David Ponitz, whom the Fordham Foundation is proud to call a board member, has certainly left his mark on education in Ohio. He played a key role in his 20-plus years as president of Sinclair Community College in turning that institution into one of the nation’s premier community colleges. Now he has a high school that bears his name. The Dayton Public Schools have named its new tech school the David H. Ponitz Career Technology Center. The new school will be located a block from Sinclair, and interaction between the two will be significant. High school students will be able to take some college courses. But Ponitz himself does not think of it as the Ponitz school.
“I think of it as Hope High School,” he said. “It is not a vocational school, which teaches skills that will be outdated in two years. It will teach concepts of physics, chemistry and math that will enable students to keep growing in knowledge for a lifetime. Students come out capable of making $35,000 a year, then $45,000 a year and later $55,000 a year. It is what I call rebuilding America’s middle class.” If the school lives up to its namesake, Dayton will be well served.