The remarkable ascent of Senator Vance into the national limelight could bode well for rural and small-town students, and we’d encourage him to increase the emphasis on their opportunities for success.
The education-policy world tends to orbit around reforming urban schools. The impulse is understandable, given the serious academic struggles of poor children growing up in American cities. The media spotlight also shines brightest in big cities, revealing urban schools’ flaws, while governments and philanthropies have plowed billions into these school systems in hopes of making them better.
The work to improve urban education must continue in earnest, but such a myopic focus risks forgetting about education in rural areas and small towns. True, the achievement gaps are not nearly as staggering, and students from these communities almost always graduate from high school. But not everything is rosy, especially when it comes to readying young people for college and career.
Consider numbers from Middletown, famous as the gritty hometown of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and now former President Trump’s running mate. Of its recent graduating classes, just 29 percent went on to college (two- or four-year) shortly after high school, and only 14 percent earned at least an associate degree by their mid-twenties. These post-secondary enrollment and completion numbers were much lower than for Ohio students as a whole (47 and 30 percent, respectively). Meanwhile, a mere 3 percent of Middletown students took an AP exam during high school, and even fewer passed one (14 percent passed an AP test statewide). Just one in ten earned industry credentials, with most of them being general certificates in things like CPR and occupational safety—not the high-powered credentials needed for skilled professions.
These disappointing outcomes aren’t limited to Middletown. We also see worrisome student readiness and post-secondary data in scores of other small town and rural districts across Ohio.
The political rise of Senator Vance could do much good for students from rural areas and small towns. Now, it is true that vice presidents don’t typically drive education policy, and many conservatives have been skeptical of a strong federal role in education. In his two years in the U.S. Senate, Vance hasn’t built a lengthy track record in K–12 education. In sum, we don’t have a clear indication of what he would do in this area—if anything—should he become VP.
That said, Vance is known for writing and speaking passionately about the challenges of growing up poor in rural America. He’s expressed concern about the lack of social and economic mobility for disadvantaged children, especially those living in blue-collar communities like Middletown. As he noted in a 2017 speech—co-sponsored by Fordham—at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, “Children who grow up on the bottom of the economic ladder very often tend to stay there…I think that should really worry us.” He also described barriers—some from his own experience—that hold back young people with less social capital. And in his GOP convention speech, Vance pledged not to forget the hardworking folks from the heartland:
And I promise you one more thing. To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.
Given all this, it’s not hard to picture Vance putting rural and small-town education more front and center. He might stick to talking about the challenges students from these communities face, and the urgency of providing opportunities for advancement. Or he might also seek concrete ways to improve rural education through policymaking at the federal level or use his platform to promote ideas that could be pursued by state leaders.
We have some general ideas that we’d encourage Vance to consider (we’re sure there are many other possibilities worth considering, too).
Every student—just as Vance has done—deserves the opportunity to pursue the American dream. Achieving this aim begins with excellent schools in all quarters of the state that focus on academic success and open doors to college and great careers. Yes, November is a long way off. But the remarkable ascent of Senator Vance into the national limelight could bode well for rural and small-town students, and we’d encourage him to increase the emphasis on their opportunities for success.
Earlier this year, the Louisiana Department of Education launched a Let Teachers Teach workgroup. More than two dozen educators were tasked with identifying “common classroom disruptions and unnecessary bureaucracies” and then brainstorming solutions. The workgroup’s efforts produced a report containing eighteen recommendations that cover a wide range of issues.
In a recent blog, Fordham Senior Visiting Fellow Robert Pondiscio argued that the report “deserves to be studied closely in every state and school district if we are serious about improving teacher job satisfaction and effectiveness and raising student achievement.” He’s spot on. Research indicates that working conditions have a strong influence over teachers’ employment decisions. Improving retention and student achievement means addressing day-to-day issues that teachers have identified as sources of frustration, burnout, and disillusionment.
That being said, it’s important to remember that Ohio is not Louisiana. There are aspects of teaching that are universal, but significant differences in state policy can mean different experiences for teachers. In fact, Ohio is already in the midst of tackling several of the problems highlighted by the workgroup.
