Budget proposal unwisely lowers the graduation bar in science and social studies
Last week, the Ohio House unveiled House Bill 110, the legislative vehicle for Governor DeWine’s budget proposal.
Last week, the Ohio House unveiled House Bill 110, the legislative vehicle for Governor DeWine’s budget proposal.
NOTE: On Tuesday, February 23, 2021, members of the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee heard testimony on House Bill 67 which would seek to waive testing in Ohio’s schools for the 2020–21 school year.
Last spring, Governor DeWine signed legislation that eliminated state tests and paused school accountability sanctions for the 2019–20 school year. Efforts by the education establishment to extend these changes through the 2020–21 school year began almost immediately.
Under pressure from the school establishment and teachers unions, Ohio lawmakers recently filed bills that seek to cancel state assessments this spring.
It’s no secret that the pandemic has been extraordinarily difficult on education. Reopening decisions, complex in-person safety protocols, virtual school, and the specter of learning loss have made the past year tough.
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.
It might seem far away, but the 2021–22 school year is just around the corner. In a few short months, students will be gearing up for summer break—and using that time wisely has never been more important. This fall will be similarly significant.
A new report from Portland State University sociologist Dara Shifrer digs into the value-added data of thousands of teachers who switched schools and concludes that value-added measures reflect the socio-economic status of students and thus cannot be used to accuratel
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.
In the last week, there’s been a flurry of discussion around what the incoming Biden administration could do for student loan borrowers.
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).
The fiscal woes of state pension systems are regularly in the news.
This week, Fordham released its latest report, an analysis of the three retirement options available for Ohio teachers.
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.
When coronavirus turned everything upside down this spring, there were predictions that educators would retire in droves rather than risk teaching during a pandemic.
Over the last several weeks, Ohio lawmakers have been debating Senate Bill 358.
There are no silver bullets when it comes to closing achievement gaps. But there are inputs and interventions with solid evidence bases, and the impact of a good teacher is one of them.
In the last six months, as the nation has struggled in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, there’s been a lot of controversy and disagreement over what schools need
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.
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
In late March, state lawmakers gave local schools emergency authority to determine whether students in the class of 2020 satisfied graduation requirements.
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.
A couple years ago, a district superintendent gave an astonishing quote to his local newspaper stating his belief that the only relevant measure for school quality and the evaluation of school districts is the high school grad
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently published the latest data from the National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), conducted during the 2017–18 school year. It gives us an important snapshot of today’s teaching force in both public and private schools.
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.
Due to plummeting tax revenues, Governor Mike DeWine last week announced plans to slash state spending for the current fiscal year, ending June 30. Among the cost-cutting includes a $355 million hit to K–12 education, a roughly 3 percent reduction in education outlays. With the economy still swooning, legislators are mulling deeper cuts for 2020–21.