What Drives Our Research
Fordham Ohio advocates for policies that advance educational excellence for all Ohio students. High-quality research and analysis—conducted in-house and by external researchers and experts—helps us advance that goal by framing key issues with sound data.
Ohio Education By the Numbers
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is pleased to present Ohio Education By The Numbers, which is an impartial, fact-based overview of K–12 education in the Buckeye State. We hope these data will inform conversations about improving education throughout the state.
Ohio charter schools after the pandemic: Are their students still learning more than they would in district schools?
One of the most routinely debated questions is whether charters provide a superior education when compared to the district alternative. Just prior to the pandemic, Fordham research showed that students attending brick-and-mortar charters in Ohio made significantly greater academic progress than their peers attending nearby district schools. Our latest research brief provides an updated analysis of brick-and-mortar charter school performance in the years after the pandemic (2021–22 and 2022–23).
Halfway Out the Door
What do ordinary Ohioans think about the myriad education reforms enacted in the Buckeye state over the last half-decade? How do parents, taxpayers, and citizens view public schooling in 2005? Do they like these reforms? Seek more or less of them? Have confidence that they'll succeed? Fordham decided to enlist veteran analysts Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett to examine the attitudes of Ohio residents toward their public schools. The results? Ohioans are frustrated with their K-12 education system on a number of fronts, and feel the state is in dire need of stronger, better leadership when it comes to education. Policymakers would do well to pay attention.
School Performance in Ohio's Inner Cities: Comparing Charter and District School Results in 2005
How are charter schools in Ohio truly performing when compared to their district counterparts? The latest Fordham Foundation report, School Performance in Ohio's Inner Cities: Comparing Charter and District School Results in 2005 provides a rare apples-to-apples comparison of charter school and district school achievement in four of Ohio's cities: Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton. The results reveal that the performance of charter pupils isn't as dismal as Ohio's charter opponents want you to believe. However, the findings also illuminate the larger problem: ALL public schools in the Buckeye State still have a long way to go to reach academic success.
Testimony Prepared for the Alternative Education Subcommittee
On April 21, 2005, Fordham President Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Program Director Terry Ryan testified before the Alternative Education Subcommittee of the Ohio House of Representatives. They discussed Ohio's community schools (a.k.a. charter schools), which face a developing paradox: the more they expand and the more students they serve, the more threatened they become, by internal and external forces alike.
A Wide-Angle Look at the Charter School Movement in Ohio/Dayton, circa September 2004
Charter school opponents have been taking shots nationally at charter schools in recent days, but these sorts of attacks have been a common occurrence in Dayton, Ohio since charter schools first opened there in 1998. Herewith is a report from the field on how charter schools are faring in the Buckeye State circa September 2004.
School Finance in Dayton: A Comparison of the Revenues of the School District and Community Schools
This report, prepared for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute by Public Impact, compares charter school funding and district school funding. It finds that charter schools are under-funded compared to their district counterparts, even after accounting for differences in students and grade levels. These findings should be taken seriously by those who argue that charter schools drain funds from district schools.
Having Their Say: The Views of Dayton-area Parents on Education
Much has changed in education in Dayton during the past two years. The remarkable election of a 'reform' majority to the Dayton school board, and the selection of a new superintendent. Passage of a huge levy for school-building construction and renewal. The arrival of the politics-governance Act and Ohio's Senate Bill 1. The dramatic growth of the charter-school sector and of controversy surrounding it. Some ferment on the high-school reform front. And much more. Thus, it seemed time to once again 'take the community's temperature' with respect to a wide array of K-12 education issues. Herewith are the results.
Dayton Charter School Assessment Report 2001-2002
This report presents a summary of the administration and results of annual pre- and post-testing of pupils enrolled in charter schools in Dayton and Springfield, Ohio during the 2001-2002 school year. The assessment activities were a project of the Education Resource Center of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce (DACC). The efforts of the DACC were supported in part via philanthropic gifts from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and other sources. The primary purposes of the assessment project were: 1) to help classroom teachers monitor individual student achievement and adapt instruction to promote learning; 2) to provide data for schools to assist them in gauging and improving their overall effectiveness; and 3) to foster public accountability and model the use of data to inform educational decision making.
Traditional Schools, Progressive Schools: Do Parents Have a Choice?
Louis Chandler, professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, determines how widespread progressive and traditional practices are in public, Catholic, and independent schools in the fairly typical state of Ohio. This report the results of his survey of 336 elementary schools that was conducted in the Buckeye State early in 1999.