Quality Choices

New Ohio online school legislation

New legislation on online charter schools, House Bill 707, was introduced in the Ohio House on Tuesday. The bill would, among other things, create a study committee to determine how to better fund online schools. For a detailed breakdown of other changes in the bill, see here.

Charter schools are helping to stabilize Cleveland’s population

Cleveland’s population has been declining since the 1960s. The Scene recently reported on changes that the city is making to attract and retain young parents in an effort to stabilize and grow the population. And it looks like a focus on great new schools, including charters, is helping the city make some progress. 

New White House proposal to merge Departments of Education and Labor

Yesterday, the White House released a proposal to reorganize the federal government in a reform plan titled, “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21^st Century.” The plan includes a recommendation to merge the Departments of Education and Labor to create a new department named the Department of Education and Workforce. Reaction from Congress, which would need to approve this type of change, was quick and...

In most public policy discussions and debates regarding elementary and secondary education, critically important ideas are routinely downplayed to the point of dismissal because they are intrinsically elusive. And because such ideas are largely ignored, a lot of young people who could be better served and educated are not. Or, more specifically in this instance, a lot of kids who might benefit from attending a Catholic school don’t have the opportunity.

As for such elusive ideas and (one would hope) corresponding behaviors, Paul Tough, a New York Times reporter, in 2013, wrote a New York Times bestseller called How Children Succeed, which argued that “grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character” were key to learning. It’s a compelling book.

Three years later in 2016, psychologist Angela Duckworth wrote Grit, which argued that for “anyone striving to succeed,” be they parents, students, educators, athletes, business people, or whomever, “the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence” that she calls “grit.” Her book also was a New York Times bestseller.

Predating both books, psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and journalist John Tierney, in 2011, wrote Willpower, with “willpower” described as the “greatest human strength.”...

NOTE: The Thomas B. Fordham Institute occasionally publishes guest commentaries on its blogs. The views expressed by guest authors do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham.

Earlier this century, Dayton, Ohio, was a hotbed for charter school growth, largely driven by parents, mostly poor and minority, desperately seeking better options for their children. In 2002, the Council of the Great City Schools captured Dayton’s challenges when it reported that “no urban school system in Ohio has fewer children meeting state proficiency standards…The problem appears to be exacerbated by high teacher absenteeism.”

Throughout the 2000s, Dayton was annually rated by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools as a “Top Ten Community by Market Share.” In fact, by the mid-2000s, Dayton had more children per capita enrolled in charters than any city in the country, save for post-hurricane New Orleans.

I was Fordham’s Ohio point person from 2001 to 2013. A big part of my job was to try and responsibly seed the growth of quality charter schools, mostly in Dayton. This meant providing start-up grant support to prospective school operators, identifying individuals and groups we thought could run schools well, organizing technical assistance for schools through partner organizations,...

NOTE: In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, Fordham Ohio staffers will be blogging about teachers, principals, and guidance counselors who made a positive difference in their schooling and in their lives. This is the fourth and final post, which does double duty of celebrating National Charter Schools Week as well. The first post can be found here; the second can be found here; and the third here.

Growing up, I attended five different elementary schools. District transportation interruptions, school closings, and family relocations forced me into changing schools at the end of each year. My memories of middle school aren’t much better: They involve metal detectors, fights erupting on cafeteria tables, and teachers reading the Dayton Daily News instead of teaching. Overall, the schools I attended were poorly staffed, overpopulated, and nearly devoid of learning.

By the time I entered high school, I was at a significant disadvantage. My parents and I were skeptical of the district high schools’ ability to adequately equip me with a strong secondary education and effectively prepare me for college, so we selected a charter school instead: the Dayton Early College Academy (DECA).

DECA was founded in 2003 as Ohio’s first...