Earlier this week, the Ohio House of Representatives passed its version of the state budget bill for FYs 2024 and 2025. The House legislation follows up on Governor DeWine’s budget introduced in February. Included in this massive legislation are hundreds of provisions affecting K–12 education. How did the lower chamber do?
Earlier this week, the Ohio House of Representatives passed its version of the state budget bill for FYs 2024 and 2025. The House legislation follows up on Governor DeWine’s budget introduced in February. Included in this massive legislation are hundreds of provisions affecting K–12 education. How did the lower chamber do?
First things first, House lawmakers should be commended for leaving intact most of the governor’s key education initiatives. These include a significant funding boost for high-quality charter schools, a requirement that schools use curricula aligned to the science of reading, and additional dollars for career-and-technical education.
House lawmakers also put forward their own ideas. Chief among them is more money for schools—and lots of it. As the table below indicates, the House tops the governor’s K–12 education budget by some $700 million by 2025. And compared to current spending levels, the House plan would hand out a whopping $1.6 billion more to schools by the second half of the biennium, a 14 percent increase in state education spending. With enrollment declining statewide, the percentage increase in per-pupil funding may turn out to be even larger.
Table 1: State expenditures on K–12 education—current versus proposed
As Table 1 shows, an increase in “foundation” dollars—the basic aid allocated to districts and public charter schools via the state funding formula—drives the funding surge. This reflects the House’s decision to use more current salary and benefits data to compute base funding amounts. In the current biennium and continuing under the governor’s plan, the state relies on 2018 data to calculate base funding. But under pressure from school groups, House lawmakers updated the formula to 2022 data. With rising salaries during this period, the update generates higher base funding amounts. The average district’s base funding is currently $7,352 per pupil; that would rise to a projected $8,241 per pupil under the House plan. The higher base thus yields the greater foundation funding expenditure.
This formula update would generally benefit schools across the board, be they traditional district, charter, or even private, as EdChoice scholarship values escalate when public schools’ base amounts rise. Schools will undoubtedly welcome the additional dollars, and it may ensure a “softer landing” as the massive influx of federal Covid-relief funds run out. But the significant costs of maintaining and updating the state’s new formula are becoming all the more clear. Can lawmakers sustain such a rapid escalation of spending on K–12 education over the long haul? What happens when state coffers aren’t quite as full?
Although the House turned down requests from school groups to fully phase in the funding increases called for under the new formula,[1] it included substantial increases to teacher pay rates via the state’s minimum salary schedule. If this provision passes, educator salaries will rise, adding more upward pressure to base costs under the formula and potentially baking in further increases in state education spending down the road.
Beyond the main funding formula, a few other matters of dollars and cents are worth noting (the last three are part of the “other education items” in Table 1).
Lastly, the House also made a few policy proposals that warrant mention. Two are steps forward, but one is giant step back. Starting on the down note, the House would abandon the state’s third grade retention requirement. We at Fordham have already discussed (and denounced) this ill-advised proposal at length. The short version: Removing the requirement would put children struggling to read at grave risk of long-term academic failure, with all of its attendant consequences.
On the positive side, however, the House proposed the following:
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Overall, the House budget is a mixed bag. For school-funding aficionados, shoveling more money to schools will be something to cheer about. For those concerned about fiscal responsibility, it may be more cause for concern. The policy proposals out of the House are also hit and miss. Lawmakers took steps in the right direction but also made a terrible blunder with third-grade retention. Of course, the budget bill doesn’t stop in the House. The next stop is the Senate, and in a follow-up piece, I’ll discuss the items that the upper chamber should tackle.
[1] The governor and House budgets propose to phase in 66 percent of the funding increases called for under the new formula by FY 2025. The current phase-in percentage is 33 percent.
Teacher shortages have been a hot topic over the last few years. In Ohio, districts and teachers unions have been vocal about the impacts of pipeline shortfalls and hiring difficulties, and have warned that things could get worse. The state has sponsored regional meetings to collect ideas about how to improve teacher recruitment and retention efforts. And the governor recently included a proposal aimed at addressing some shortages in his budget recommendations.
But just how widespread and worrisome are these shortages? Ohio doesn’t collect data on teacher demand, which means we don’t know the number of teaching positions that go unfilled each year. This lack of data also means there’s no way of knowing how long it takes districts to fill open positions, what the candidate pool looks like, or whether schools have opted to just stop offering certain classes—say, for instance, German or a career-tech course—because they couldn’t find a teacher.
Fortunately, Ohio collects several other data points that can indicate mismatches between teacher supply and demand and serve as proxy measures to help policymakers understand shortages. These data are limited to public schools (including charters), as the state does not collect data on educators working in private schools. At a meeting in March, staff from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) presented these measures to the state board and later published a more in-depth look at their data insights into Ohio’s teacher workforce. Here’s a look at a few big takeaways.
Ohio has seen a gradual decline of newly licensed teachers over the last decade.
In 2022, the number of newly licensed teachers coming from university-based teacher preparation programs in Ohio was roughly the same as it was in 2012. But as evidenced by the table below, this doesn’t mean that things stayed steady over that time. Rather, there was a massive jump in the total number of newly licensed teachers in 2013, followed by a gradual decline over the next several years. The number of new teachers coming from universities both inside and outside of Ohio followed a similar downward trend, though the number of educators coming from alternative pathways increased. The overall decline in newly licensed teachers could be a general indicator of a growing teacher shortage, though it should also be noted that student enrollment in Ohio has declined, thus requiring a slightly smaller workforce. It’s similarly important to note that national data also indicate a gradual decline in the number of students who complete teacher preparation programs, so this isn’t a trend that’s unique to Ohio.
It’s hard to know why there was a spike in teacher numbers in 2013 and 2014 and then a noticeable decline. It’s possible that economic factors contributed. The 2013 and 2014 graduates from teacher preparation programs would’ve started their degrees in 2009 and 2010, which was the tail end of the Great Recession. College students eager for a stable job with guaranteed benefits and retirement and consistent increases in salary might have opted to enter the classroom rather than try their luck in a tough job market elsewhere.
