In 2023, charter school advocates continued to make legislative gains in statehouses across the country. These gains were made in red, blue, and purple states, oftentimes in ways that showed bipartisan support for charter schools remains firmly in place. In looking at the results of this year's legislative sessions across the country, four…

For more than twenty-five years, public charter schools have served Ohio families and communities by providing quality educational options beyond the local school district. But it's no secret that we've also had a long-standing debate over whether increasing school choice impacts students who remain in traditional districts. In important--and…

The purpose of this study was to examine which Ohio schools offered curricular music courses and the rates at which students participated in those courses. The analysis involved descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, logistic regression, and partially nested multilevel modeling using data from the Ohio Department of Education (N = 3,222…

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way that families and policymakers view K-12 education. Learning loss is having an outsized impact on students who were furthest from opportunity before the pandemic. And families are increasingly looking for new educational options for their children. For decades, access to educational options…

Great public schools provide opportunity for children, their families, communities and the entire state. All children, regardless of ZIP code, race or family income deserve to be educated in a fully and fairly funded school. Yet for many years Ohio lawmakers have fallen short. Even as policymakers have required public schools to do more, they…

This article takes advantage of a recently released national data set on school site expenditures to evaluate spending variations between traditional district operated schools and charter schools operated by for-profit versus nonprofit management firms. Prior research has revealed the revenue-enhancement, private fund-raising capacity of major…

In Ohio today, approximately 250,000 students--rich and poor alike--are formally identified as gifted. Yet all too often, they sit in "grade-level" classrooms, bored with material they already know and held back by a system that too rarely challenges them. In this paper, Lyman Millard of the Bloomwell Group profiles Menlo Park Academy, a…

Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs are an important investment in Ohio's youngest learners. Ohio has worked to increase the availability of high-quality early learning programs for preschool children by providing the Early Childhood Education grants. Funded programs deliver high-quality, comprehensive learning environments focused on healthy…

There were a number of historic public charter school policy wins across the country in 2017. Kentucky became the 44th state (along with the District of Columbia) to enact a charter school law. Colorado and Florida provided charter school students with unprecedented access to locally raised dollars for facilities. Tennessee and Texas created new…

The authors drew upon state policy documents and other public sources to review licensure requirements for charter school principals. The results indicate that few states have adopted licensure requirements for charter school principals compared with traditional public school principals, and many exempt charter school principals from licensure…

Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs are an important investment in Ohio's youngest learners. Ohio has worked to increase the availability of high-quality early learning programs for preschool children by providing the Early Childhood Education grants. Funded programs deliver high-quality, comprehensive learning environments focused on healthy…

Great public schools provide a foundation of opportunity for children, their families, communities and the entire state. All children, regardless of ZIP code, race or family income deserve to be educated in fully and fairly funded schools. Yet for many years Ohio lawmakers have provided neither sufficient nor fair distribution of state support.…

Ohio educates 1.6 million children attending school in big cities, suburbs, and small towns. For years, the school funding system pitted communities against each other and private and charter schools against public schools. This executive summary presents key findings from the full report that describes how the state funds public K-12 education…

School is a place where childhood happens. Ohio's public educators teach children of all races and backgrounds basic skills, but also challenge and inspire them to follow their dreams. For many students, school is a safe place to learn, develop and grow. This report describes how the state funds public K-12 education and some key investments…

This project focuses on the competitive pressure, or the threat of competitive pressure, generated by charter school policy. This paper uses longitudinal district-level data and multiple quasi-experimental designs to examine the relationship between two Ohio charter school policies and changes in public school district instructional resource…