With these caveats in mind, let’s examine how three sets of leaders—state policymakers, officials at Ohio’s Department of Education and Workforce (DEW), and district and school leaders—can or already are implementing the Louisiana workgroup’s recommendations.
State policymakers
Although state policymakers are far removed from the day-to-day work of schools, they play a crucial role in empowering teachers and ensuring a high-quality education for students. Fortunately for Ohio, several of the recommendations that fall within the purview of state policymakers are already in the works. One example is two closely related recommendations regarding student well-being. First, supporting student mental health challenges through trained professionals. And second, ceasing to “force” teachers to be mental health professionals.
During his first term, Governor DeWine established a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at helping schools address the non-academic needs of students. Known as the student wellness and success (SWS) fund, it allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to schools to provide things like mental health services and mentorship programs. Although the current version of the fund is different from its predecessor courtesy of some legislative tinkering, public schools still receive funds intended to meet non-academic needs. They are required to spend at least 50 percent of their allotted dollars on physical- or mental-health-based services or a combination of the two. Going forward, lawmakers should ensure this funding remains available and closely monitor spending to ensure it’s being used to support students in effective ways.
The Department of Education and Workforce
As is the case with state policymakers, DEW has already made some progress. For example, the workgroup calls on state officials to “create a repository of high-quality, easy-to-access teacher resources” and “provide scheduling, pacing, and implementation guidance for core content areas.” Over the last several years, Ohio leaders have implemented several initiatives aimed at accomplishing these goals. INFOhio, for example, offers a digital and searchable library of materials that can be used for free by teachers, school staff, parents, and students. INFOhio also powers Open Space, Ohio’s digital platform for open access and open educational resources.[1]
Unfortunately, it’s unclear how helpful teachers find these resources. And curriculum isn’t the only area where feedback from the Ohio field would go a long way. Professional learning, required training, and student behavior and discipline are all issues cited by the workgroup, and are areas where state leaders should gather Ohio-specific feedback before they make any changes. With this in mind, DEW should take a page out of Louisiana’s playbook and establish an Ohio-specific workgroup composed of teachers who represent various geographic regions and school types. Together, these teachers could offer feedback about efforts that are already underway (like the SWS fund) and pinpoint issues that leaders have yet to address.
District and school leaders
Politicians and state bureaucrats get a lot of flak for getting in the way of teachers who just want to teach. But it’s district and school leaders who are typically the ones with the most power to improve job satisfaction. In fact, many of the workgroup’s recommendations fall under the purview of local leaders, who could immediately implement these ideas if they so desired. Examples include:
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Recruiting talented young people into the teaching profession is more important than ever. But it’s equally important to identify and address problems that could drive away the effective and experienced educators we already have. Louisiana deserves kudos for its efforts. Now it’s time for Ohio leaders—state policymakers, department officials, and district and school leaders—to step up to the plate.
[1] INFOhio also offers curriculum and instructional reviews and resources, including the Ohio Evidence-Based Clearinghouse (which helps school leaders identify evidence-based strategies for school improvement); instructional reviews that evaluate submissions to Open Space; and Ohio Materials Matter Reviews, which allow educators to search for high-quality instructional materials that have been reviewed by EdReports.
Expanding and improving career pathways for secondary students is an increasingly important priority for Ohio policymakers. As such, it will likely be a focal point during the upcoming state budget cycle. There are plenty of ideas that are worthy of lawmakers’ consideration. But it’s important to remember that policymaking is only part of the solution to expanding and improving career pathways. Districts and schools play an even more critical role—and one of the most promising ways to do so is already within their reach.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) is a nonprofit educational foundation that develops challenging curricular frameworks—referred to as programs—and accompanying assessments. More than 8,000 IB programs are currently offered at over 5,800 schools in more than 160 countries. Ohio is home to dozens of these schools, which are known as IB world schools. The vast majority offer three of IB’s four available programs: the Primary Years Program for students ages 3–12, the Middle Years Program for students ages 11–16, and the Diploma Program (DP) for students ages 16–19. The DP is the most widely known of the three. But it’s the IB’s fourth offering, the Career-related Program, that deserves a closer look from Ohio schools.