State and district attrition rates are up.
The statewide annual attrition rate recently ticked upward. In 2021, the number of exiting teachers (meaning individuals who taught during the 2020–21 school year but not during the 2021–22 school year) clocked in at 9,148, making the attrition rate 8.3 percent. That’s up from 2020, when 6,864 teachers exited and the attrition rate was just 6.2 percent. Meanwhile, at the local level, attrition rates are rising in almost every region and district type. Urban districts have the highest rates, ranging from 8.4 in the southeast region to 14.5 in the southwest. Rural districts are close behind, with attrition rates ranging from 9 in the west to 12.2 in the central region. Suburban districts have the lowest rates, but even those have grown compared to five-year average annual attrition.
Statewide attrition rates include teachers who left because of retirement, career changes, and transitions to other education staffing roles (like a principal or district administrator). To dig deeper into some of the reasons why teachers are leaving, ODE included the following chart in their presentation to the state board.
Since the start of the pandemic, an increasing number of teachers have retired, perhaps reflecting the challenges of the Covid era, or simply the huge Baby Boomer generation aging out of the profession. But that’s not the main factor pushing people out of classrooms, not by a longshot. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of teachers who resigned but accepted new education positions in Ohio—meaning they resigned their previous position to take a different one within the same district or to take a job within another Ohio district—nearly doubled. ODE noted in their presentation to the state board that this suggests that the main driver of increasing district-level attrition is teacher mobility, rather than teachers leaving the profession or the state.
Potential shortages seem to be concentrated in certain subject areas.
The chart below outlines the number of educators who have left teaching, as well as those who have been newly licensed over the past five years. Based solely on these data, there are several subject areas where the number of teachers who left the profession is larger than the number of teachers who were newly licensed and could replace them, thereby creating a possible shortage. These subjects include elementary education, special education, career and technical education, physical education, and world languages.
The most interesting part of this chart, though, is that it identifies the number of individuals who hold teaching licenses in each subject but were not working in public schools in 2022. In total, there are more than 43,000 people with active teaching credentials in Ohio who are not employed in a public school. It’s unclear where these individuals are working instead. It’s possible that some are teaching in private schools (ODE doesn’t collect data on educators working in private schools) or that they left education entirely for jobs that were less stressful or paid more. What we do know is that, in every one of the possible shortage areas—elementary education, special education, career and technical education, physical education, and world languages—there are enough licensed individuals to cover the difference between those who left and those were newly licensed.
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There are several takeaways from these data. First and foremost, there’s plenty to be worried about. The decline of newly licensed teachers statewide indicates that fewer young people are entering the profession at the same time that Baby Boomers are retiring. Given today’s tight labor market, perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising; Gen-Z college students have plenty of options right now. Rising teacher attrition rates at the state level and in many districts, combined with potential shortages in specific grades and subject areas, is likely putting considerable pressure on schools. Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of licensed teachers who are opting not to teach in public schools.
Second, Ohio has an urgent need for better data. Empowering ODE to collect data about teacher demand and vacancies is critical to better understand teacher shortages. Determining why individuals who have teaching licenses but aren’t working in Ohio public schools are steering clear of the classroom could help policymakers craft initiatives to lure them back to public schools. And collecting information from high school and college students about what would motivate them to consider a career in education (or, similarly, what might be dissuading them) would give leaders vital information about how to bolster Ohio’s teacher pipeline in the future.
Last but not least, Ohio leaders should consider prioritizing and investing in rigorous alternative teacher preparation programs. The data above show that, although the number of newly licensed teachers coming out of universities has declined, the number of teachers coming from alternative pathways is rising. The numbers are still small—just 629 teachers in 2022. Nevertheless, high-quality alternative pathways are a crucial part of addressing teacher shortages. This is especially true for Grow Your Own programs, which can help recruit and train teachers in hard-to-staff subjects and grade levels and aid in diversifying the profession.
Overall, the picture painted by these data points is of a profession under strain. Some are likely to say that more money is the solution. And while dollars can certainly help, we also need to think more comprehensively about how to make teaching a more attractive profession to young people, how to encourage mid-career professionals to enter the classroom, and how to ensure that our best teachers stay right where they are. The future of Ohio’s students depends on excellent teachers, and there’s a whole lot of work to be done to make sure Ohio’s teacher pipeline is up to the task.
The state budget bill that was passed by the House this week contains a provision that, if enacted, would be a boon to some of Ohio’s most vulnerable children and a vital support to the schools that serve them.
Currently, Ohio’s Medicaid Schools Program (MSP) blends state and federal dollars to pay for physical and mental health services provided in schools for Medicaid-eligible students. This is good as far as it goes, but is limited only to those students with an individualized education plan (IEP) and the services called for in their plans. Pandemic disruptions to school, family, and daily life have increased the need for services for mental health care, behavioral health care, and other medical issues. The amended state budget bill would direct the Ohio Department of Medicaid to seek permission from the federal government to expand the state’s MSP to allow payments for any covered services for all Medicaid-eligible beneficiaries when delivered by qualified providers in schools. As Sarah Broome explained in a 2021 post for the Fordham Institute, tapping this federal “Free Care Reversal Policy” is a particularly effective way to ensure sustainable funding for student mental health services.
The upsides are fairly clear: Reaching more children in need more easily, no IEP required; remuneration to schools for many services already being provided without dedicated funding; no state money needed to generate the new/additional federal reimbursement; and a sustainable funding source for essential mental and physical health services in places where they are most needed. Additional funding for supporting the health needs of low-income students would also be another tool in the box for charter and district schools to help address important community needs. Research has shown positive benefits of school-based and Medicaid-supported healthcare on attendance, persistence, graduation rate, future healthcare utilization, and long-term earnings.
