In 2004, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation was approved by the Ohio Department of Education to serve as a sponsor of community schools- making us the first nonprofit organization in the Buckeye State to acquire such a responsibility. For over a decade we have sought to improve school choices for needy families, provide individual grants to support the creation and improvement of charter schools, and support district wide school reforms in and around our hometown of Dayton, Ohio.
Fordham also publishes and supports research on many different aspects of K-12 education both in the state of Ohio and across the nation. Additionally, Fordham staff and board members remain involved in organizations that support and develop quality schools. Through sponsorship, we take our policy work, research findings, and expertise, and apply them in practice so that students may benefit.
We approach charter school sponsorship the way we've approached all
of our endeavors nationally and in Ohio: dedicated to accountability,
transparency, and responsiveness. As a sponsor, we believe that in
exchange for the freedom to teach and operate independently, schools are
responsible for producing results (accountability) and providing
information about their activities to those who seek it (transparency).
These are the keys necessary to ensuring that every student who comes to
our schools makes the grade.