Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's education plan calls for modernizing Ohio's K-12 education system, including the state's school-funding system, but the plan's so-called "evidence-based" approach would actually scuttle any modernizing efforts, argues this study issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The governor's funding plan, says the author, "would prop up an outdated system of school finance that establishes funding levels based on convention rather than need, sustains institutions whether they work or not, spends money with little regard for results and holds adults accountable for compliance not results," and runs counter to what the Gates-funded report "Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools" proposed in December 2008. This report provides four recommendations for improving the Governor's school funding plan: (1) Drive funds to schools based on student numbers and needs through weighted student funding; (2) Encourage experimentation with the uses of funds and imaginative new instructional programs; (3) Hold all schools and school districts accountable for student performance and continuous improvement; and (4) Gather and use data on the uses of funds and the results produced, so that alternative methods of delivering instruction can be compared on cost and effectiveness. (Contains 1 footnote, 2 figures and 1 table.)