This funding structure is already in place in seventeen states, with another nine currently in the approval process. Two of Ohio’s neighbors, Kentucky and Michigan, are among those with an established track record of expanding Medicaid-funded services in schools, both beginning in 2019. Ohio, which ranked a lowly thirty-first in the country for child well-being in 2022, needs to join their ranks. We must change that narrative—our students deserve nothing less—and boosting Medicaid funding for health services in schools is a step in the right direction.
Schools around the country have been expeditious in responding publicly to the rapid onset of ChatGPT and other interactive platforms that utilize sophisticated artificial intelligence, and those in the know say this technology could change teaching and learning forever. Is that change a good one or not? It’s impossible to tell because strong arguments are being made in both directions—ditto for those school responses. Some are banning AI reflexively, while some are embracing it with a lot of gusto. Time will tell which path, if any, is the right one.
It is serendipitous, then, that a newly-published meta-analysis on technology integration (TI) in K–12 education focuses not only on how TI has gone over the last fifteen years, but also how it’s been analyzed and assessed in research literature.
A trio of Swiss researchers, following up on a previous study, identified thirty-six unique articles published between 2010 and 2021 that investigated the integration of technology—any technology, but largely new devices and software—in any area of K–12 education. They were looking not only at the findings of each, but also at the way in which those findings were reached. Their efforts include identifying what types of survey instruments were used to collect data, at whom those instruments were directed (teachers, students, school leaders, etc.), and a long roster of pedagogical aspects to which technology is or is not applied (such as independent learning, providing electronic texts, facilitating collaboration, focusing on media literacy, allowing for research, and more).
Their analysis found thirty-five unique survey instruments were used to collect data among the full set of articles. While only two instruments were used in more than one article, many of those deemed “unique” were in fact very similar to each other. For example, although the information gathered on TI seemed almost too wide-ranging at first glance, a deeper look revealed that focusing on teachers’ attitudes and preferences—as opposed to those of students, parents, or school leaders—predominates.
Furthermore, the researchers were unimpressed by the rigor of some questions. They cite a specific example in which teachers were asked whether they “vary the use of information technology” to “increase the expected benefits” and to “maximize the effects” of TI with their students, but were not asked about what they did to integrate technology nor about the benefits and effects. A dearth of such vital definitions plagued most of the survey instruments reviewed—and these studies are all quantitative in nature! The researchers note that similar terms—such as “integration,” “enhanced learning,” and “transformation” of pedagogy—are applied to planning, executing, and assessing TI in various surveys, but those terms can mean very different things in various contexts. Another survey item recurring in various forms—“I can apply what I know about technology in the classroom” or “I am able to use it as an instructional tool and integrate it into the curriculum”—is entirely about self-efficacy and is not followed up with any indicator that the teacher is actually integrating technology into their lessons.
Precious little detail emerges from the articles about what types of technology students are using, in what courses or for what purposes they’re using it, how adept they are with it, or whether their learning outcomes are impacted by the introduction or mastery of technological treatments. The most-frequently cited student uses of TI are to “enhance students’ cognitive engagement,” to promote collaboration between students, and to allow students to conduct research online. A cynic might suggest those translate to YouTube videos, Microsoft Sharepoint, and Google Scholar, but it is also possible that innovative and effective new opportunities are rising in our schools. Either way, none of the thirty-six articles discusses any findings as to the efficacy of these “technology integrations.”
The main recommendation in this meta-analysis is for researchers to try and come to some common understanding of what the term “technology integration” means. Is it a process? Is it a quantity of technology? Is it the effective replacement of, say, textbooks with digital resources? Or is it the success of students using new tech? The researchers hope that a better definition will lead to better assessment. (Although perhaps a simpler route would be to jettison the nebulous “integration” questions and focus on individual technologies and assessing their success—or not—at their intended academic improvement goals.) But given the contents of this report, any such change seems a long way off. Meanwhile, technology development marches on, with students at ground zero, integrating itself into their lives regardless of whether schools have a definable grip on it.
SOURCE: Tessa Consoli, Juliette Désiron, and Alberto Cattaneo, “What is ‘technology integration’ and how is it measured in K-12 education? A systematic review of survey instruments from 2010 to 2021,” Computers and Education (April 2023).
The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is a comprehensive suite of supports meant to help community college students persist in school and complete a degree in three years or less. These include obvious things, such as tuition and transportation assistance, and less-obvious—but no less necessary—things, such as work- and family-friendly class schedules, priority registration, and intensive advising from dedicated counselors. It began in the City University of New York (CUNY) system in 2007 and was imported into Ohio—at the Cincinnati State, Cuyahoga, and Lorain County community colleges—beginning in 2015. All along the way, implementation partner MDRC has also been tracking outcomes for Ohio students via a randomized controlled trial.
I have reviewed two of MDRC’s prior reports: A look at the program’s structure and first two years of data, and their further analysis based on a third year of data. They found, in short, that the treatment group outperformed the control group in all measured outcomes, which include persistence in school, persistence of full-time enrollment, credit accumulation, and college graduation. All program effects were large, significant, and increased throughout the study period. The Ohio version of the program also turned out to be more efficient in terms of staffing needs and cost requirements than the CUNY one.
Even though the program was discontinued in 2020 at two of the three Ohio sites due to withdrawal of financial support, MDRC researchers continued to follow the original treatment and control groups for a further three years. The most recent report on their progress was released last month. The new results were similar to those previously reported. After six years, 44 percent of treatment students had earned a degree of any kind, compared with 29 percent of control students. This included both associate and bachelor’s degrees. Forty-two percent of treatment students earned an associate degree over six years, compared with 26 percent of control group students, and 14 percent of treatment students earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with 9 percent of their control group peers.
