Losing Ohio’s Future: A Discussion about Ohio’s “Brain Drain” from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.

The Fordham Institute is unique in the school reform sector in that we have offices in both Washington, DC and Ohio. From the Buckeye State vantage point, we see a growing disconnect between reformers inside the Beltway and those toiling in the states. The federal government is flush with money (granted it is borrowed!) and there is big talk about reform; while the states are broke and in the middle of brutal budget cutting that is threatening to set back school reform efforts big time.

Exhibit A: Washington, DC - U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a gathering at the National Charter School Conference last week in Washington that now is the time to turn around the country’s 5,000 lowest performing schools, and he said the federal government has $5 billion to spend on this effort over the next two years. Sec. Duncan and the President are actively encouraging more charter schools, dramatic school turnaround efforts, common academic standards across the states, and other reforms backed up by federal “Race to the Top Dollars.”

Exhibit B: Columbus, OH - the General Assembly and the Governor are struggling to cut $3.2 billion from the state’s $54 billion budget. At serious risk are all manner of recent school reform - charter schools (especially cybercharters), STEM schools and associated STEM programs, Early College Academies, the state’s innovative value-added assessment system, and any real talk of improving the state’s standards and accountability systems. Education reform in Ohio has been consumed by the state’s fiscal crisis. Reforms and reformers are now pitted against the status quo and long-established educational interests in a life-and-death struggle for scarce dollars. The reformers are apt to lose big time in the Buckeye State.

The story from Ohio is playing out elsewhere across the country as state’s struggle with massive holes in their operating budgets. Today’s Wall-Street Journal reported that “personal income-tax collections, which account for about 36 percent of state revenues, dropped 26 percent in this year’s January-April period.... Sales-tax revenues have swooned, leaving 48 states with a combined revenue shortfall of $166 billion in the coming fiscal year.”

We are seeing a serious shake-out of school reform efforts in the states. What plays out in state capitals over the next few weeks may very well set the direction for school reform in the United States for the next decade or more. This is despite the valiant efforts of the federal government to try and keep education reform moving in the right direction.

Photo credit: jeremybrooks

Who better to report on the “brain drain” than college students themselves?  Check out this story from FOX affiliate Palestra.net , aka The College Network, featuring such luminaries as West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, III , and Fordham’s own Terry Ryan .

Consider that these sorts of politics might be in play. There’s little doubt that the Obama political operation will want Governor Strickland to still be Governor Strickland in 2012. And there’s little doubt that Governor Strickland sure could use several  hundred million dollars in discretionary federal education funds to help him maintain his popularity. But there’s also little doubt that the Governor is pushing against education reform in almost every manner possible. It’s going to be a game of chicken. Who will blink first: Ted Strickland or Arne Duncan? Stay tuned.

Two weeks ago, our friends at KidsOhio.org released a report highlighting the academic progress made by students in Ohio’s “Big 8″ (large urban) districts and charter schools in those same cities.  It’s fair to lump these two groups together, and to compare them with one another.  The vast majority of students in urban charter schools hail from those eight districts.  Yes, there are some stragglers from the suburbs, but not nearly enough to invalidate such research.

Today, the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, also our friends, followed up KidsOhio.org’s work with a  report of its own (not yet available online that I can find) comparing academic achievement, preparation, and progress levels of students in the Big 8 districts with students in the Buckeye State’s seven statewide e-schools.  OAPCS found similar results between the two groups, perhaps providing cause for saving e-schools from the budget chopping block.

The problem is, e-schools don’t get their students from the large urban districts like most brick-and-mortar charter schools do.  In fact, last school year just 22 percent of students at statewide e-schools came from such districts.  A fairer comparison can be made between e-schools and statewide average performance, like Fordham does in our annual analysis of Ohio school performance.  Such a comparison shows that Ohio’s e-schools routinely under-perform their district peers.  This is largely due to a few perennially weak performers who drag down the good work being done by the decent cyberschools.

Instead of quibbling about data, or manipulating it to meet our political needs, those of us in the Ohio charter school community need to get serious about quality, once and for all.

