The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 10.9.26

Fri, 10/09/2026 - 12:43

Stories featured in Ohio Charter News Weekly may require a paid subscription to read in full. More division in Indy Indianapolis Public Schools continues to propose big operational changes that they say will save the cash-strapped district money, but also appear calibrated to cause division in a city attempting to build a new paradigm of educational cooperation. The latest: Discontinuation of the district/charter partnership called Innovation Schools. Shared services between IPS and the 30… Read More

What we’re reading: October 9, 2026

Fri, 10/09/2026 - 09:00

WHAT WE’RE READING What began as a strike at a single high school over France’s inequitable education system has grown into a national wave of protests, some turning violent and many bringing instruction to a halt. Thomas Chatterton Williams believes the violent unrest reflects nihilistic resentment more than a push for school reform: For some time now, there has been an existential crisis at the heart of French life, rooted in a pervasive sense that the future will never equal the past, that… Read More

Cheers and Jeers: October 9, 2026

Fri, 10/09/2026 - 09:00

CHEERS According to newly released data from the Congressional Budget Office, inflation-adjusted household incomes have steadily increased for decades. Reason’s Eric Boehm highlights how “poorer Americans have seen the largest relative gains over the past few decades—a fact that is particularly inconvenient for populists on both right and left.” He’s right that rising incomes are worth cheering, though they make our lackluster student achievement trends look even worse. — Ohio’s Department… Read More

Industry credentials committee undermines the state’s new and improved framework

Fri, 10/09/2026 - 08:49

Earlier this summer, Ohio policymakers unveiled a revamped industry credentials framework that—if implemented well—will encourage students to attain credentials of value. The new system was created in response to data indicating that schools were pushing students to rack up questionable credentials as a workaround to the standard graduation requirement of passing state math and English exams. This was a blatant abuse of the state’s alternative pathway, and it robbed students of both essential… Read More

Gadfly Bites 10/9/26—Owning it

Fri, 10/09/2026 - 08:44

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. On the upside, student attendance is on the rise in Princeton City Schools. On the downside, their transportation troubles seem destined to grind on into a third week. On the upside, further negotiations are planned for today. On the downside, these negotiations are between the drivers and the third party private contractor with the district and its families entirely powerless to… Read More

One detail in FSTC proposed regs will reduce participation in public schools

Fri, 10/09/2026 - 05:59

Over the summer, Edunomics Lab predicted that, once up and at scale, the federal tax credit scholarship (FSTC) could generate some $1,000 per public school student. However, now that Treasury has released its long-awaited draft regulations, we’re downgrading that prediction. It all comes down to an onerous requirement that public school participants prove they are not super rich. You see, the law was written such that nearly every school-aged student is eligible. The sole exclusion applies to… Read More

Apply premises liability principles to ed tech

Thu, 10/08/2026 - 12:00

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. Code can be just as hazardous as concrete or steel. But just as we don’t ban buildings, we shouldn’t ban software. Here is an elegant, time-tested way to let digital technology continue in education while making it safer, more ethical, and more responsible: apply state… Read More

Parent dialogue and radical transparency: A school-by-school, responsive approach to digital technology use

Thu, 10/08/2026 - 12:00

Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more. When parents don’t understand how and why digital technology is used in schools, there are consequences. Parent concerns about use of technology make headlines across the country. Parents sue over the use of technology in classrooms, as a parent group is doing in D.C.… Read More

A new documentary film chronicling the life and legacy of Rod Paige

Thu, 10/08/2026 - 00:04

On Monday, World Teachers’ Day, friends and relatives of the late Rod Paige released the trailer for a forthcoming film about his remarkable life and career. Titled Paragraphs of a Paige, the appetite-whetting trailer can be viewed here. We at Fordham are proud to be playing a modest role in the evolution of this project, spearheaded by Rod’s family and ace filmmaker Isaac Yowman, as Rod Paige was our friend, longtime board member, colleague in the ed-reform struggle in which he played such a… Read More

Does education reform have regrets?