New to this report, the researchers also found that ASAP participation boosted individuals’ earnings. In the sixth year of follow-up, which occurred during the pandemic, program participants’ average earnings (across full-time and part-time workers, as well as nonworkers) were $19,573, an 11 percent increase over the control group earnings of $17,625. And because program and control group employment rates were the same, they believe that the effect on earnings is directly attributable to treatment group students securing higher-paying jobs than their peers.
They speculate that the positive impact of ASAP in regard to earnings comes via two separate but interconnected mechanisms. The first is, perhaps obviously, degree completion. Students who were better prepared for community college at the start—those who entered without the need for remedial courses—saw the highest completion rates and the largest salary boosts. But to the extent that persistence is also enhanced by the ASAP supports, those treatment students who needed remedial courses at the start were less likely to drop out and moved on to earning credits faster than their control group peers. They, too, saw their earnings outpace those of the control group, even if they didn’t reach the same levels as those ASAP students who were more prepared for college.
As with previous analyses, the primary takeaway here is that the ASAP program improves outcomes for community college students, but that the overall outcomes for the universe of community college students are still not stellar. The amount of earned credits and degree completion numbers were still pretty low overall: Less than half of students in the treatment group have earned any type of degree after six years. Ditto for the earnings data. $19,500 per year is higher than $17,600, but if that is the highest level that successful community college students can hope for after six years, there are clearly more lucrative pathways available.
The vast majority of treatment and control group students have either completed or stopped attending college after six years, likely solidifying the college-centric impacts of the ASAP program firmly as “decently positive.” A version of the program continues, self-funded, at Cincinnati State Community College, although new data is not being added to the longitudinal study. But that doesn’t mean that MDRC and their partners are done tallying the postsecondary impacts of their original student support efforts. Join us back here in two years for more!
SOURCE: Colin Hill, Colleen Sommo, Kayla Warner, “From Degrees to Dollars: Six-Year Findings from the ASAP Ohio Demonstration,” MDRC (April 2023).
Since their inception in 1998, public charter schools have become an integral part of Ohio’s K–12 education system. The sector began with just a few schools educating a sliver of the state’s students, but has since grown to 324 charter schools in 2021–22, serving some 110,000 students, or 7 percent of the state’s public school population. Most charter students in Ohio are economically disadvantaged (80 percent) and/or Black or Hispanic (57 percent). Roughly three quarters enroll in brick-and-mortar schools, while the rest attend online charter schools. In cities such as Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown, more than one in four public school students attend charter schools.
At the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, we have long supported the promise of charter schools. Foremost, students who are ill-served by traditional school systems deserve other education options that can help unlock their potential. Entrepreneurial educators also need room—outside the clutches of district bureaucracies and union contracts—to create schools that offer specialized instruction and innovative models. Parents from all communities deserve a wider menu of public-school alternatives from which they can select that will best serve their children.
Around the nation, states have harnessed the charter school model to empower parents and educators and drive higher student achievement. Ohio embraced this model, as its charter sector took off with enrollments growing unabated from 2000 to 2015. Yet, too many Buckeye charters struggled—alongside many of their district counterparts—with educational performance during this period. Some also ran into management and fiscal troubles. Worrying news stories surfaced about questionable practices, and the quality challenges came to a head in the mid-2010s, with a firestorm over the then-huge, but now-defunct, online charter known as ECOT.
Responding to concerns raised by Fordham and others, state legislators wisely overhauled Ohio’s charter law in 2015. The legislation, House Bill 2 (HB 2), toughened charter accountability measures and demanded more responsible practices from those working in the sector. The bill included dozens of reforms, but its centerpiece was stronger accountability for charter sponsors—the entities that permit charters to open, directly oversee them, and, if necessary, require them to close. The first part of this report documents the clean-up that took place in the wake of those accountability reforms. Key changes included:
Figure ES-1: Annual impact of attending an Ohio charter school (brick-and-mortar or online)
The second part of this report focuses on charter funding, which also impacts the performance of the sector. Since their debut, Ohio charters have been systematically underfunded, receiving around 65 to 70 percent of the overall taxpayer support of their local districts. This inequity disadvantages charters in competing for teacher talent, limits the extra supports and enrichment opportunities they can provide to students, and constrains their ability to expand and reach more students. Such large shortfalls are fundamentally unfair to charter students, who don’t deserve to be shortchanged purely by virtue of their choice in schools.
Starting in the 2019–20 school year, Ohio lawmakers took an important step toward equity by launching a supplemental funding program that provides high-quality charters—those earning strong state report card ratings—with up to an additional $1,750 per economically disadvantaged pupil and $1,000 per non-disadvantaged pupil. As Figure ES-2 indicates, this initiative eases the funding gap faced by high-quality charters. Yet, even with these extra funds, Ohio charters have remained underfunded. On average, brick-and-mortar charter schools statewide receive just 74 cents on the dollar in comparison to their local districts, a shortfall that continues to treat charter students as second-class citizens.
Figure ES-2: Charter funding gaps, with and without the high-quality supplement
Strong accountability and equitable funding policies are critical to the health of Ohio’s charter school sector. Within the past decade, Ohio has taken great strides forward in the realm of accountability, but significant work remains to achieve funding parity. As state lawmakers continue to review and refine charter policy, we summarize three recommendations (more specifics appear in the conclusion).
Through much-needed reforms, state lawmakers have reinvented Ohio’s charter school sector. The Buckeye State is no longer the “wild west” of charter schools, as dozens of low-performing schools have closed, and more than forty sponsors have departed. The recent launch of the high-quality fund has also infused top-notch, homegrown schools with some of the extra resources needed to expand, and it has helped persuade quality national charter organizations to make Ohio home, including the highly respected IDEA Public Schools network. With a continued focus on accountability and equitable funding, state policymakers can further brighten the future of Ohio’s charters and the students they serve.
