Student Nomads: Mobility in Ohio's Schools
Our data show that students frequently change schools. Should public policies try to slow student mobility? Encourage it? Or make policies better attuned to it?
Our data show that students frequently change schools. Should public policies try to slow student mobility? Encourage it? Or make policies better attuned to it?
This paper uses systems thinking to provide common sense ideas for saving money while improving special education services to the more than 275,000 Ohio students with special needs.
With the 2014-15 Common-Core transition looming, we wondered: How are Ohio’s educators preparing themselves for this big change? Who is doing this work and what can other schools and districts learn from the early adopters? What are lessons, hopes, and fears facing those on the frontlines who have to lead Ohio’s embrace of significantly more rigorous academic standards?
Is it time for Ohio to consider new forms of governance and management for its most troubled schools and districts, and, if so, what might alternatives look like?
In partnership with the independent education journal Catalyst Ohio (see here), we resolved to find out, and enlisted the expert help of the nonpartisan FDR Group (see here), a respected survey research firm led by veteran public opinion analysts Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett. The result is Checked Out: Ohioans' Views on Education 2009. This is the third such survey that we at Fordham have undertaken since 2005 on education issues in the Buckeye State. This makes it possible to track some key trends in public opinion over time.
The second edition of Fwd: Arresting Insights in Education summarizes Ohio state report card data for Dayton's district and charter public schools. Despite some recent gains, the phrase academic emergency continues to characterize the majority of Dayton's public schools. Also, youngsters in Dayton's charter schools outperformed their district peers on the 4th and 6th grade proficiency tests -- a finding that flies in the face of recent assertions that charter school students are learning less.
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is pleased to share its latest annual Sponsorship Accountability Report, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back. The sixth of its kind, the report reflects on Ohio??s charter school policy environment and the performance of Fordham sponsored charter schools ??? in terms of absolute achievement, growth, and adherence to goals set forth in our authorizing contract ??? as well as developments in state law over the year. Despite some tough battles during the state budget as it relates to holding authorizers (and operators) accountable, overall Fordham and its schools had an encouraging year, with Fordham sponsored-charters making achievement gains and positioning themselves to do even better in the future.
Fordham has been both an advocate of choice and an authorizer of charter schools serving some of Ohio's neediest students. This book describes and analyzes our efforts, successes and failures, and what we think it means for others committed to school reform.
Ohio adopted the Common Core standards in ELA and math in June 2010, but now stands at a crossroad in making sure statewide assessments are aligned to those standards. Ohio is a participating member in two federally funded assessment consortia—the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC)--but is a decision-maker in neither. This primer outlines both consortia and suggests that Ohio make a decision soon to begin the massive reboot required to realign assessments, professional development, and accountability systems to match the Common Core.
Each year, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute conducts an analysis of student achievement in Ohio's Big 8 urban districts and charter schools. 2010-2011's analysis looks at performance, growth (as measured by value-added), growth over time, comparisons between students in district schools, charters (and charters by type and authorizer type), e-schools, and more.
To what extent have Ohio's leaders met the challenges and opportunities before them in K-12 education? What needs to happen next?
Statewide survey of Ohio school district superintendents (and other education leaders) on the most critical issues facing K-12 education in the Buckeye State, including budgets, school effectiveness, and troublesome laws.
In this policy brief, Fordham gives its advice to Governor-elect Kasich and the incoming leaders of the Ohio House and Senate as it relates to the future of K-12 education policy in the Buckeye State.
Despite the overall dismal performance of schools serving Ohio's poor, urban youngsters, there are a handful of schools that buck these bleak trends and achieve significant results for their students. This report examines eight of these schools.
Each year the Thomas B. Fordham Institute conducts an analysis of urban school performance in Ohio. Read the findings for Ohio's Big 8 schools for the 2008-09 school year.
The media is awash with stories about Ohio's brain drain: in 2007, the Buckeye State saw 6,981 more residents between the ages of 25 and 34 leave the state than migrate into it. What's worse, the more education these young people have, the more likely they are to leave. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute seeks to shed light on this important problem--and explore solutions--with this study by the Farkas Duffet Research Group.
