Our Work in Ohio
Zelman reflects on decade at helm of Ohio schools
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Tave Zelman announced that she is leaving her post after 9 1/2 years to join Elmo and company at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Gadfly editor Mike Lafferty talked to Zelman about her near-decade leading public education in the Buckeye State. Read the interview here.
2007-08 Ohio Report Card Analysis
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute analyzed the 2007-08 academic performance data of Ohio's public schools, paying special attention to urban performance. What did we learn? Schools in the state's largest cities continue to struggle mightily to help students meet basic academic standards and are nowhere close to achieving the goals set by the state of Ohio or by the federal No Child Left Behind act. And charter school performance is, overall, only equal or even inferior to that of the district schools with which they compete. See our full analysis here.
2006-07 Ohio Report Card Analysis
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. See Fordham's full analysis of 2006-07 Ohio local report card data here.
Recent Dayton & Ohio Publications
August 25, 2008
Ohio Value-Added Primer
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.
March 12, 2008
Fund The Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy, and Portability to Ohio School Finance
Ohio can boast of praiseworthy gains over the past decade in making school funding more equitable across districts, but there is more work to be done. To mitigate the school-finance inequities that remain within districts and gear school funding toward the realities of student mobility, school choice and effective school-based management, this report recommends that Ohio embrace Weighted Student Funding (WSF), which allocates resources based on the needs of individual students and by sending dollars directly to schools rather than lodging most spending decisions at the district level.
November 28, 2007
2007 Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Sponsorship Accountability Report
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.
June 7, 2007
Golden Peaks and Perilous Cliffs: Rethinking Ohio's Teacher Pension System
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.
May 24, 2007
Ohioans' Views on Education 2007
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.