The Career-related Program, or CP, is specifically designed for students who are interested in career-related learning. As part of the CP, students work their way through a three-part framework that combines rigorous academic coursework with targeted career education.
The first part of the framework is academic coursework. Every CP student is required to complete a minimum of two internationally-recognized DP courses, as well as accompanying written examinations that are graded by external IB examiners. Schools select which DP courses to offer based on their relevance to students’ career-related studies. They can choose from six subject groups: science, math, studies in language and literature, language acquisition, individuals and societies (which includes courses like economics, global politics, and psychology), and the arts (which includes dance, film, music, theater, and visual arts).
The second part of the framework is the CP core, which connects students’ DP courses to their career-related studies. It provides students with an opportunity to develop both academic and professional skills with an emphasis on experiential learning. The four interrelated components of the CP core are assessed by schools. They include:
The third and final part of the CP framework is career-related study. This portion is designed to prepare students for higher education, an internship or apprenticeship, or a position in their field of interest. The IB collaborates with a variety of career-related studies providers, including the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Microsoft, the Savannah College of Art & Design, and the World Academy of Sport. Because schools select the career-related courses and pathways that are best suited to their students, IB also recognizes providers who work in local contexts to support individual schools. Additional providers through which IB world schools have implemented their career-related studies include Adobe, Apple, Cisco, FEMA, Knowledge Matters, The National Center for Construction Education and Research, U.S. Soccer, and YouScience.
The CP offers a host of benefits. For students, the combination of career education and rigorous academic coursework ensures they’re well-prepared for both college and career. In fact, research indicates that CP graduates enroll in post-secondary education at higher rates than high school graduates nationally, as well as career-technical education concentrators. Many of Ohio’s universities also offer students college credit for completing certain IB courses. For teachers, IB offers high-quality professional development, teaching resources, and evaluation tools. And for school administrators, becoming an IB world school means gaining access to high-quality curricula, professional development opportunities for staff, and a global network of schools willing to share best practices.
Although all high schools can implement the CP, they must become IB world schools to actually do so. As part of the authorization process, schools must meet certain professional development requirements. There are also costs associated with the program, like annual school fees and subject fees. But it’s important to remember that a key feature of the CP is its flexibility. Each school is empowered to create its own distinctive version of the CP, which gives Ohio schools a ton of freedom to design a program that benefits their students and aligns with local industries. Furthermore, since the IB is already firmly embedded in Ohio’s education policy framework—the state funds exam fee subsidies, reports IB outcomes on state report cards, offers an honors diploma that recognizes IB, and includes IB in some graduation seals—school leaders don’t need to worry about changing political winds impacting their efforts.
According to the IB, only one school in Ohio (Upper Arlington High School, which is located near Columbus) currently offers the CP. Given the steadily increasing importance that lawmakers are assigning to career pathways, more districts and schools should consider taking advantage. The combined benefits and flexibility offered by the CP are too promising to ignore.
This is the fifth in a series in which I examine issues in K–12 education that Ohio leaders should tackle in the next biennial state budget. Previous pieces covered the science of reading, funding for low-income pupils, interdistrict open enrollment, and guarantees. This essay looks at funding for public charter schools.
For more than two decades, Ohio’s charter schools—nonprofit public schools that operate independently—have served families and students seeking non-district options. In 2023–24, approximately 85,000 students, mostly from urban communities, attended one of the state’s 318 brick-and-mortar charter schools. Studies have shown that charter students learn more in math and reading than similar students who attend nearby district schools.
Despite their value to parents and students, Ohio has—until recently—significantly underfunded its charter schools. An analysis of FYs 2015–17 data found that charters received on average just 68 percent of what nearby traditional districts received in total funding, a shortfall that hamstrung charters when it came to paying competitive teacher salaries and providing student services. It was also a fundamentally unfair system to charter students, who are disproportionately poor and from communities of color, and whose education was funded at lower amounts simply by virtue of their choice in public school.