In an effort to reinvigorate public education, give parents more options, and boost lackluster pupil achievement, education advocates and reformers throughout the 1980s and 1990s began proposing autonomous public schools that would operate independently of traditional districts and be free from some regulatory red tape. Lawmakers from both parties found these ideas persuasive, and responded by putting the concepts into real-world policy frameworks. Minnesota passed the nation’s first charter school law in 1991, and six years later Ohio did likewise. Its first charters launched in the fall of 1998, enrolling just over 2,000 students in fifteen schools.
As Figure 1 indicates, Ohio charters grew rapidly between 1998 and 2014, with enrollment reaching almost 121,000 students. That number declined to 102,000 students by 2019, reflecting the closure of dozens of low-performing schools in the wake of the accountability reforms discussed in this report. Charter school enrollment bounced back in 2021 and 2022, helped by an uptick in students attending online charter schools during pandemic-impacted years. In 2021–22, just over 110,000 students (seven percent of Ohio’s public school population) attended one of the state’s 324 charter schools. Approximately 80,000 students enrolled in brick-and-mortar charter schools, while the rest attended one of the state’s fifteen online charters.
Figure 1: Ohio charter school enrollment, 1997–98 to 2021–22
The vast majority of brick-and-mortar charters operate in the state’s major urban areas, the result of a longstanding provision in law that limited charters to certain “academically-challenged” districts (the restriction was repealed in 2021). As a result, Ohio charter schools serve disproportionate numbers of historically disadvantaged students. Figure 2 shows that 59 percent of students attending either an online or brick-and-mortar charter school are Black or Hispanic, compared to a statewide district average of 22 percent. Meanwhile, 80 percent of charter students are economically disadvantaged, compared with 45 percent of district students.
Figure 2: Characteristics of Ohio charter students (brick-and-mortar and online) versus districts statewide, 2021–22
When focusing exclusively on brick-and-mortar charters, the percentage of Black and Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students rises. Seventy-one percent of brick-and-mortar charter students are children of color, while 90 percent are economically disadvantaged. As Figure 3 indicates, these numbers track closely with the Big Eight districts’ demographics—reflecting, again, the fact that most site-based charters are located in those cities. In five of the Big Eight cities—Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown—more than 25 percent of the city’s public school students attend charter schools (the charter shares for each city appear in the Appendix).
Figure 3: Characteristics of Ohio charter students (brick-and-mortar only) versus Big Eight districts and districts statewide, 2021–22
Given that they educate such large proportions of disadvantaged students, charters are a critical part of efforts to narrow longstanding achievement gaps in Ohio (as in many states). As we’ll see later, with strong accountability mechanisms now in place, brick-and-mortar charters have done a solid job boosting the achievement of Black and Hispanic students in recent years. Their demographics are also important context in discussions about whether charters should receive equitable funding, as disadvantaged pupils typically require more resources for their education.
One of the central tenets of the charter model has always been greater operational autonomy in exchange for heightened results-focused accountability. Since their debut in 1998, Ohio’s public charter schools have been held accountable through several mechanisms. First, just like traditional public schools, charters receive report card ratings from the state and are subject to school improvement requirements if they are deemed low-performing under federal guidelines. Second, charter schools automatically lose funding when students leave them. If enough parents are dissatisfied and choose to enroll their children elsewhere, charters are forced to close for financial reasons. Third, a state law enacted in 2006 requires chronically poor-performing charters to permanently close, a requirement that does not exist for district schools.[1] Fourth, charter sponsors are directly responsible for overseeing schools and holding them accountable, including potentially closing them for poor performance.
The charter reforms enacted in 2015, via House Bill 2 (HB 2), largely focused on stronger accountability through sponsors; hence, this section focuses heavily on this mechanism. But before delving into the details of HB 2, we must first understand the charter governance model.
The basic form is illustrated in Figure 4 below. Starting at the individual school level (we will come back to management organizations), each charter has its own governing authority, or “board,” that guides its mission and operations. Akin to a local district school board, the governing authority is responsible for making budgetary decisions, selecting curricula, and choosing a school leader and holding him or her accountable.
Overseeing the school and its board is a sponsor, also known as an “authorizer.” Sponsors permit a charter school to open via contract with the governing authority, and then hold the school accountable for academic performance and compliance with various rules and regulations. Sponsors may non-renew or terminate contracts for poor performance, which almost always results in the closure of a school. Unlike most other states, Ohio allows various types of entities to sponsor charters; they may be a traditional district, educational service center, institution of higher education, an approved nonprofit, or ODE (the breakdown of sponsor types is here). Last, it is important to recognize that although a sponsor does not actually run the school—that’s the role of the board and administration—it can influence the way schools are managed through its oversight and accountability practices.
ODE is responsible for holding sponsors accountable. As discussed below, HB 2 altered the relationship between ODE and sponsors by empowering the agency to more rigorously execute its oversight duties.
Finally, a school’s governing board may choose (or not) to contract with a management organization, which may handle some (or all) of the day-to-day operations of the school. These entities can be for-profit or nonprofit: As of 2019, 47 percent of Ohio charters hired for-profit management organizations, 28 percent hired a nonprofit, and 25 percent of charters chose not to contract with any management group.[2] There is sometimes confusion about the status of a school when it hires a for-profit operator. But under state law, the school itself remains a nonprofit organization. Governing boards have the power to terminate or non-renew a management contract if they are dissatisfied; hence, charter boards are primarily responsible for holding such organizations accountable for results.
Figure 4: Governance structure of Ohio charter schools
While this general structure has been in place since the inception of charters, loose accountability policies undermined the framework for a number of years. At the top, ODE wasn’t holding sponsors rigorously accountable for the performance of their schools. Some sponsors, in turn, took a lax approach to overseeing schools in their portfolios and instead focused more on using sponsorship as a revenue source for themselves.[3] Charter boards allowed too many poorly run management organizations to continue operating their schools. This cascading effect resulted in uneven academic performance and a sector that—until reforms were enacted—was plagued by questions regarding its ability to regulate itself.[4]
House Bill 2
Concerned about weak accountability and its impacts, Fordham and others began urging state lawmakers to strengthen the state’s charter school laws.[5] Former Governor John Kasich and the 131st General Assembly heeded these calls and enacted comprehensive reforms in 2015 via House Bill 2 (HB 2). Its key provisions included:[6]
Taken together, these reforms laid the groundwork for a more responsible, higher performing charter sector. The next section looks at how the legislation reshaped Ohio’s charter environment.
