Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Gadfly Podcast
      • Flypaper Blog
      • Events
    • Covid-19
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
    • Our Work in Dayton
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

Charter Authorizing Menu

  • Sponsorship Application
  • Sponsored Schools
  • Resources
  • Our Work in Dayton

Our Work in Dayton

To national audiences, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is known as an influential education-policy think tank with a two-decades-long commitment to reforming elementary and secondary schools, particularly through the combination of higher standards and greater parental choice.

In Dayton, Ohio, however, our roots go deeper. Here, local leaders may know that Thomas B. Fordham was a prominent industrialist in the 1930s and 40s—the onetime head of GM’s Frigidaire division and a successful supplier of essential wartime materiel. They may also know that the Fordham Foundation—created by Fordham’s widow, Thelma Fordham Pruett, in 1959—made grants to support good works in Dayton and vicinity for almost four decades, until her passing in 1996.

In 1997, the trustees of the Fordham Foundation re-launched the organization with a focus on school reform, both nationally and in Dayton. Our work in the Gem City has centered on expanding education options for disadvantaged children. We played a central role in launching Parents Advancing Choice in Education (PACE), which spearheaded private-school choice for Dayton families and we have made many grants to education-related organizations. In 2005, we became a charter-school sponsor (aka “authorizer”). Our sponsorship operation, based in Dayton, today serves over 5,500 students in eleven schools statewide, including The Dayton Early College Academy (DECA) and Dayton Leadership Academies.

Fordham Logo

© 2020 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

1016 16th St NW, 8th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036

202.223.5452

[email protected]

  • <
Ohio

100 E. Broad Street, Suite 2430
Columbus, OH 43215

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]