To their credit, state policymakers have taken steps to move charter funding closer to parity with districts. The effort began in 2019 when Governor DeWine proposed a new funding supplement for high-performing charters. His initiative sailed through the legislature and was launched in FY 2020. In last year’s historic budget bill, lawmakers doubled down on this program by significantly increasing the per-pupil allotments. They also created a new “equity supplement” that supports all brick-and-mortar charters, not just those qualifying for high-quality funding. Lastly, in the realm of school facilities—an area in which charters have also been shortchanged—lawmakers doubled the state’s facilities allowance in the last budget. Table 1 below summarizes these funding initiatives.
Table 1: State programs that help to narrow charter-funding gaps
These additional dollars empower charters to compete for educator talent and provide extra student supports—factors that are critical to supporting higher student achievement. They make it possible for charters to expand and replicate, thereby providing even more students and families with quality options. And the push towards equitable funding has also made Ohio a more attractive locale for high-performing national charter networks. Texas-based IDEA Public Schools and classical charters affiliated with Hillsdale College (MI), for example, recently launched their first schools in Ohio.
Thanks to Governor DeWine and recent General Assemblies, charter funding has come a long way in a short time. But there is still work to do to erase funding gaps and ensure that recent gains aren’t temporary. Excluding the facilities aid, I estimate that high-quality charter schools are now receiving roughly 90 percent of what local districts receive, while other charters are funded at approximately 75 percent.[1] That’s better but not good enough. In the next biennial budget, state lawmakers should pursue the following items.
1. Build on the equity supplement to move all brick-and-mortar charters towards fairer funding.
Ohio’s push to improve charter funding has focused heavily on schools achieving strong marks on their state report card. This year, fifty out of 318 brick-and-mortar charters met the quality funding program’s performance criteria. Policymakers should continue to support quality charters and maintain a high bar for receiving those dollars. But they also need to continue to move towards equitable funding for all charter students, including those attending non-qualifying schools. Remember that many of their students are high-needs: low-income, students with disabilities, or—in the case of dropout-recovery charters—adolescents who have fallen significantly behind in their education. Furthermore, a boost in funding is one of the surest ways to help these schools go from mediocre to good or from good to great.
As noted earlier, lawmakers created a $650 per pupil equity supplement that supports all brick-and-mortar charters in the last biennial budget. This is an excellent foundation upon which legislators can build. During last year’s budget discussions, we at Fordham and others recommended a $1,000 per pupil equity supplement. Reaching that amount in the next budget would further narrow the funding gap for brick-and-mortar charters statewide.
2. Ensure the facilities allowance keeps pace with inflation, while pursuing new charter facility initiatives.
Historically, charters have been unable to access the capital resources that districts can tap into. For example, charters do not receive proceeds from local bond levies and are ineligible for the state’s main school construction program. To help cover charters’ facility costs, lawmakers introduced a charter-specific facilities allowance during the Kasich administration. Thanks to steadily increasing per-pupil allotments, a recent analysis by ExcelinEd finds that Ohio now covers roughly half of charters’ facility needs. In the next budget, lawmakers should increase the $1,000 per-pupil facilities aid to adjust for inflation. Beyond a boost in the per-pupil facilities aid, policymakers should also pursue additional initiatives that would allow charters to address their building needs, such as credit-enhancement and revolving-loan programs and revisions to state law that would make it easier for charters to access unused district facilities.
3. Cement the high-quality funding, equity supplement, and facilities aid into charter schools’ permanent funding formula.
Currently, all three programs are funded through appropriations language in the state budget bill, which means they are not technically part of Ohio statute. This particular method of funding sends a signal that these programs are temporary and increases the risk that future General Assemblies will eye them for cuts. In the next budget bill, lawmakers should make these programs part of charter schools’ funding formula, which is established in statute. While it wouldn’t make them impervious to legislative change, formally including them in the formula would make it clear that the programs are crucial components in Ohio’s charter funding model. Moving these programs into the formula would also protect the per-pupil amounts set forth in bill language from reductions necessitated by funding these initiatives via line-item appropriation—something that occurred to the high-quality funding in FYs 2020–23 and the facilities allowance in FY24.