Impacts on the charter sector
HB 2 had three major impacts on Ohio’s charter sector. First, it removed dozens of low-capacity sponsors. Second, it led to the closure of a number of low-performing charter schools. And third, it helped to push overall sector performance higher. Let’s look at each in turn.
Removal of low-capacity sponsors
Prior to HB 2, Ohio had more than sixty sponsors in operation, authorizing anywhere from a single charter to dozens of schools. Because these sponsors were weakly regulated, too many failed to follow quality practices and often turned a blind eye to poor school performance. To rein in poor sponsors, lawmakers first established a sponsor evaluation system in 2012.[9] But the initial system was not rigorous enough, and HB 2 significantly strengthened it. The updated evaluation has three equally weighted components:[10]
The state combines sponsors’ scores on these components to determine a composite, overall rating of exemplary, effective, ineffective, or poor. Under HB 2, ineffective sponsors are barred from authorizing new schools and are subject to an improvement plan. Sponsorship authority is revoked if an entity receives either a poor rating or an ineffective rating twice in a three-year period.
In the years immediately after HB 2, many sponsors received low ratings via the toughened evaluation system. In 2015–16, sixty of the state’s sixty-five sponsors received ineffective or poor ratings. The next year, twenty-one of forty-five remaining sponsors received such ratings. By 2017–18, thirteen of the state’s thirty-four sponsors were rated ineffective or poor. The net result, as shown in Table 1, has been a dramatic reduction in the number of sponsors still active in Ohio.
Table 1: Number of sponsors in 2012–13 and 2021–22[12]
Closure of low-performing schools
Ohio’s stronger accountability policies not only downsized the number of sponsors, but also pushed remaining sponsors to more aggressively close low-performing schools. Figure 5 shows the large number of charter school closures that occurred immediately after the reforms—112 schools shut down between 2016 and 2022. Closures during this timeframe were driven by sponsors, or by schools themselves, whether for financial, academic, or enrollment reasons or merger with another school.[13] Only one school during this period was closed due to the state’s automatic closure law.
In addition to closures, Figure 5 also shows a significant slowdown in the emergence of start-up charter schools in Ohio. The slowdown reflects accountability reforms that promote more judicious and careful vetting before sponsors permit new schools to open. But it could also reflect the longstanding financial constraints on charters that have made new school formation increasingly difficult, especially as facilities have become scarcer and the competition for talent and students has grown fiercer. The slowdown in charter startups in Ohio also follows the national pattern in the charter sector.[14]
Figure 5: Number of charter school closures and startups between 2010 and 2022
Higher sector performance
One of the major goals of HB 2 was to improve the academic performance of charter schools. Based on data from the years immediately after its passage, the legislation appears to have accomplished its goal. In a rigorous evaluation that compared charter students’ academic growth on state exams to demographically similar students in district schools, Ohio State University professor Stéphane Lavertu documented a noticeable uptick in charter performance starting in 2015–16. In that year, overall charter performance—including both brick-and-mortar and online schools—was roughly on par with their traditional district counterparts in reading, while the sector underperformed districts in math. By 2018–19, however, charters outperformed districts in reading and were about equal in math. The figure below, drawn from his report, displays the annual learning gains or losses (in standard deviations) of charter students in grades five through eight, relative to comparable students attending district schools.
Figure 6: Academic impact of all Ohio charters (brick-and-mortar and online schools) on student achievement, 2016–2019
Various studies have found that students attending online schools, whether in Ohio or elsewhere, lose significant academic ground in this educational setting;[15] thus, their results have long weighed down overall charter sector performance. But when the focus is on brick-and-mortar schools, stronger outcomes emerge. Figure 7 shows that Black and Hispanic students attending site-based charters made particularly strong academic progress throughout the period immediately after HB 2 passed. The average Black charter student made learning gains that, accumulated over five years, are equivalent to moving from the 25th to 40th percentile in statewide achievement.
Figure 7: Academic impacts of Ohio’s brick-and-mortar charter schools on math and reading achievement
Rigorous analyses of charter effectiveness have not been undertaken since the pandemic. However, like their district counterparts, charter students suffered significant learning losses as a result of school disruptions. In general, the losses are comparable to districts. Between 2018–19 and 2021–22, the performance index scores of Ohio’s Big Eight charter schools declined by 14 percent, the same percentage as for the Big Eight districts. Value-added growth results from last year were roughly similar: 31 percent of Big Eight charters received four- or five-star ratings from the state in that realm while 34 percent of Big Eight district schools did so.[16]
As schools emerge from the pandemic and work to address learning loss, policymakers should ensure that charter accountability measures, which were put on pause during the pandemic, are restarted and continue to be rigorously implemented.[17] Reverting back to loose accountability would put charter students at greater risk of academic struggle and likely undo the progress Ohio’s charters have recently made. Moreover, relaxing accountability could also stymie ongoing efforts to improve charter school funding, the topic to which we turn next.
