly-published research drawing on thirty years of data. Does military service increase opportunity? Does it reduce racial inequality? We might well expect it to, as the stable income and generous benefits (free college tuition among them), skill-building opportunities, and veteran networks for those who serve would seem to be valuable boosts into the middle class and beyond. But long stints separated from family, exposure to combat, and possible permanent injury, disability, or mental health challenges could mitigate or entirely erase any positives accruing from service.
Greenberg and his team use data on the universe of Active Duty Army applicants from 1990–2011, exploiting two different cutoff points on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT), which all applicants are required to take. The Army generally rejects applicants with AFQT scores below the 31st percentile of national math and verbal ability, often requires applicants to score in the 50th percentile or higher to receive enlistment bonuses, and sometimes requires GED recipients to achieve a score in the 50th percentile or higher. Using applicants’ first AFQT scores on file, the researchers find that crossing the 31 and 50 AFQT cutoffs increases the probability of enlistment by 10 and 6 percentage points, respectively. The researchers leverage these cutoffs to estimate the effects of enlistment on earnings and related outcomes for individuals just above and below those cutoffs. Administrative data come from IRS, National Student Clearinghouse, Social Security Administration, and Department of Veterans Affairs records, and are so extensive that Greenberg and his team are able to estimate the direct, causal effect of service not just on earnings and employment, but also on educational attainment, mortality, disability compensation, and more.
Applicants during this period numbered 2.6 million. Overall, they were young (20.7 years) and mostly male (78 percent), and the vast majority (93 percent) had not yet attended college. Compared to the general population, they were more likely to be Black (21 versus 15 percent); less likely to be Hispanic (11 versus 15 percent); and more likely to come from disadvantaged counties in terms of household income, employment, and measures of intergenerational mobility. Applicants came from families with approximately 15 percent lower median income than in a comparable national random sample over the same period.
The applicant sample with AFQT scores close to the two cutoff points comprised about two-thirds of the full population, i.e., 1.8 million individuals. Compared to the full population of applicants, those in the sample have lower average AFQT scores (42 versus 52), are more likely to be Black (26 percent versus 21 percent), and are less likely to have attended college (4 percent versus 7 percent). The average applicant who ultimately served in the Army did so for 4.8 years, which appears to impact the robustness of the outcomes.
Greenberg and his team find that enlisting in the Army increases average annual earnings by over $4,000 in the nineteen years following application. (That’s so at both cutoffs.) The effects of service vary over time, with the largest effects observed in the first four years—that is, higher salaries while serving than they would likely earn in civilian jobs they can get with their age and experience—and smaller effects five to ten years after application. In the longer-term, eleven to nineteen years after application, increases are smaller and statistically insignificant for those at the lower AFQT cutoff and only marginally significant at the higher cutoff.
Short-run employment increases at both cutoff points, but enlistment has no long-run effect on employment at either. Army service, consistent with the generous education benefits provided, considerably increases college attendance at both cutoffs. Army service over the period had no impact on mortality; however, there are large increases in disability compensation. While this raises the monetary return of service in raw numbers, increased health risks can have other costs down the line and may explain some of the long-term effects on income.
However, these general findings mask some far stronger outcomes for Black applicants. The researchers find that enlisting in the Army increases Black applicants’ annual earnings by $5,500 at the 31 AFQT cutoff and by $15,000 at the 50 AFQT cutoff eleven to nineteen years after application. Meanwhile, White applicants actually experience small earning losses at the lower cutoff, which rebound to small gains at the higher cutoff. In fact, compared to their counterfactual earnings trajectories in the sample, Army service closes nearly all of the Black-White earnings gap. Additional benefits which accrue for Black applicants more strongly include homeownership and marriage rates. In looking at mechanisms to explain the substantial positive outcomes for Black enlistees, Greenberg and his team note that Black servicemembers tend to serve longer than their White counterparts and have a higher probability of employment in high-paying industries and/or public service jobs nineteen years after enlisting.