By guest blogger and Ohio policy and research intern Matthew Walsh

Today, the Ohio House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means heard sponsor testimony from Rep. Cheryl Grossman (R-Grove City)  about HB 144, legislation that aims to tackle Ohio’s “brain drain” by granting a state income tax credit to anyone who earns a bachelor’s degree then lives in the Buckeye State for five years.  Fordham explored just this topic in our recent report, Losing Ohio’s Future: Why college graduates flee the Buckeye State and what might be done about it, and found that while 58 percent of surveyed undergraduates plan to leave Ohio after they get their diplomas, 65 percent say a state income tax credit would be an enticing reason to stay here.   It seems Rep. Grossman is a fan of our work—she cited our report in her testimony and distributed copies of the report to committee members as well.

Today’s Ohio Education Gadfly is our last regular issue before a short summer break, so you don’t want to miss it.  Mike recaps media coverage and reaction to our latest report, Losing Ohio’s Future: Why college graduates flee the Buckeye State and what might be done about it. Suzannah ponders Ohio’s “catch-22″ when it comes to updating the Buckeye State’s academic content standards.  Matt recommends a new report about the high-school dropout problem, and Rachel wonders if Americans are smarter than 5^th graders?  Read the entire Ohio ‘Fly here.

Type “Ohio” and “brain drain” together into Google and you get 86,600 hits.

In 2007, Ohio saw 6,981 more resi­dents between the ages of 25 and 34 leave the state than mi­grate into it.

In 2003, the Cleveland Plain Dealer found that individuals with master’s degrees are more apt to say farewell to Ohio than those with bache­lor’s degrees, and those with doctoral degrees were twice as likely to leave.

Despite these grim statistics, Ohio desperately needs to hold on to its best-and-brightest college graduates. The economy in deep recession, with the state facing a $3 billion budget deficit.  Workers with a bachelor’s degree earn more, and pay more in taxes, than their high-school-diploma-holding peers. Yet, Ohio is lagging nation­ally in keeping and attracting col­lege graduates - the state ranks 30th nationally in the number of citizens between the ages of 25 and 34 with a bachelor’s degree.

Ohio’s future prosperity demands that we do a better job of keeping and engaging our best and brightest. They will generate the economic vigor, new technologies, and other kinds of economic development that will spur the jobs and progress the state needs to modernize, thrive, and ultimately prosper. They and their success are key to the state’s ability to pay its bills and meet its promises.

So, we wondered, why are graduates leaving the Buckeye State?  What would it take to keep them here?  And further, what would it take to get them working in the field of education (both in teaching and in other careers)?  Check out our latest report, Losing Ohio’s Future: Why college graduates flee the Buckeye State and what might be done about it for the answers!

Guest post by Fordham Ohio Policy and Research Intern, Rachel Roseberry.

Ohio’s Supreme Court ruled yesterday that municipal employees cannot be required to live in the municipality in which they are employed.  This upholds a 2006 state law that eradicated many residency requirements in cities across the Buckeye State. Yet Ohio forces the vast majority of its children into schools based solely on their ZIP codes by making it tough for new charter schools to open and capping the state’s voucher program.  The state legislature continues to battle over the pending biennial budget, with the House pushing for changes that would further hamper school choice here.  It is worth reminding lawmakers and the state’s powerful teacher unions (whose fire and police counterparts are lauding the court ruling) that Ohio’s students, especially the neediest among them, deserve the right to attend the school that best meets their educational needs every bit as much as the state’s adults deserve the right to live in the locale of their choosing.

Just in case you weren’t aware – the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation actually acts as authorizer for six charter schools in Ohio! New Media Manager Laura Pohl and I took a trip out to Ohio last month to meet some of the kids and staff and see the schools. We had a terrific time! Below you’ll find photos and a video from our trip, and here’s a story written by our Ohio team about one of the schools – Columbus Collegiate Academy. Enjoy!

Dayton View Academy students in P.E. class wave to a visitor.

