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Funding Career and Technical Education in Ohio Cover

Report

4.22.2025

Career & Technical Education

Funding Career and Technical Education in Ohio: An overview and policy recommendations

Aaron Churchill

Over the past decade, Ohio policymakers have made upgrading career-technical education (CTE) a top state priority. Yet the CTE landscape remains complicated and quickly evolving, none more so than in the area of funding. This paper provides an overview of the various funding mechanisms for CTE, including state and federal programs that aim to provide students with high-quality CTE.

Report

4.8.2025

Curriculum & Instruction

The Science of Reading in Action: How Toledo’s Escuela SMART Academy is making phonics and content knowledge central to literacy instruction

Ellen Belcher

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.

Report

3.12.2025

Curriculum & Instruction

Ohio’s path to early literacy: Science of Reading progress and challenges

Alanna Bjorklund-Young, Andrea Ochoa

Our latest report is an evaluation of the high-quality charter funding program. It finds positive results: The additional dollars have allowed charters to boost their teachers’ salaries, reduced staffing turnover, and driven student learning gains.

Report

3.4.2025

Governance

Ohio Education By the Numbers—2025 Edition

Aaron Churchill

The brand new and fully updated eighth edition of our Ohio education guidebook is out now. It offers policymakers, journalists, and civic and business leaders easy-to-use statistics—sans commentary—about Ohio’s K-12 schools and the students they serve.

Report

11.25.2024

Charter Schools

2024 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report

Our 2023-24 Sponsorship Annual Report details our work providing monitoring, oversight, and technical assistance to ten schools across sixteen campuses that served approximately 6,300 students in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Report

10.17.2024

Charter Schools

The Impact of Increasing Funding for High-Performing Ohio Charter Schools: The Quality Community School Support Fund, 2019–23

Stéphane Lavertu

Thanks to the leadership of Governor DeWine, Lieutenant Governor Husted, and the General Assembly, Ohio has recently made significant strides in narrowing the charter funding gap. Our latest report is an evaluation of the high-quality charter funding program.

Report

10.2.2024

Governance

The State of Educational Opportunity in Ohio: A Survey of Ohio Parents

We are excited to share the results of a new survey on the state of education opportunity in Ohio. It provides not only a unique window into the opportunities available to families in our state right now but allows us to compare those answers to parents in other states.

Report

9.3.2024

Curriculum & Instruction

The Science of Reading in Action: How Margaretta Local Schools is adding phonics and rigor to its reading instruction

Ellen Belcher

When Ed Kurt came home to Margaretta Local School District in the summer of 2020, it was his second tour as superintendent. He had left the district six years earlier to lead Findlay City Schools.

Report

8.20.2024

Curriculum & Instruction

The Science of Reading in Action: How Northridge Local Schools is changing the way reading is taught

Ellen Belcher

Ohio elementary schools are moving to the Science of Reading, an approach that emphasizes phonics along with vocabulary- and knowledge-rich content. Keen on learning what this transition looks like inside classrooms, we asked Ellen Belcher, a former journalist with the Dayton Daily News, to visit Northridge Local Schools to shine light on their literacy practices. Our latest publication details Northridge's approach to updating their reading curriculum and instruction.

Report

7.10.2024

Curriculum & Instruction

Off and Running: Ohio’s early implementation of its Science of Reading reforms

Aaron Churchill

Ohio is making bold moves to center its early literacy instruction fully on the Science of Reading. Our latest report examines one of the key implementation steps in the effort: Creating a state-approved list of high-quality literacy curricula and instructional materials.

Report

6.11.2024

Charter Schools

Ohio charter schools after the pandemic: Are their students still learning more than they would in district schools?

Stéphane Lavertu

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).

Report

3.26.2024

Charter Schools

Did the emergence of Ohio charter schools help or harm students who remained in district schools?

Stéphane Lavertu

For more than twenty-five years, public charter schools have served Ohio families and communities by providing quality educational options beyond the local school district. But it’s no secret that we’ve also had a long-standing debate over whether increasing school choice impacts students who remain in traditional districts. In important—and sometimes impassioned—discussions such as these, rigorous research is critical to ground conversations in facts and evidence.

Report

2.27.2024

Governance

Ohio Education By the Numbers—2024 Edition

Aaron Churchill

In the post-pandemic era, Ohio’s K–12 education system continues to be the source of much debate. A mix of hot-button and bipartisan policies ranging from workforce readiness to early literacy to school funding to quality educational choice are drawing attention at the Statehouse and in communities statewide.

Report

2.20.2024

Career & Technical Education

Ohio’s Career-Technical Education Landscape: An overview of CTE at the high school level

Jessica Poiner

Our latest policy brief provides an overview of the CTE landscape for Ohio high schoolers.

Report

11.27.2023

Charter Schools

2023 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report

Our 2022-23 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report shares our work during the last school year, overseeing thirteen schools that served approximately 6,000 students in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Modernizing the traditional school district in Ohio cover

Report

11.15.2023

Governance

Modernizing the traditional school district in Ohio: How state lawmakers can strengthen local accountability and drive higher performance

Aaron Churchill

Our latest policy brief offers recommendations aimed at enhancing local, citizen-led accountability for district performance, while also loosening bureaucratic constraints on district leaders so that they can focus on what matters most: Lifting student achievement.

