The study reported here examined Extension professionals' involvement in farm-to-school program activities. Results of an online survey distributed to eight state Extension systems indicate that on average, Extension professionals are involved with one farm to school program activity, with most supporting school or community garden programs.…

This study investigated the recent histories of the urban public school districts of St. Louis, Missouri and Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States of America. The purpose was to identify the similar challenges that each had recently faced in regard to the maintenance and development of its public school systems, as well to gauge the level of…

In February 2014, the Tennessee State Board of Education (SBE) requested that the Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center (ARCC) provide assistance to the SBE's Basic Education Program (BEP) Review Committee. The SBE requested additional information on the use and effectiveness of market-based teacher compensation and market-based incentives by…

The 2017-18 school year saw our sponsorship portfolio grow from 4,100 students in 2016-17 to 4,800 students across five Ohio cities: Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Portsmouth. We're also honored to have been recognized by the National Association for Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) as part of NACSA's Quality Practice Project.…

Like other states across the country, the seven states in the Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) have been striving to meet the performance targets established under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The…

On September 12th, Ohio released school report-card ratings for the 2013-14 school year. This report compiles and analyzes the statewide data, with special attention given to the quality of public schools in the Ohio Big Eight urban areas: Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown (both district and charter…

Every community has individuals or groups who manage to find better solutions to problems than their peers, although everyone has access to the same resources and challenges. Those are the positive deviants.

For over two decades the State of Ohio has been reforming its education system. This article focuses on the 2006 reform initiatives: a newly elected governor pledged to review and revise its 2002 kindergarten to twelfth grad (K-12) academic content standards and benchmark them to international "best-in-class" measures, given Ohio's need…

Projects highlighting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in high schools have promoted student interest in engineering-related fields and enhanced student understanding of mathematics and science concepts. The Science and Technology Enhancement Program (Project STEP), funded by a NSF GK-12 grant at the University of…

Exploring Ohio's Private Education Sector is the second entry in the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice's "School Survey Series." This report synthesizes information on Ohio's private schools collected by the U.S. Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). Two appendices provide supplementary tables and…

To effectively integrate digital technologies in K-12 schools, teachers must be provided with undergraduate experiences that strongly support these integration resources and strategies. The National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS.T) provide a framework for teacher candidates and inservice teachers to identify their…

State-funded voucher programs have stoked political controversy, culture clashes, and pitched court battles. Sometimes referred to as "scholarships," these vouchers enable students of limited means (or without access to a good public school) to attend a private school. Roughly 30,000 children in Ohio take advantage of a publicly funded…

The purpose of the study is to further investigate the validity of instruments used for collecting preservice teachers' perceptions of self-efficacy adapting the three-level IRT model described in Cheong's study (2006). The focus of the present study is to investigate whether the polytomously-scored items on the preservice teachers' self-efficacy…

Amid the cacophony of special interests fighting to be heard in statehouses and on Capitol Hill, a cadre of current and former chief state school officers is elbowing its way into the nation's education debate at a time when states are taking more control of K-12 education. A little more than a year old, Chiefs for Change is an invitation-only…

This paper will describe a unique partnership among the Department of Teacher Education and School of Engineering at the University of Dayton (UD) and the Dayton Regional STEM Center (DRSC). This partnership resulted in the development of the STEM Education Quality Framework (SQF), a tool to guide educators in teaching, learning and refining STEM…