These findings show that enlisting in the Army is a smart pathway for individuals near these AFQT cut-offs to follow. In the short term, their income prospects are far higher than in civilian life—and, as it currently stands, the concern of a higher mortality rate is not borne out. Both short- and long-term benefits accrue to Black enlistees even more strongly than their White peers. And to make sure that those benefits continue and grow following service, the longer an enlistee can serve, the better.
SOURCE: Kyle Greenberg et al., “Army Service in the All-Volunteer Era,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 2022).
Common sense, backed by research, tells us that families weigh a lot of information when making school choice decisions. This is especially true when options are readily available and easily comparable via centralized application systems. Importantly, families’ calculations must be made anew each time a child moves schools, and it seems likely that the primary influencing factors can vary over time. New research investigates the stability of preferences by comparing choices made by the same families for younger and older children. It’s a quick but interesting look at familial decision making.
Harvard researcher Mark J. Chin uses application data from over 10,000 families applying for seats in both sixth and ninth grade in an unnamed large urban school district between the 2011–12 and 2018–19 school years. A majority of students in the district—and in the study—are Hispanic. Via a unified enrollment system, families can rank up to five district options for each child. Assignment to schools is based on family preferences, available seats, admission priorities (including siblings), and random placement (if processing of the previous factors yields more than one valid option). Chin’s work does not involve the actual offering or acceptance of seats in any particular school, but examines the preferences revealed by the schools ranked first in each family’s submissions.
Overall, all families selected as their top choice schools that were of higher quality than the average district building. This holds true for both middle and high school choices, although it is important to note that Chin does not define what “quality” means in this context. White families chose schools that were Whiter than both the average district building—middle and high schools—and the top choices of Hispanic and Black families. Similarly, Hispanic and Black families’ top choices served more students matching their racial/ethnic background than the average district building. Black applicants chose middle and high schools that were further away from home than did their Hispanic and White peers.
Racial and ethnic composition was the most stable factor observed between middle school and high school preferences. That is, the top high school choices of Hispanic families were those buildings with higher concentrations of Hispanic students, in almost the same proportion as Hispanic families’ middle school preferences. Racial/ethnic composition was less important in high school choice for Black and White families than middle school choice, but this factor is still stronger and more stable than the others Chin investigates. Specifically, both academic quality and distance from home appear far less stable as preference factors between middle and high school as compared to racial/ethnic composition, especially after other possible influences are controlled for.
Chin speculates that increased student input on choice at the high school level could explain the observed variation in family preference—especially regarding the distance factor, as older students would likely be more comfortable with longer bus rides or would have alternative means of transportation. However, he is wise to conclude that we still need to know more about how families arrive at their school choice decisions, especially if policymakers hope to target choice programs to those who want them the most.
SOURCE: Mark J. Chin, “The Stability of Families’ Revealed Preferences for Schools,” Educational Researcher (October 2022).
NOTE: Today, the Ohio Senate’s Primary and Secondary Education Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 178 which would make important changes to the governance structure of K-12 education in the state. Fordham’s Vice President for Ohio Policy provided proponent testimony before the committee. These are his written remarks.
I am here today to testify in support of Senate Bill 178. This legislation would represent a major restructuring of education governance in Ohio and would move the state toward a more coordinated, coherent approach to K-12 and workforce-development policy implementation.
Why is a change necessary? To be blunt, Ohio students today encounter challenges that they are too often ill-equipped to face. We’ve all heard the data on K-12 education. But since the pandemic, it’s gotten even worse. On Ohio’s state tests only 53 percent of eighth grade students are proficient in English and only 43 percent are on grade level in math. Using the higher—college ready—NAEP standards, Ohio 8th grade proficiency numbers dip to 33 percent in reading and 29 percent in math. Low-income students and students of color post even lower scores. It’s clear that we must find ways to improve student achievement in K-12 education.
Our challenges though aren’t limited simply to math and reading assessments. Consider the following statistics:
To reiterate, too many students leaving high school today are ready for neither college nor work. Ohio’s economic future and—just as important—the lives and long-term happiness of our citizens demand change.