While Ohio has taken major steps forward in accountability, it continues to underfund its charter schools. The bleak situation has existed since charters first appeared on the scene, and it’s caused by a combination of charters’ lack of access to local tax revenues and state funding that does not adequately offset the shortfall. Fordham first documented these funding gaps in a 2004 Dayton-specific study, which found that the city’s charters received just two-thirds of the revenue of the local district. Ten years later, a report from the University of Arkansas showed that the situation hadn’t improved, as charters statewide received on average about 70 percent of district funding. A Fordham analysis published four years ago found similar charter-funding disparities.[18] These analyses mostly focus on operational dollars—e.g., funds used to pay employee salaries and purchase textbooks—but charter schools also lack significant resources for school construction, renovation, and maintenance. A 2021 analysis by Excel in Ed found that Ohio supports just 18 percent of charter facility needs.[19]
In principle, children attending public charter schools ought to receive the same taxpayer support for their education as their peers attending district schools just down the street. Failing to do so is a violation of basic principles of funding equity—a particularly egregious offense given that charter students are disproportionately low-income and students of color. Without equitable resources, charter schools often struggle to provide the extra supports and the enrichment opportunities that students need. They face challenges both attracting and retaining talented teachers in a competitive labor market, as their lower funding levels leave them stuck offering lower salaries. Charters also have less capacity to work to continually improve their educational programs and expand their reach to serve more students.
To their credit, Ohio lawmakers recently took a step forward in bridging the gap by launching the “high-quality charter funding program.” That initiative—championed by Governor DeWine—currently provides up to an extra $1,750 per economically disadvantaged pupil for qualifying schools and $1,000 per non-disadvantaged student. In FY 2023, 117 schools—just over a third of charters statewide—are receiving the supplemental aid. In his latest budget proposal, the governor recommended a significant boost to the program for FY 2024 and 2025. Under his plan, qualifying schools would receive $3,000 per economically disadvantaged student and $2,250 per non-disadvantaged student.
Sidebar: Ohio's high-quality charter fund
Led by Governor DeWine, state lawmakers enacted a new funding initiative in 2019 that provides high-quality charter schools with extra dollars to help bridge funding gaps, increase their capacity to expand, and spur improvements in non-qualifying schools. To access these dollars, existing schools must meet to key performance criteria: 1) receive a four- or five-star "value-added" growth rating and 2) earn a performance index score that is higher than their local district for two consecutive years. To qualify, charter schools must also enroll at least 50 percent economically disadvantaged students, and the program provides more dollars when schools enroll more disadvantaged students. Startups that are replicas of schools eligible for these funds, or partnering with a qualifying out-of-state charter management organization, may also qualify under alternative criteria.[20]
The table below summarizes key information about the program from its launch in 2020 through 2023, including the total amount of funding available, the per-pupil amounts (they've been reduced to fit the total appropriation), the number of qualilying schools, and the number of students served.
Table 2: Overview of Ohio's high-quality charter fund
Even with this high-quality fund in place, large disparities persist between charter and district per-pupil operational funding levels. Figure 8 shows that—without the high-quality supplement—the typical Ohio charter received about 70 cents on the dollar compared to their local district in FY 2022.[21] This tracks with previous analyses and indicates that, apart from the high-quality supplement, Ohio has done very little to improve charter funding. When the high-quality dollars are included, the gap narrows slightly, lifting high-quality charters’ funding to 73 percent of their local district and 74 percent for charters statewide.
Figure 8: Ohio’s current charter funding gaps (brick-and-mortar only)[22]
As noted above, Governor DeWine has proposed a significant increase to the supplemental aid that high-quality charters receive. Figure 9 shows the impact of his proposal on the charter funding gap, should it be passed by the legislature. Funding for high-quality charters would be at 85 percent of their local districts, while other charter schools would remain at 76 percent.[23]
Figure 9: Impact of Governor DeWine’s proposed increase to the high-quality fund
The high-quality fund narrows funding gaps for about one-third of Ohio charters, but it doesn’t lend any extra support for schools that do not qualify. Yet students attending these schools still deserve fair funding, especially given the fact that most of the students in non-qualifying schools are economically disadvantaged (82 percent) or students of color (59 percent). The shortfalls in funding limit students’ opportunities, and constrain their schools’ efforts to achieve higher performance as well.
To move Ohio closer to funding parity for all charter students, legislators could create an “equity supplement” that would complement the high-quality program. There are various ways to design such an initiative, but the most straightforward approach is to provide a per-pupil supplement for all brick-and-mortar charters, whether they qualify for the high-quality fund or not. Figure 10 shows the impact of such a program. If Ohio funded the equity supplement at $1,000 per pupil, the charter funding gap statewide narrows to 88 percent of district funding. At $1,500 per pupil, it closes to 92 percent.
Figure 10: Impact of a charter equity supplement
With stronger accountability in place, Ohio’s charter sector has come a long way in a short time. But where next? What else needs doing to turn the sector into the high-gear educational resource that its students need and that the state should demand? Indeed, how can state leaders fully leverage this model to the benefit of more parents and students? We offer three closing thoughts:
Providing charters with equitable funding and holding sponsors and charter schools accountable for results are key ingredients for continued progress in Ohio’s charter sector. To their credit, state policymakers have strengthened both aspects of policy over the years, but work remains to make certain that all charter students receive the world-class education they deserve.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute promotes educational excellence for every child in America via quality research, analysis, and commentary, as well as advocacy and charter school authorizing in Ohio. It is affiliated with the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and this publication is a joint project of the Foundation and the Institute. For further information, please visit our website at www.fordhaminstitute.org or write to the Institute at P.O. Box 82291, Columbus, OH 43202. The Institute is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank my Fordham Institute colleagues Michael J. Petrilli, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Chad L. Aldis, and Jessica Poiner for their thoughtful feedback during the drafting process. Jeff Murray provided expert assistance in report production and dissemination. Special thanks to Nathan Leibowitz who copy edited the manuscript and Andy Kittles who created the design. All errors, however, are my own.
- Aaron Churchill
Ohio Research Director, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Big Eight: The Big Eight districts, identified as such in state law, consist of the public school systems of Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown.
Charter management organizations may be hired by a charter governing board to carry out day-to-day school operations. In Ohio, management organizations are also known as “operators.”
Charter school: A nonprofit, tuition-free, publicly funded school that is governed and operated independently from a local school district. Public charter schools are also known in Ohio as “community schools.”
