The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Two ways Ohio can keep the pedal to the metal on math and reading

Tue, 08/04/2026 - 08:49

Earlier this summer, when Governor DeWine signed Senate Bill 19 into law, it marked the end of a long legislative process and the beginning of what could be a turning point for Ohio education. Collectively, the math-focused Senate Bill 19 and the sweeping early literacy initiative already underway have the potential to boost student achievement. Around the same time lawmakers were putting the finishing touches on SB 19, TNTP released its latest report on coherence. While an earlier report… Read More

Don’t give up on foreign language education

Mon, 08/03/2026 - 15:59

In a recent edition of his SCHOOLED newsletter, Mike Petrilli called on U.S. high schools to stop pretending to teach foreign languages. Who decides whether they are taught at all? According to a 2025 analysis in Foreign Language Annals, just ten states require credit or proficiency in a foreign language for graduation: Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Washington. Three additional states—Indiana, Ohio, and… Read More

Gadfly Bites 8/3/26—It ain’t fair

Mon, 08/03/2026 - 09:06

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. School-choice-based student transportation shenanigans are starting early this year! The elected board of Lakota Local School District voted last week to declare a number of bus routes—all carrying resident students to/from the private schools they choose to attend—impractical, cancelling their busing services less than two weeks from the start of the new school year. There are no… Read More

Why Ohio’s third-grade retention law worked (until lawmakers killed it)

Mon, 08/03/2026 - 08:25

Few education interventions are more controversial than retention mandates, which require students to demonstrate minimal academic competence before moving on to the next grade. They are also some of the most well-studied, with a large body of research from a number of states—including Ohio—showing positive effects among students facing retention that persist for many years. Now a new Ohio study led by American University professor (and former Fordham intern) Sarah Souders demonstrates that… Read More

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 7.31.26

Fri, 07/31/2026 - 13:03

Stories featured in Ohio Charter News Weekly may require a paid subscription to read in full. More coverage of the news from Indy National media continued to cover the selection of NACSA leader Karega Rausch as the first executive director of The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. “I was not looking for a new opportunity,” Rausch told The 74’s Patrick O’Donnell. “I love the work and impact we are making at NACSA.” But the “very unique and a once-in-a lifetime opportunity” at IPEC was… Read More

Across the states: Reactions to Fordham’s updated teachers union strength rankings

Fri, 07/31/2026 - 12:17

In the years since Fordham’s landmark 2012 study on teachers union strength, the education and policymaking landscapes have changed dramatically. In less than 15 years, we’ve witnessed a widespread decline in student achievement, waves of teacher strikes, mandatory union fees abolished, pandemic-era remote learning (and a bumpy return-to-school), the rise of parent advocates, and an escalation of partisan divides. With so much change afoot, Fordham teamed up with researchers Melissa Arnold… Read More

New NAEP data show boys have made a historic comeback in reading. Is it too good to be true?

Fri, 07/31/2026 - 10:29

New federal test score data from the long-term trend (LTT) report reveal a remarkable finding: For the first time in the 50 years of the assessment, nine-year-old boys are now scoring equally with girls in reading. The erasure of this long-standing gap occurred because nine-year-old boys made historic improvements on the LTT test between 2022 and 2025, while girls’ scores did not significantly change. This seems like great news, as boys have historically struggled in reading relative to girls… Read More

Gadfly Bites 7/31/26—Encomiums for excellent exemplars

Fri, 07/31/2026 - 09:50

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. In case you missed it, Columbus State Community College recently floated the idea of placing a property tax levy on the November ballot, specifically to fund the Columbus Promise program. That is: Free tuition for Columbus City Schools grads who matriculate there. After some strong pushback, CSCC trustees this week tanked that idea for the foreseeable future. While no one will… Read More

Hey, Claude, should I go to college?

Thu, 07/30/2026 - 00:04

One of the more promising developments of recent decades in education has been the pendulum swing away from the “college for all” mindset. That focus, which many of us ed-reformers embraced wholeheartedly, turned out to be both bad advice for young people and poisonous politics, sending the unintentional but unmistakable message that people who don’t graduate from college deserve less respect than those who do. This was fuel for the populist fire. So it’s good that today’s debate about college… Read More

How has teachers union strength changed? Diving deeper into "A Crowded Table"

Thu, 07/30/2026 - 00:03

A Crowded Table: Teacher Union Strength in 2026 shows what we have all seen transpire over the last several years, as the Janus decision, the post-Covid rise of right-wing parent advocacy groups, and the spread of private school choice have seemingly chipped away at the grip of teachers unions. The Fordham Institute report by Melissa Arnold Lyon, Sandy Frost Waldron, and Rebecca Jacobsen provides evidence that they have weakened, showing that membership rates have fallen across the board and… Read More

Congress learned the wrong lessons from No Child Left Behind

Thu, 07/30/2026 - 00:02

For a law that has been off the books for more than a decade, No Child Left Behind is receiving an unusual amount of attention. After years of declining achievement—and the sharp nosedive following the pandemic—some have begun looking back at the NCLB era with new appreciation. I count myself among them. The early 2000s were no golden age for American education, and NCLB was far from perfect. But it reflected a bipartisan consensus that now feels almost unimaginable. Both parties believed… Read More

Should you redshirt your kindergartner?