Thu, 10/08/2026 - 00:03

I recently wrote an essay for The Dispatch about the wave of regret washing over America’s political left…and the wave of regret building offshore of the political right. But today I want to focus on regret and the “education reform” movement. The sudden change As some readers know, I spent much of my early career focused on K–12 education. I shifted away from that in part because, 10–15 years ago, the leading figures and organizations in the ed reform community moved far left and seemed… Read More

School districts shouldn’t wait for the state to intervene

Thu, 10/08/2026 - 00:02

If you’ve paid even general attention to Texas education news over the past few years, you’ve likely heard some version of the phrase “local school districts being taken over by the state.” Maybe it registered as a Houston story, since that made statewide headlines. If you missed that, you hopefully didn’t miss that the same thing happened 35 miles west of Dallas on Interstate 30. Fort Worth ISD lost its elected school board this spring. A state-appointed superintendent and a nine-member board… Read More

Defining high-wage, high-growth jobs available without a four-year degree

Thu, 10/08/2026 - 00:01

While four-year college degrees are largely viewed as a direct path into career-ladder jobs (AI fears notwithstanding), two-year degrees and shorter-term certificates are seen as less of a sure thing. A new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce provides a better picture of the jobs that associate degree and certificate earners can access and what their career trajectories look like—essential information to help improve our understanding of non-bachelor’s… Read More

Gadfly Bites 10/7/26—A matter of perspective

Wed, 10/07/2026 - 11:26

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. Some wildly-contrasting commentary on Ohio’s efforts to amend its ESSA waiver here. There are a number of changes state leaders have requested, but intervention in persistently low-performing schools is the primary concern in this coverage. Specifically, Akron City Schools is feeling salty because their schools still on comprehensive support and improvement status will face more… Read More

Advanced education is common sense

Tue, 10/06/2026 - 09:57

If you want to be a faster runner, research says you should run more often and farther. I used this “run more” strategy over the past year and, I kid you not, my performance has improved quite drastically. Sometimes plain ol’ common sense is the answer to life’s many problems. We tend to ignore this when we think about advanced education. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why it is such a complicated topic, given that it is easy to boil down: A significant percentage of students are… Read More

State report cards set the baseline for math improvement in Ohio

Tue, 10/06/2026 - 08:20

In June, lawmakers passed long-awaited and comprehensive math legislation in the form of Senate Bill 19. The new law aims to improve Ohio’s lackluster math achievement in several ways: the Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) will establish a list of high-quality core curriculum and instructional materials for math; the State Board of Education will ensure all new educators have sufficient math knowledge before teaching math; districts will be required to provide advanced math… Read More

Gadfly Bites 10/5/26—No way to run a railroad

Mon, 10/05/2026 - 10:08

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. As weird as the Princeton City Schools bus driver strike is (a subset of employees picketing a private company like it’s a public school district), the fixes being attempted by the district seem even weirder to me. These include random other contractors quickly “found” to take up some of the slack, the provision of these alternatives to a chosen subset of families contacted directly… Read More

Ohio charter schools’ performance in 2025–26

Fri, 10/02/2026 - 15:21

For more than a quarter century, public charter schools have served Ohio families and students seeking tuition-free educational options in their communities. As independently run public schools, charters are freed from district bureaucracy but in return for the autonomy, charters are expected to deliver improved achievement. Ohio’s accountability structure includes an automatic-closure provision for underperforming charters and a sponsor evaluation system that ensures these entities (of which… Read More

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 10.2.26

Fri, 10/02/2026 - 13:00

Stories featured in Ohio Charter News Weekly may require a paid subscription to read in full. The preview didn’t lie – this feature presentation stinks Last week, we discussed the impending announcement of the disposition of several buildings recently closed by Cleveland Metropolitan School District—and it didn’t sound promising for charter schools. The details, now available, show those fears to be correct. Seven schools are being given over to the City of Cleveland through zero-dollar “land… Read More

Gadfly Bites 10/2/26—Two weird tricks

Fri, 10/02/2026 - 09:06

News stories featured in Gadfly Bites may require a paid subscription to read in full. You have been warned. On Wednesday, we mentioned with some incredulity that Princeton City Schools was likely to lose student transportation service on October 1 due to an impending bus driver strike. So far so normal. But then we learned that these drivers were striking not against the school district but against First Student, the private company that contracts with the district. Weird, right? Not only… Read More

What we’re reading: October 2, 2026

Fri, 10/02/2026 - 09:00

WHAT WE’RE READING University of Miami’s Bruce Baker updated his list of America’s most financially disadvantaged (a.k.a. “still screwed”) school districts, each one serving “far needier children than the districts around it, with less money.” EXTRA CREDIT: The overwhelming response to the Nikole Hannah-Jones article continues, with another 37 articles published this week, for a grand total of 82 (so far). We’ve put them all in one place (here) for your reading pleasure. Among the latest… Read More