Ohio media spreads myths about school funding
School funding has been front-and-center over the past month in Ohio with the high profile Cupp-Patterson plan driving media coverage.
School funding has been front-and-center over the past month in Ohio with the high profile Cupp-Patterson plan driving media coverage.
It’s been a busy lame duck session in Ohio.
Nearly a quarter century after the DeRolph v. Ohio decision, many still assume that the state’s school funding system is unconstitutional.
Earlier this week, the Senate Education committee passed Substitute Senate Bill 358, legislation that would extend temporary waivers from state laws that were granted earlier this year in response to the pandemic and school building closures.
NOTE: Today, the Finance Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives is hearing testimony on House Bill 305 which would create a new scho
Correction (12/17/20): A previous version of this article incorrectly indicated that the income-based EdChoice program was renamed the Buckeye Opportunity Scholarship.
Back in July 2019, Ohio lawmakers suspended the school funding formula, the policy mechanism that is supposed to drive state money to school districts and public charter schools.
The Ohio House and Senate have each approved legislation, Senate Bill 89, which significantly changes the state’s EdChoice Scholarship program. The EdChoice Scholarship, Ohio’s largest voucher program, has been a topic of robust debate for the past year as lawmakers argued over what state report card measures should determine if a school is considered low-performing.
The 2019–20 Fordham Sponsorship Annual Report provides insight into our sponsorship work during the year and the performance of our sponsored schools.
In the waning days of October, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released guidance that outlines the flexibilities states have under federal law to modify their accountability systems for the current school year (2020–21).
In policy circles, school choice and desegregation discussions often stop at the schoolhouse door.
Though not widely known, Ohio teachers have three retirement options: a traditional pension plan, a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan, and a hybrid plan that combines features of both. A large majority of teachers are in the pension plan—the result of either an affirmative choice or by default, not having selected a specific plan at the beginning of their careers.
Last Friday, legislators rolled out an updated version of the Cupp-Patterson school fun
Today we talk exclusively about money. I know we’re usually talking about money when we talk about education in Ohio, but these clips are all a bit more…overt than usual.
I have, I will admit, not been paying much attention to Tales from the Homestead (sequel to Ohio’s previous favorite soap opera Stories from the Crypt). I mean, I was holed up in the garage on vacation for a while. But really it’s just because the thing is such a freakin’ downer.
A recent article from the Tribune Chronicle in Northeast Ohio covered a school funding analysis published by the personal finance website WalletHub.
In the least-anticipated release on record, Ohio published its annual school report cards in mid-September. Due to the cancellation of last spring’s state tests, there’s not much there, though the state did release graduation rates and data about students’ readiness for college and career.
Over the last several weeks, Ohio lawmakers have been debating Senate Bill 358.
Note: Today, the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee continued hearing testimony on SB 358 which would, among other things, make critical changes to the state’s testing and accountability system in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ohio legislators recently introduced Senate Bill 358, which proposes to cancel all state testing scheduled for spring 2021, suspend report cards for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years, and extend so-called “safe harbor” provisions that shield sch
Arnold Glass and Mengxue Kang, psychology researchers at Rutgers-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences, are conducting an ongoing study using technology to monitor college students’ academic performance and to assess the effects of new instructional technologies on that performance.
The Cincinnati Enquirer recently published a deeply flawed and misleading “analysis” of the EdChoice scholarship (a.k.a. voucher) program.
With Covid-19 cases on the rise and state budgets in crisis, federal lawmakers seem poised to pass another round of stimulus.
Editor’s Note: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute occasionally publishes guest commentaries on its blogs. The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.
Enacted in 2012, Ohio’s (well-named) Third Grade Reading Guarantee aims to ensure that children can read proficiently by the end of third grad
The growth of private school choice programs in Ohio has clearly struck a nerve with the education bureaucracy. After rapid expansion in the number of schools slated to be deemed “low-performing” in 2020–21, which ballooned the number of students eligible for vouchers, choice opponents pushed for massive changes in Ohio’s EdChoice program.
In late March, state lawmakers gave local schools emergency authority to determine whether students in the class of 2020 satisfied graduation requirements.
It’s no secret that Covid-19 has had a massive impact on schools.
After a one-year pause in Ohio's school accountability system, the road back to normalcy is uncertain. Fordham's new policy brief titled Resetting school accountability, from the bottom up offers a clear and concise plan to restart state assessments and school report cards.