Charter sponsors allow charter schools to open under a contract with the school’s governing board. Sponsors exercise direct oversight of the school and have the authority to close it by terminating or non-renewing a contract. Sponsors are also known as “authorizers.”
House Bill 2 (HB 2): Passed in 2015, HB 2 of the 131st General Assembly made significant reforms to Ohio’s charter school laws.
Ohio Department of Education (ODE) is the state education agency that implements education laws. The department directly oversees charter sponsors; for some charter schools, it serves as the sponsor.
[1] The automatic closure law is designed more as a “fail-safe” when sponsors refuse to close a low-performing school. Just twenty-five schools have actually closed under this policy—none since 2019—as the statutory criteria require extremely low performance over multiple years. Current law requires charters to close if they receive three consecutive years of poor ratings: https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3314.35. The list of charters closed under this provision is available at ODE, Annual Reports on Ohio Community Schools, table titled “History of Closure Under 3314.35.”
[2] Stéphane Lavertu and Long Tran, For-Profit Charter Schools: An evaluation of their spending and outcomes, (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2022).
[3] Charter sponsors are funded through fees from their schools, which may not exceed 3 percent of a school’s state funding.
[4] CREDO, Charter School Performance in Ohio (Stanford, CA: CREDO at Stanford University, 2014). See also, Jennifer Smith Richards and Bill Bush, “Columbus has 17 charter school failures in one year,” Columbus Dispatch (January 11, 2014); Patrick O’Donnell, “ECOT closing: Sponsor votes to shut online school after state rejects settlement offer,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (January 18, 2018); and Doug Livingston, “School’s out for White Hat: David Brennan’s pioneering for-profit company exits Ohio charter scene,” Akron Beacon Journal (August 7, 2018).
[5] Louann Bierlein Palmer, et. al., Turning the Corner to Quality: Policy guidelines for strengthening Ohio’s charter schools (Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2006); and Juliet Squire, Kelly Robson, and Andy Smarick, The Road to Redemption: Ten Policy Recommendations for Ohio’s Charter School Sector (Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2014).
[6] More detailed discussion of HB 2 can be found in Aaron Churchill, Jamie Davies O’Leary, and Chad L. Aldis, On the Right Track: Ohio’s charter reforms one year into implementation.
[7] Two longstanding sponsors—Lake Erie West Educational Service Center (ESC) and Ohio Council of Community Schools—are not required to have a written agreement with the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) unless they receive low sponsor ratings for two consecutive years.
[8] The exact conditions are enumerated in ORC 3314.034.
[10] HB 2 and prior law required annual evaluations of sponsors; however, subsequent legislation passed in 2021 now allows effective or exemplary sponsors to be evaluated once every three years while ineffective sponsors continue to receive annual evaluations.
[11] The quality practices rubric is informed by the National Association of Charter School Authorizer’s sponsorship standards as well as Ohio policy. For more, see Ohio Department of Education, “2022–2023 Sponsor Quality Practices Rubric.”
[12] The 2012-13 data are from Squire, Robson, and Smarick, The Road to Redemption (2014). The 2021–22 numbers are from ODE’s webpage, “Overall Sponsor Ratings.”
[13] ODE provides short explanations about why a school closed in its “Closed Community Schools” file available at https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Community-Schools. Among the reasons include “contract non-renewed,” “closed by sponsor,” “financial viability,” and “declining enrollment.” A handful of schools also closed when their sponsor closed.
[14] Robin Lake, et. al., “Why is charter growth slowing?” Education Next (January 18, 2018).
[15] See June Ahn, Enrollment and Achievement in Ohio’s Virtual Charter Schools (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2016); Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), Online Charter School Study (Stanford, CA: CREDO, 2015); and Sarah A. Cordes, “Cyber versus Brick-and-mortar: Achievement, Attainment, and Postsecondary Outcomes in Pennsylvania Charter High Schools,” Education Finance and Policy (2023).
[16] For more about the state’s performance index and value-added scores, see Aaron Churchill, Fine-tuning Ohio’s school report card: An analysis of the state’s revamped report card in its first year of implementation, 2021–22 (Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2022).
[17] Sponsor evaluations and the state’s automatic closure law, for instance, were suspended for 2019–20, 2020–21, and 2021–22.
[18] Public Impact, School Finance in Dayton: A Comparison of the Revenues of the School District and Community Schools (Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2004); Larry Maloney, Charter School Funding: Inequity Expands, Ohio Profile (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas, 2014); and Aaron Churchill, Shortchanging Ohio’s Charter Students (Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2019).
[19] Excel in Ed, “Building for Success in Ohio: Measuring how well Ohio is meeting charter school facility needs.”
[20] The out-of-state performance criteria include schools with an operator that has received a federal startup grant, funding from the Charter School Growth Fund, or have a school in another state that outperforms its local district. More information about the fund is available at ODE’s webpage “Quality Community School Support Fund.”
[21] The higher baseline gap for high-quality charters vis-à-vis other charters (62–76 percent) is explained by lower average spending in high-quality schools.
[22] Information about the expenditure per equivalent pupil methodology is available at ODE’s webpage, “Expenditure Per Pupil Rankings.”
[23] This does not include the proposed increase in charters’ facility allowance from the current $500 to $1,000 per pupil. Those dollars are excluded in this analysis since it focuses on operational expenditures (not capital outlay).
[24] Prior to 2022, sponsors could not earn an effective or above rating if they received zero points on any of the three components. This was changed in House Bill 583 of the 134th General Assembly. Now a sponsor can receive zeroes on the academic portion and still receive an effective rating through satisfactory scores on the paperwork-driven quality practices and compliance components.
[25] For more detailed discussion on teacher policies and facilities, see the respective policy briefs from Jessica Poiner, Strengthening Ohio’s teacher workforce: Attracting and retaining talent through reforms to licensure and compensation (Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2022); and Aaron Churchill, Creating great school options for all Ohio students: Recommendations to strengthen educational choice in the Buckeye State (Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2022).