Working on reading skills at Dayton View Academy.

An inspirational wall at KIPP Journey Academy in Columbus.

Math class at Columbus Collegiate Academy.

Columbus Collegiate Academy

Dayton Academy

Dayton Academy

You Gotta Read, Baby, Read! from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.

Today’s Ohio Gadfly is a must-read. In Capital Matters, Checker, Terry, and I offer Fordham’s recommendations for the state’s pending biennial budget. Terry ponders, amidst Democrats and education interest groups clamoring for more money, if we haven’t in fact seen the “golden age” of school funding in the Buckeye State.  Mike highlights the ups and downs endured by Columbus Collegiate Academy in the start-up charter school’s first year of operation, Matt and Rachel recommend some good reads, and more!

Ohio is in the midst of a heated debate about the future of school funding. The governor, supported by House Democrats, has presented an “Evidence-Based Model” of school funding that is based largely on the work of professors Allan Odden and Lawrence Picus. This model has been roundly criticized by professor Paul Hill, professor Eric Hanushek, Fordham, and Republicans in the Senate who dismantled the governor’s plan in their version of the state biennial budget.

Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth write in their new book on school funding that such evidence-based models are “simply not credible.” As an alternative to the evidence-based model, Senate Republicans have proposed moving closer toward a system of school funding that funds the child. This has triggered calls from groups like Education Voters of Ohio for “a list of citations that suggest per-pupil funding does a better job than the evidence-based model in determining what an excellent education looks like.”

In response to such calls following is a list of some of the most recent and thoughtful pieces on the advantages of funds following the child:

1)    Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. This peer-reviewed document includes more than 30 separate studies at a cost of $6 million. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the studies involved an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 scholars including many of the country’s best known economists, policy analysts, lawyers, and specialists in school finance, instruction, and educational innovation.

2)    Creating a World-Class Education System in Ohio from Achieve, Inc. and McKinsey & Company. This report drew on a wide range of internationally recognized experts in education and specific best-practice examples from around the world.

3)    Fund the Child: Tackling Inequity and Antiquity in School Finance from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. This bipartisan manifesto on Weighted Student Funding was signed by 75 educators and policymakers from across the country, including three former U.S. Secretaries of Education, a former Secretary of the Treasury, a former Chief of Staff to President Clinton, and two former governors. This extraordinary coalition urged a “new method of funding our public schools - one that finally ensures the students who need the most receive it, that empowers school leaders to make key decisions, and that opens the door to public school choice.”

4)    An Integrated Approach to School Funding Reform in Ohio, a report of the School Funding Subcommittee of the Ohio State Board of Education, adopted by the full board in December 2008. This report from the Ohio State Board of Education provided recommendations to state policy makers for moving toward Weighted Student Funding in the Buckeye State.

5)    Fund the Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy, and Portability to Ohio School Finance, by Public Impact and the University of Dayton School of Education and Allied Professions. This report provided a detailed plan for how the state of Ohio could move toward Weighted Student Funding. It was authored by leading school funding experts in Ohio (Professors Dan Raisch and Barbara DeLuca at the University of Dayton) and the Harvard-trained (and Rhodes Scholar) school funding expert Bryan Hassel of Public Impact.

6)    Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education they Need by William G. Ouchi. This book drew on the results of a landmark study of 223 schools in six cities, a project funded by the National Science Foundation. Ouchi and his research team discovered that the schools that consistently performed best also had the most decentralized management systems, in which autonomous principals—not administrators in central office—controlled school budgets and personnel hiring policies.

There isn’t much hope at the moment for meaningful, statewide education reform in the Buckeye State, but there are promising things happening at the local level. Last night, the Columbus City Schools’ teacher union approved a two-year contract that includes a new program to pay effective teachers more money to teach in low-performing schools and ties existing merit pay efforts to value-added data. Reports the Columbus Dispatch:

The agreement creates an annual $4,000 bonus for teachers selected to work in certain schools.

Superintendent Gene Harris would hand-pick teachers for classes identified as academically struggling based on testing data.

Teachers with at least five years of experience, two years of improving students’ academic achievement, and their principal’s recommendation would be eligible to apply for the new program, according to the tentative contract. The deadline is Dec. 1 for the 2010-11 school year.

The program would allow Harris to match teachers’ talents to schools’ needs, she said.

“I think it’s very exciting because individuals would have the opportunity to go into this and say, ‘I want to be a change agent,’  ” Harris said. “I would not be arbitrary on this. I want to make good decisions.”

The contract also ties an existing merit-pay program for teachers to “value-added” data. A class of students would have to show more academic progress than expected in a year’s time for their teacher to earn the merit bonus under the Performance Advancement System program.

It’s rare that an Ohio school district rewards teachers for performance or assigns its best teachers in its most struggling schools (though top charter schools have been doing this for years), so it’s quite encouraging to see the state’s largest district — and top-performing urban one — head in this direction.

Ohio’s charter school sector is a bit like Night of the Living Dead, or so says Fordham’s Terry Ryan in this Dayton Daily News op-ed.

Last school year, 326 charter schools operated in the Buckeye State. Fifty-three of them were rated “F” by the state and served less than 150 students apiece. For a myriad of reasons, ranging from poor academic performance to unsustainable financial models, most of these schools should be shuttered. Yet they continue to operate, limping along like the walking dead, hurting students, employees, and communities alike. What should be done about these “zombie” schools?  Says Ryan:

Closing a charter school is hard and painful work. Last year, the Fordham Foundation worked closely with the leadership of two Dayton charter schools to help close their doors after more than eight years of serving families and children. At both the Omega School of Excellence and East End Community School, responsible adults struggled with the difficult decision to close their doors because they cared deeply about these schools and the children in them.

But the schools ultimately were shuttered—Omega closed and East End merged with the Dayton Public Schools—because, in the end, everyone agreed that this was preferable to letting them continue in a way that might embarrass their supporters or hurt the children and families that depended on them.

Of course, we’d rather open schools and see them thrive than watch them falter—despite valiant efforts to turn them around—and then close. But sometimes the responsible move is to shut them down while assisting families in finding acceptable alternatives. In Dayton and across Ohio, those sponsoring and operating zombie charters need to do what’s right and bury the walking dead. If they refuse or fail to do this, state authorities must crack down on them.

Charter supporters—lawmakers, advocates and operators—should not just demand protection, fair treatment and equitable funding of decent charter schools (as they did recently at a rally in Columbus), but also push hard for the closure—in a fair and transparent way—of zombie schools that hurt children and wound the charter movement.

Those working on the state’s two-year budget should pursue a “tough love” approach to charter schools. This approach is just as right for schools as it is for child rearing. Love means giving them the freedom and resources they need to be successful. Tough means holding them accountable and coming down hard on those that fail or are irresponsible.

That, by the way, is also the way to treat district schools, too.

Let’s purge the zombie schools among us.

Photo by oskay from Flickr

In March, President Obama told a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter that “the number of children going to the Cleveland Public Schools who are actually prepared to go to college (is) probably one out of seven or eight or ten. And that’s just not acceptable. It’s not acceptable for them. It’s not acceptable in terms of America’s future. And so we’ve got to experiment with ways to provide a better education experience for our kids, and some charters are doing outstanding jobs.”

This week, the woman hired to run the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Office of New and Innovative Schools, Leigh McGuigan , was dismissed from her post less than a year after starting her job because she was pushing too hard for reform . The types of reform she was pushing, in a district that has been battling Dayton for the title of lowest performing district in the state for decades, are exactly those being called for by the President and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Specifically, close the most dysfunctional schools, reach out to high quality charters and have them open new schools, work with innovative STEM schools, and partner wherever and whenever possible with organizations that have a legitimate shot at turning around dysfunctional schools.