I’ve testified before and interacted with members of the state board of education—both past and present. I have deep respect for them personally and their efforts. In many ways, it’s a thankless job. It’s also a board that is designed in a way that—through no fault of its members—prevents it from functioning efficiently and implementing the education laws that the legislature passes. Nineteen voting members—split between appointees and elected members—is a recipe for gridlock, discord, and a lack of accountability. And anyone paying attention over the past few years has seen that and more. From two-hour discussions on parliamentary procedure, to months of debate on policy issues that are under the purview of the General Assembly, to drawn out deliberations on how to hire a state superintendent—Ohio students don’t have time for this.
That’s why we stand in support of SB 178. It would allow Ohio governors to take on a stronger leadership role in agenda setting, policy design, and the implementation of initiatives aimed at improving readiness for college or career. In the realm of K–12, Ohio has a fragmented system in which governors rightly run for office on how to improve education but an almost anonymous state board of education—with less accountability overall—actually exerts the most influence over policy implementation. When the governor and state board are aligned and work in harmony, it’s fine. But other times, they work either in silos or at cross-purposes. The result has been pedestrian academic achievement which creates hardships for our students. By granting the governor greater leadership over education, we will finally have some semblance of accountability for education outcomes.
SB 178 would also create conditions that allow education and workforce initiatives to be vigorously implemented. The bill’s more unified approach—including creating a deputy director for career and technical education—is critical as data continue to show that too many young people struggle to make transitions from high school to career. The improved alignment of K–12 and career and technical education systems should help to set consistent expectations, align policy development and information systems, and create a culture of shared responsibility for the well-being of young people from elementary school to their first jobs.
Governor DeWine and future governors—regardless of party—should be allowed to oversee a unified state education and workforce agency. SB 178 would significantly improve the likelihood that initiatives are faithfully carried out. This is surely why governors of both parties, including Governors Voinovich, Strickland, and Kasich, have at times sought more formal authority in primary-secondary education. It is also likely the reason that many states grant governors appointments over state education boards and/or education agency directors. This is not to say that governors should always get what they want: Checks and balances are essential to any governing model. But the check on the governor should come primarily via the legislature and, of course, through the will of the people who ultimately hold him or her accountable at the ballot box.
The time is right to make these changes. Post-pandemic, Ohio students are facing tremendous challenges to get back on track. We need strong, aligned, bold leadership to improve our education system. Unfortunately, our current governance structure for K-12 education has proven not to be up to the task. While restructuring alone may not deliver the results Ohio needs to secure its future prosperity, the changes proposed in SB178 would create conditions that promise more seamless transitions for students and a renewed accountability around academic achievement. To remain internationally competitive as a state, we can’t afford to lose talent and human potential simply because of incoherent and misaligned policy making.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.
The latest edition of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation’s sponsorship annual report highlights our work during the 2021-22 school year, overseeing twelve schools that served 5,500 students in four Ohio cities. We value this opportunity to keep stakeholders and the public informed about our efforts, and provide information on each of the schools that we sponsor
The report also highlights the most significant projects produced by our research teams at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Ohio and national offices.
Our goal is to provide a transparent look at the performance of our portfolio of schools.
We hope that you will find the report informative.
First launched in fall 2007, Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program served more than 55,000 students in 2021-22. The program offers state-funded scholarships to eligible students and allows them to attend a private school. Critics have alleged that EdChoice negatively impacts traditional school districts, and a coalition of districts has sued the state on such grounds. But how true are the claims? Does EdChoice actually cause fiscal distress or decreased academic performance?
In partnership with School Choice Ohio, we invite you to join us on December 14th to hear results from a forthcoming Fordham Institute report by Stéphane Lavertu, a professor at The Ohio State University. Based on in-depth analyses of district enrollments, finances, and performance, Dr. Lavertu will present his empirical findings about the impacts of EdChoice on traditional public schools. This event is in-person, and an audience Q&A will follow the presentation.
December 14, 2022
9:00-10:00 am
Columbus Athletic Club
Full video is here:
