How Ohio lawmakers made expanding educational access a top priority in this year’s budget
Late Monday, members of the House and Senate made their final tweaks to the state budget and then sent it off to Governor DeWine.
Late Monday, members of the House and Senate made their final tweaks to the state budget and then sent it off to Governor DeWine.
After several years of debate, Ohio lawmakers recently passed a much-needed revamp of the state’s school report card.
Today, the General Assembly passed House Bill 82, legislation that contains comprehensive reforms to the state’s school report card system. In recent years, education groups (including Fordham) have urged the legislature to make improvements to the report card that would make it fairer to schools and easier for Ohioans to understand.
NOTE: On June 23, 2021, the Ohio Senate’s Primary and Secondary Education Committee heard testimony on Substitute House Bill 82 which would, among other things, ma
Since the spring of 2017, all Ohio eleventh graders have been required to take either the ACT or the SAT at the state’s expense.
As post-pandemic life cautiously starts to take shape here in America, uncertainty abounds. Will our systems and processes and activities eagerly snap back to their 2019 forms? Or will our lives in 2021 and beyond take on new contours influenced by what we have learned, for good and ill, during the challenges forced upon us by 2020?
After months of debate, state lawmakers continue to mull significant changes to Ohio’s school report card system. Two vastly different proposals to overhaul the report card framework have emerged (House Bill 200 and Senate Bill 145).
Back in 2014, Ohio lawmakers overhauled the state’s dual-enrollment program that gives students opportunities to take advanced courses through two- or four-year colleges.
First implemented in the 2013–14 school year, Ohio’s third grade reading guarantee has aimed to ensure that all children have the foundational reading skills needed to navigate more chall
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.
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.
Since 2005, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has published annual analyses of Ohio’s state report cards.
Gallons of ink, some on this blog, have been spilled about what Ohio should do about academically troubled school districts.
Across the nation, headlines have trumpeted soaring high-school graduation rates. Ohio is no exception. Lofty rates leave the impression that the vast majority of students are ready to take their next steps in life. But the truth is that too many students exit high school not fully prepared for college and career.
Ohio education policy has seen its fair share of controversy in recent years, but there are two policies in particular that have dominated news cycles: graduation requirements and academic distress commissions (ADCs).
Creating smart, coherent education policy is painstaking work; there are technical, budgetary, and political challenges at almost every turn. But it is some of the most important work that state leaders can undertake.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." -- Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. That sentiment has never been more profound and applicable than it is today.
Since 2005, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has published annual analyses of Ohio’s state report card data, focusing on district and charter schools in Ohio’s Big Eight urban areas: Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown.
In August, the Ohio Department (ODE) of Education and the State Board of Education (SBOE) released their five-year strategic plan for education.
By Jessica Poiner
In a paper titled Ohio’s Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement, the Ohio Department of Education recently wrote that districts have “a limited understanding of how to build early literacy in young children.” This is manifestly troubling, as s
I recently wrote about some big changes that are coming for Ohio’s dropout prevention and recovery schools (DPRS), thanks to recent adjustments made by the State Board of Education. This piece examines the potential impacts of those changes.
At the most recent State Board of Education meeting, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) reported preliminary test results from the 2017–18 school year. The numbers still need to be verified by districts before they can be used to calculate report cards, which will include more detailed data and be disaggregated by subgroup.
A-to-F school rating systems have come under fire in Ohio and remain a hotly debated topic elsewhere.
In a pattern now becoming all too familiar, the State Board of Education recently got spooked by the prospect of tougher standards and delayed action on lifting grade-promotion standards under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee for 2018–19.
If kicking the accountability can down the road were an Olympic sport, Ohio policymakers would win the gold medal. The latest example comes from the State Board of Education, which recently recommended that the state legislature again push back the overall A–F rating to fall 2019.
In a recent analysis of the Academic Distress Commission (ADC) system currently in place in Youngstown City Schools, my colleague Jessica Poiner shows significant deviations from the six habits<
NOTE: The Education and Career Readiness Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives today heard testimony on HB 591, a proposal that would make changes to Ohio’s school report cards. Fordham’s Chad Aldis was a witness at this hearing and these are his written remarks.
Ohio is no stranger to district turnarounds. Back in 2007, academic distress commissions (ADCs) were added to state law as a way for the state to intervene in districts that consistently fail to meet academic standards.
Education is hard, so we should celebrate success at every opportunity. A sky-high graduation rate, for example, should make us smile from ear to ear.