Report

5.16.2023

Teachers & School Leaders

Do Ohio’s teacher preparation programs follow the science of reading? How stronger teacher preparation and curricula policies can ensure scientifically based reading instruction in Ohio

Shannon Holston

This study takes a look at Ohio's elementary-school teacher preparation programs and the extent to which they're training candidates in the science of reading. Based on analyses of programs' course materials and syllabi, the report identifies exemplary preparation programs that cover the five components of the reading science. Other programs, however, are lagging behind. The report offers recommendations that will better ensure that all incoming teachers are well-trained in the science of reading.

Report

5.2.2023

Charter Schools

Reinventing Ohio’s Charter School Sector, 2015–2023: Ohio’s successful charter turnaround—and what’s needed next

Aaron Churchill

For more than two decades, the charter school movement has aimed to provide parents with more public-school options, empower educators to launch innovative schools, and boost student achievement. This report looks at the progress Ohio is making toward achieving these ambitious goals. It includes an overview of the landmark reforms that state lawmakers enacted in 2015 to strengthen accountability for charter school performance, as well as the improvements the sector has made since then. The report also discusses the large funding disparities that public charter schools in Ohio still face, and how legislators can work to bridge those gaps.

Report

4.18.2023

Accountability & Testing

Will Ohio’s Covid Generation Get Back on Track? An analysis of 2021–22 state test results—and how to accelerate learning

Aaron Churchill

In fall 2022, the Ohio Department of Education released state assessment results from the 2021-22 school year. The data continue to reveal the massive learnings losses that occurred during the pandemic, along with the uneven recovery in its wake. This report offers a close look at Ohio's achievement data from the 2018-19 to 2021-22 school years, and concludes with four recommendations that can help accelerate student learning across the Buckeye State.

Report

3.2.2023

Governance

Ohio Education By the Numbers—2023 Edition

Aaron Churchill

Ensuring that all Ohio students receive an excellent education remains an important priority for state and community leaders. As Governor DeWine himself recently noted, a quality education for all is a “moral imperative” for Ohio. Making good on this obligation starts with a solid understanding of the state of K-12 education in Ohio.

Report

1.10.2023

Accountability & Testing

Fine-tuning Ohio’s school report card: An analysis of the state’s revamped report card in its first year of implementation, 2021–22

Aaron Churchill

Executive summary

Report

12.14.2022

Private School Choice

The Ohio EdChoice Program’s impact on school district enrollments, finances, and academics

Stéphane Lavertu, John J. Gregg

This report explores the impacts of Ohio’s EdChoice program on school district enrollments, finances, and educational outcomes. The study includes detailed analyses of the state’s “performance-based” EdChoice program that, as of 2021–22 provides vouchers to approximately 35,000 students as well as its “income-based” EdChoice program which serves approximately 20,000 low-income students.

Report

11.18.2022

Charter Schools

2022 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report

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.

Report

10.11.2022

Curriculum & Instruction

Preparing all children to become strong readers: Ten ways to strengthen Ohio’s grades K–3 early literacy initiatives

Aaron Churchill

Children who start strong in reading are more likely to succeed academically as they progress through middle school, high school, and beyond. Conversely, those who struggle to read in the early grades often falter as they encounter more challenging material; many become frustrated with school and drop out.

Report

10.3.2022

Teachers & School Leaders

Strengthening Ohio’s teacher workforce: Attracting and retaining talent through reforms to licensure and compensation

Jessica Poiner

Teachers are the most important in-school factor affecting student achievement, and in the wake of pandemic-caused learning losses, Ohio schools need effective teachers more than ever.

Policy Brief 2 school funding imperatives COVER

Report

9.13.2022

School Finance

School funding imperatives for Ohio’s next budget: Toward a more efficient, productive, and transparent system

Aaron Churchill

Recognizing the importance of an educated citizenry, Ohio taxpayers have made generous investments in K–12 education. In FY 2021, statewide spending on public primary and secondary education reached a record high of $21 billion or $13,300 per pupil.

Report

8.30.2022

Accountability & Testing

Turning around troubled schools: How Ohio can create a stronger, clearer school improvement program

Aaron Churchill

As Governor Mike DeWine asserted, the state of Ohio has “a moral obligation” on behalf of students to step in when schools are falling short of academic performance standards. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), federal lawmakers have given states the ability to chart their own course when it comes to fixing under-performing schools.

Report

8.16.2022

Charter Schools

Creating great school options for all Ohio students: Recommendations to strengthen educational choice in the Buckeye State

Aaron Churchill

Ohio has a long history of empowering parents with educational options for their children. Today, more than 250,000 of the state’s 1.6 million students attend public charter schools, enroll in private schools with the support of state-funded scholarships, or participate in interdistrict open enrollment.

TBFI 2022 Ohio Education By the Numbers cover 255330

Report

1.27.2022

Governance

Ohio Education By the Numbers—2022 Edition

Aaron Churchill

Giving children an excellent K-12 education has long been a top priority for Ohioans. That’s no different today, but educational issues loom even larger after the pandemic-related disruptions of the past two years. To guide productive conversations about improving education, clear and accessible data are key.

Report

11.22.2021

Charter Schools

2021 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report

The 2020-21 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report provides insight into our sponsorship work during the last school year, one of the most challenging imaginable for schools, students, and families.