We here at Fordham Ohio are in a reflective mood and on Monday will reveal our winners for the best and worst events from 2015 in Ohio public education. There were many contenders for the prize and it was hard to pin down just three. In the spirit of anticipation (while drinking eggnog and watching a fireplace video on loop), here are the honorable mentions that didn’t make the final cut (in no particular order).
Best
- Ohio cities focused on student success. More and more communities are recognizing the value of great education and are thinking outside of the box to deliver it. Cincinnati is among the leaders as it looks to all-choice high schools, a new blended AP pilot, extensive wraparound services, and a public-private partnership to expand high-quality seats. Newark, Springfield, Marysville, and Columbus (with the help of nonprofits and community connections) also have broken out of the business-as-usual mold and will be exciting to watch. (Spoiler alert: check back on Monday for another Buckeye city leading the charge on education reform.)
- Good charter schools are finding means to grow. Cleveland’s Menlo Park, the state’s only gifted charter school, is moving forward on a huge expansion in an underserved neighborhood. Fordham-sponsored United Schools Network expanded this fall in Franklinton, aiding revitalization in one of Columbus’s poorest communities. And despite ongoing funding inequities, high-performing charter schools now have an unprecedented opportunity to compete for up to $25 million in facilities funds for replication and expansion.
- Better access to extracurriculars. Folks are starting to recognize the importance of life beyond academics, especially for students who have lacked access to extracurriculars in the past. Equitable access to sports and extracurricular programming for students attending charter and STEM schools became a reality in 2015. Toward the tail end of the year, important discussion began on how to mitigate the burden imposed on families by pay-to-play fees.
Worst
- Perpetual, wild misunderstandings about how schools are funded. Look, we know it’s a complicated topic, but half-truths and deliberate misstatements are only making it worse. School funding deserves a serious discussion in 2016, if we can all just arrive to the same table with even a remotely similar set of facts.
- Stripping away charter autonomy. Despite the fact that charter schools in Ohio are almost in their third decade, there remains a misunderstanding that they were never meant to resemble traditional schools. There have been several misguided attempts (recently unionization and over-regulation) to turn charters into mirror images of traditional schools as we’ve experienced them since the 19th century. Also disconcerting are misperceptions that sponsors should behave like school districts, as expressed by the state’s panel designing new sponsor evaluations: “Sponsors will have to be ‘in the cockpit’ with their schools to guide them to improve.”
- Missed opportunities to innovate. Ohio is being outpaced by other states when it comes to robust course access and maximizing technology for students in far-flung parts of the state. Cuts to Ohio’s Straight A fund will likely prevent districts and schools from seeing their bold new ideas come to fruition.