McGuigan’s sense of urgency was spot on when one considers that almost half of the children attending Cleveland district schools are enrolled in a school the state rated “F” in 2008 . Sadly, Cleveland is following the trend in Ohio, which is not to innovate or seek new solutions, but to simply beg for more money to do more of the same. Hopefully, the federal government will draw a line in the sand and not distribute “Race to the Top ” dollars to states, like Ohio, that are resisting the very reforms that the president himself is calling for.

Two fifth-grade students work on math in the common area (filled with desks for testing) at KIPP Journey Academy , a charter school sponsored by Fordham in Columbus.

Last week, Laura Pohl (Fordham’s new media director) and I had the privilege of visiting our Ohio colleagues. A particularly memorable part of the trip was peering in on two charter schools in Columbus that Fordham sponsors (authorizes). Both schools are in their first year and both serve just one grade at the moment, but will expand. Here’s a little more about them.

At KIPP Journey Academy, walls are covered with art, inspirational sayings and photos of the students (there’s a "glow-out" wall, where students and teachers can post compliments of one another). The school of 62 fifth graders, most of whom are African-American students from low-income families, emphasizes responsibility, respecting yourself/others, setting and attaining high goals and giving back to the community. They have longer schooldays, an incentive program for good work and a policy that allows students to contact teachers by phone until 9:30pm, we were told. Like other KIPP schools, students regularly do school chants and we were lucky enough to hear Iyana Hill and Melik Scott give us a sampling— "Read, Baby, Read," "The KIPP Journey Credo," and a few math multiplication songs. A charming video of that will be posted soon, so please check back. (Melik called the chants "one of my favorite things here.")

A sixth-grade student at Columbus Collegiate Academy listens to a math lesson.

Not too far away is Columbus Collegiate Academy , a school that meets in a church and has to break down much of the wall adornment, supplies and teaching materials every week in preparation for church services. It’s a "no frills, all academic school," according to its founder, Andrew Boy. The school is home to 49 sixth graders - many of whom started the year at a third-grade reading level, he told us. But high expectations are the norm. "We’re teaching on a 6^th grade level regardless of your background," he said, adding that the school obviously maintains a strong focus on college attendance. Students have toured Ohio State University (both the law school and veterinary school — while visiting the latter, they watched an operation being performed on a horse!). And they’re also in the midst of taking a street law class taught by students from Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law .

There’s more that could be said about both schools. Suffice it to say the visits were interesting and eye-opening. Many thanks to the schools for opening their doors to us! And thanks as well to Emmy Partin and Theda Sampson, our wise and wonderful Ohio guides!

Latifah Coleman, 17 and an 11th grader at Mound Street Academies in Dayton, Ohio, shouts at a school choice rally in front of the Statehouse in Columbus on Wednesday morning. "I was going to a public school but it wasn’t really helping me," she said. At Mound Street "more teachers sit down and talk with me. They’re helping me to graduate."

The biennial budget passed by the Ohio House of Representatives last month would mean major funding cuts to all charter schools and funding reductions of nearly 75 percent to the state’s virtual schools—all but guaranteeing those schools, which serve 24,000 students in the Buckeye State, go out of business next year. Today, in protest to the funding cuts, approximately 4,000 people held a rally at the capitol.  Chanting “My School, My Choice! ” the group marched four blocks to the Statehouse lawn and heard remarks from parents, teachers, and lawmakers—including Senate President Bill Harris, whose chamber is now deliberating the budget bill and who has personally vowed to protect school choice in the Buckeye State.

About 4,000 people showed up for Wednesday’s rally at the Statehouse in Columbus.

Sharnae Woodland, 8 and a 3rd grader at Phoenix Village Academy in Cleveland, said the rally was "exciting."

(Photos by Laura Pohl)

Students at Dayton View Academy walk silently through the school halls.

One thing that sets apart Fordham from other education think tanks is our sponsorship of charter schools in Ohio . This week I’ve had the opportunity to tour two of these schools in Dayton, Dayton View Academy and Dayton Academy , as well as two charters sponsored by other institutions. Talking with the students, teachers and administrators and seeing them in action has been a good reminder that beyond all the education policy talk in Washington, there are real people living, learning and trying to make a difference. Here are photographs of a few of the students I met.