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's education plan calls for modernizing Ohio's K-12 education system, including the state's school-funding system, but the plan's so-called "evidence-based" approach would actually scuttle any modernizing efforts, argues this study issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, in partnership with Public Impact, analyzed the 2007-08 academic performance data for charter and district schools in Ohio's eight largest urban cities.
As Gov. Ted Strickland concludes his 12-city "Conversation on Education" tour to gather ideas for reforming public education in Ohio, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has put forth a report of five recommendations designed to keep improvements in the Buckeye State's public schools on track toward three critical goals: 1) maximizing the talents of every child; 2) producing graduates as good as any in the world; and 3) closing the persistent academic gaps that continue between rich and poor, and black and white and brown.
Beginning in August 2008, Ohio's academic accountability system includes a value-added component that measures student academic progress in addition to achievement. Fordham created this short primer on value-added to help business people, lawmakers, policymakers, and others understand this powerful but complex tool.
For information on Fordham's unique role as a charter school sponsor in Ohio, there's no better source than The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Sponsorship Accountability Report 2006-07. The report offers a comprehensive account of Fordham's sponsorship policies and practices-as well as individual profiles of all Fordham-sponsored schools. Included in the profiles are descriptions of each school's educational program, school philosophy, and overall academic performance.
Despite a decade of significant school reform efforts in Ohio, students in the state's largest cities still struggle mightily to meet basic academic standards and are nowhere close to achieving the goals set by the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to an analysis of the latest Ohio school report-card data.
Despite its long history and prodigious size, all is not well with Ohio's teacher pension system. In this Fordham Institute report, nationally renowned economists Robert Costrell and Mike Podgursky illuminate some of the serious challenges facing STRS.
This survey covers such topics as school quality and funding, academic standards, school reforms, proposals to improve how the public schools are run, teacher quality, charter schools and school vouchers. It follows up a survey conducted in 2005 and many of the questions are repeated, allowing us to gauge whether attitudes have shifted over time.
At the request of Ohio's top government and education leaders, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and National Alliance for Public Charter Schools have issued a report seeking to strengthen the state's charter school program. Among its 17 recommendations are calls for closing low-performing charter schools while also helping more high-performance schools to open and succeed in Ohio.
What do ordinary Ohioans think about the myriad education reforms enacted in the Buckeye state over the last half-decade? How do parents, taxpayers, and citizens view public schooling in 2005? Do they like these reforms? Seek more or less of them? Have confidence that they'll succeed? Fordham decided to enlist veteran analysts Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett to examine the attitudes of Ohio residents toward their public schools. The results? Ohioans are frustrated with their K-12 education system on a number of fronts, and feel the state is in dire need of stronger, better leadership when it comes to education. Policymakers would do well to pay attention.
How are charter schools in Ohio truly performing when compared to their district counterparts? The latest Fordham Foundation report, School Performance in Ohio's Inner Cities: Comparing Charter and District School Results in 2005 provides a rare apples-to-apples comparison of charter school and district school achievement in four of Ohio's cities: Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dayton. The results reveal that the performance of charter pupils isn't as dismal as Ohio's charter opponents want you to believe. However, the findings also illuminate the larger problem: ALL public schools in the Buckeye State still have a long way to go to reach academic success.
On April 21, 2005, Fordham President Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Program Director Terry Ryan testified before the Alternative Education Subcommittee of the Ohio House of Representatives. They discussed Ohio's community schools (a.k.a. charter schools), which face a developing paradox: the more they expand and the more students they serve, the more threatened they become, by internal and external forces alike.
Charter school opponents have been taking shots nationally at charter schools in recent days, but these sorts of attacks have been a common occurrence in Dayton, Ohio since charter schools first opened there in 1998. Herewith is a report from the field on how charter schools are faring in the Buckeye State circa September 2004.
This report, prepared for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute by Public Impact, compares charter school funding and district school funding. It finds that charter schools are under-funded compared to their district counterparts, even after accounting for differences in students and grade levels. These findings should be taken seriously by those who argue that charter schools drain funds from district schools.