NOTE: On May 11, the Ohio Senate’s Primary and Secondary Education Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 145, a proposal to revise school and district report cards
Over the past few years, education groups have pushed the General Assembly to walk back the state policy that requires all high school juniors to take the ACT or SAT exam.
Although most schools have returned to some semblance of in-person learning for families who want it, education researchers and analysts are still working to gauge the impact of extended school closures.
Annual school report cards play an important role in healthy, accountable K–12 education systems.
For more than two decades, report cards have offered Ohioans an annual check on the quality of public schools. They have strived to ensure that schools maintain high expectations for all students, to provide parents with a clear signal when standards are not being met, and to identify high-performing schools whose practices are worth emulating.
NOTE: On March 16, 2021, the Ohio Senate’s Primary and Secondary Education Committee heard testimony on HB 67, a bill which would, among other provisions, make changes to the state’s graduation requirements in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Concerns over the increased potential for cheating are front and center in debates
Last week, the Ohio House passed legislation (HB 67) that addressed graduation requirements and a few other issues in K–12 education.
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.
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.
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 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).
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.
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
One of the tougher accountability nuts to crack is how to gauge educational quality in early elementary grades. Federal education law does not require state exams until third grade, and states choose not to administer end-of-year assessments in grades K–2.
In the face of a public health crisis, Ohioans have risen to the occasion. While images of heroic deeds by health care workers and grocery store employees come immediately to mind, there’s no shortage of positive stories from the education community as well.
These are unprecedented times. COVID-19 has greatly altered or paused much of what we do on a daily basis, including education. Governor DeWine has suspended in-person classes in K–12 schools statewide from March 17 until at least May 1. While most schools are attempting to offer some type of distance learning, it’s decidedly not business as usual.
Now in its fourth edition and fully updated for 2020, Ohio Education by the Numbers Education is a look at vital statistics about Ohio’s schools and the students they serve. We intend it to be a readily accessible resource that keeps education stats—with cites to original sources—at your fingertips.
On March 25, Ohio lawmakers unanimously passed emergency legislation that covers an array of policies affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