(To learn more about Dayton and its education challenges, I recommend reading this interesting Dayton Daily News opinion piece by Terry Ryan, Fordham’s vice president for Ohio programs and policy.)

Dayton Academy students Chloe Tate (left) and RaeAunna Curlett (right) demonstrate how to use EdPAD portable computers.

Lunchtime at Dayton Academy

Listening to the teacher at The Dayton Early College Academy (DECA).

Dayton Academy

Fifth-grade students at Dayton Academy collaborate on a worksheet.

DECA Principal Judy Hennessey hugs a student who just found out she won a college scholarship.

Last week’s Fordham Institute and Catalyst Ohio report, Checked Out: Ohioans’ Views on Education 2009, still has people talking in the Buckeye State.  On Sunday, Fordham’s own Terry Ryan discussed the survey findings on the Ohio News Network’s statewide public affairs program, Capitol Square.  Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch editorial board questioned components of Governor Strickland’s education reform plan in light of the survey:

...no one should be surprised that Ohioans have relatively little faith in the state government to fix education. Asked which entities they would trust to decide how to spend tax money for schools, 47 percent said they would trust their local school districts most. Another 22 percent would trust individual schools most. Only 17 percent said the State Board of Education. The least faith was placed in the governor, at 3 percent, and lawmakers, 4 percent.

Many education reformers argue, and respondents to the Fordham survey seem to agree, that improvement is more likely if states set performance standards and give school districts and principals plenty of latitude in deciding how to achieve them.

How unfortunate, then, that Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed education plan is heavily prescriptive, setting detailed formulas that mandate precisely how school districts should spend their state money—primarily by hiring more teachers, counselors and aides and otherwise continuing business as usual.

If the survey is an accurate portrait, the governor and lawmakers have their work cut out for them in persuading Ohioans that they know what they’re doing and that what they’re proposing is best.

In the midst of the school-funding battle here in the Buckeye State, it is easy to lose sight of the other major education reforms on Governor Strickland’s agenda, including revamping the state’s academic standards and assessments. The governor says the revisions are necessary in order to incorporate the teaching of “21st century skills” in Ohio’s classrooms. I don’t agree, but I also don’t think it matters much what Ohio’s schools are expected to teach or students are expected to learn if the bar by which we judge student and school performance isn’t raised. 

Ohio’s low cut scores on our state reading and math tests were brought to light in 2007’s The Proficiency Illusion, and an Education Trust report out last month highlighted the gap between proficiency levels on Ohio’s state achievement tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Akron Beacon Journal columnist Laura Ofobike picked up on EdTrust’s findings today:

Are we basking in an illusion of progress under the state assessments? Is the achievement bar set high enough that our students can match up outside Ohio? Draw your own conclusions. Here’s what the state report showed, comparing proficiency rates on the Ohio tests against the National Assessment of Educational Progress, considered the nation’s standardized tests:

On the NAEP reading test in 2007, 36 percent of Ohio fourth-graders rated proficient or better—a far cry from the 80 percent proficiency rate recorded by fourth-graders on the state reading test.

Turn to the eighth-grade math test, and the NAEP results are no less distressing: 36 percent proficient or better, while the state test showed 72 percent proficient or better.

Poke deeper, and the gaps in scores among student groups would make a legislator weep. The Ohio reading test indicated 43 percent of African-American fourth-graders were below profiency. The NAEP test showed 87 percent were not proficient. For Latino students, 32 percent were not proficient at the state level; the NAEP figure was 79 percent. And for white students, the difference was 15 percent not proficient on the state test versus 58 percent on the NAEP test.

Similarly wide margins were evident between the Ohio Achievement Test and NAEP in eighth-grade math proficiency. For each group of students, the national assessment showed significantly fewer students achieving proficiency levels than the state tests would lead anyone to believe.

If the national tests represent the expected standard for American students, then clearly we are doing children here a huge disservice by using yardsticks that serve only to make us feel good.