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Students attending Ohio’s public charter schools deserve fair funding, just like their peers attending traditional district schools. Fortunately, Ohio’s policy leaders have recognized this imperative and have taken important steps forward that narrow funding gaps. More work remains to ensure equitable for all charter students, and the next budget cycle is another opportunity for lawmakers to move further in this direction.
[1] Facilities aid is excluded because I do not include district capital outlay when calculating the district-charter funding gap. These projections are for the Ohio Big Eight charters (where the vast majority of brick-and-mortar charters are located) and based on FY23 fiscal data but include the FY24 quality and equity funding amounts (FY24 fiscal data are not yet available).
Teacher voice is often missing from education policy discussions, leading to what can feel like an adversarial relationship between pundits and practitioners. Educators for Excellence (E4E) strives to reframe that relationship by amplifying the interests and concerns of teachers across the land. They have recently released the results of their wide-ranging teacher survey, conducted annually since 2018, and this year’s findings are well worth the attention of education leaders.
Developed by a cadre of eighteen teachers dubbed the National Teacher Leader Council, the eighty-five-item questionnaire was administered online during the first two months of 2024. A nationally representative sample of 1,000 full-time, pre-K–12, public-school teachers working in both district and charter schools responded. Following the overall demographics of the profession, respondents were overwhelmingly female and white. Nearly 60 percent were between the ages of thirty and forty-nine, and a similar percentage reported having earned tenure in their job. Eighty-five percent taught in traditional districts. Forty-five percent of respondents worked in suburban schools, 29 percent in urban settings, and the remainder in rural locales. Approximately one-third of the sample taught in large schools (more than 1,000 students), and another third taught in small schools (less than 500 students). A plurality of respondents taught grades pre-K–5.
The topline findings are organized into seven themes, spanning topics like student outcomes, curriculum and instruction, feelings about union representation, testing, technology, etc. Here is a selection of the big picture takeaways: Teachers believe that students are still struggling in the wake of the pandemic, with 70 percent reporting that their students are behind academically and 64 percent reporting that their students’ mental well-being is worse compared to pre-pandemic. Teachers are pessimistic regarding their profession, with just 16 percent indicating they would recommend the job to others—an all-time low among E4E polling results. Interestingly, teachers of color report that their morale and outlook have significantly improved over the past few years after also hitting all-time lows.
Generally, a majority of teachers are positively disposed toward their unions’ efforts to address traditional issues, such as salaries and working conditions, but those positive numbers are down from previous years. Overall satisfaction with efforts to transform the profession from within is below 50 percent, and is even lower for certain specific union functions like improving professional development (42 percent) and expanding career ladders (38 percent). To improve working conditions, teachers are calling for more collaborative and dynamic work environments. More specifically, they expressed interest in strategic staffing approaches that would break from traditional school models and focus on team teaching and other collaborative structures.
A section of questions related to curriculum highlighted concerns over what many teachers view as a quick switch to science-of-reading-based literacy instruction. More than 60 percent of teachers say their district has implemented new curricular materials aligned to the science of reading in the last year, but only a quarter of those teachers say their instructional practices have shifted “very much” as a result of the changes. For elementary school teachers specifically, a slightly higher 31 percent say their instructional practices have shifted. A majority of respondents across the board indicate that better support and training are needed to fully implement the shift to science of reading.
There’s far more detail to be had from the raw question and response charts at the back of the report, covering issues both mundane and hot button, including standardized testing, college readiness, and some “culture war” issues. Questions and answers regarding teachers’ adoption and use of artificial intelligence are new and will be of interest to many on the policy front. There is, literally, something for everyone in this report. Here’s hoping policymakers pay close attention to the results.
SOURCE: Educators for Excellence, “Voices from the Classroom 2024: A Survey of America’s Educators” (May 2024).