Thu, 07/30/2026 - 00:01

Across the U.S., nearly every state uses a child’s fifth birthday to determine when they can enter the public school system as kindergartners. If your child’s birthday falls just after the cut-off, those few extra days can mean an entire extra year at home or paying for preschool. Sending most five-year-olds off to school is a relatively new phenomenon. State funding for universal kindergarten picked up in the 1970s, an extension of broader anti-poverty and education initiatives under Lyndon… Read More

Gadfly Bites 7/29/26—Other people’s money

Wed, 07/29/2026 - 09:55

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. The elected board members of Cincinnati City Schools voted 5-2 to place an earned income tax levy on the November ballot, rather than attempting to renew an existing property tax levy. First time ever for Cincy, but as we learn in this coverage, a growing phenomenon across Ohio...sorta. “There were 32 school income tax issues on Ohio ballots during the May election,” says journalist… Read More

Here’s how Ohio’s implementation of the science of reading is going

Tue, 07/28/2026 - 08:32

In 2023, Ohio lawmakers enacted a sweeping early literacy initiative aligned with the science of reading, an evidence-based instructional approach that emphasizes phonics and knowledge-building. The ultimate goal is to boost Ohio’s troublingly low reading scores. Based on the latest round of state report cards (2024–25), districts and schools have their work cut out for them. But a recently published report from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) suggests that implementation… Read More

Gadfly Bites 7/27/26—Union/reunion

Mon, 07/27/2026 - 11:31

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. Kudos to Laura Hancock for detailed coverage of Fordham’s new report on union strength in all 50 states. Everyone quoted seems to have read and clearly understood (and accepted) the methodology and findings—and there are a lot of interviewees. Then there’s detailed analysis of how these realities dovetail with the two major-party candidates for Ohio governor. None of which are… Read More

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 7.24.26

Fri, 07/24/2026 - 07:51

Stories featured in Ohio Charter News Weekly may require a paid subscription to read in full. Big news from Indy Huge congratulations to Karega Rausch, who was unanimously chosen as the first executive director of The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation earlier this week. Rausch will be stepping down from his position as president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) to take the helm in Indy and lead its new citywide education authority, which… Read More

Gadfly Bites 7/24/26—Editorial fiat

Fri, 07/24/2026 - 07:38

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. This story about the annual push by Ohio districts to fill up their open bus driver slots ahead of the new school year is rather pleasant. It not only avoids the tone of desperation that has pervaded other coverage of the topic in recent years, the business manager at Forest Hills Local Schools outside Cincinnati also makes the job itself sound pretty fun—even though he’d… Read More

Good programs aren’t enough: States need a work-based learning strategy

Fri, 07/24/2026 - 07:00

In Philadelphia, a young person leaving Launchpad Philly’s post-high school graduate training track is on pace to earn nearly $30,000 within nine months and $50,000 within one year. That far outpaces the roughly $12,500 a young Philadelphian with only a high school diploma typically earns. That’s not a best-case anecdote. It’s a design choice. And it’s one of six such designs documented in our new report, A Practical Guide to Work-Based Learning, which also examines a network of career and… Read More

Ohio education groups rush to defend failing public schools

Thu, 07/23/2026 - 08:20

In April, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce released an amended ESSA plan for public comment that proposes stronger state interventions in chronically low-performing schools. More assertive turnaround efforts couldn’t come soon enough for students attending such schools. But as news reports have covered, some education advocates have sharply criticized the amendment. If their complaints prevail and the department walks back its proposal (not yet finalized), low-performing schools… Read More

Accountability is not just about improving instruction. It aims to shift local politics, too.

Thu, 07/23/2026 - 03:35

A few weeks ago, my colleague Robert Pondiscio argued convincingly that the accountability policies of the No Child Left Behind era did not work as effectively as they could have because schools did not know how to respond to the pressure they felt to improve instructional practice and deliver stronger results. I think that’s right and, as Robert argued, that’s why leading states discovered that they needed to provide help, and in some cases mandates, to get schools to adopt approaches that… Read More