As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation chronicled in its last year's Fordham Sponsorship Accountability Report, "Seeking Quality in the Face of Adversity", the 2008-09 school year was a brutal one during which schools, and their peers, faced many existential threats. The 2009-10 school year was Fordham's fifth year as a charter school authorizer…

As a charter school sponsor (authorizer), the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation submits an accountability report to the Ohio Department of Education at the end of November each year. The report includes profiles of each Fordham-sponsored school, as well as graphics comparing the achievement data of its schools, their home districts, and statewide…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation believes that all children deserve a high-quality K-12 education at the school of their choice. Nationally and in its home state of Ohio, the Foundation strives to close America's vexing achievement gaps by raising standards, strengthening accountability, and expanding education options for students and families.…

Until now, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has focused everyone's attention on reading and math--and on whether schools are making "adequate yearly progress" in those two core subjects. Although some states incorporate additional subjects into their own accountability systems, reading and math have dominated most discussions of state…

Of all the controversies swirling around the nation's charter schools, none is more hotly contested than the debate over funding. Charter opponents charge that these autonomous public schools are draining scarce resources from public school districts. Proponents, by contrast, complain that charter schools do not get their fair share of public…

Findings from this Fordham-sponsored survey--the fourth survey of Dayton, Ohio parent/community attitudes toward education since 1988--present a fascinating array of opinions about today's schools (and those who are responsible for them) and the changes that could be made tomorrow. Over 70 percent of Dayton-area parents support the idea of…

The importance of state academic standards soared in January 2002 with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Not only does that milestone law require all states to have demanding academic standards in place and to demonstrate steady student progress toward academic proficiency as set forth in those standards, it also links states'…

Two decades after the United States was diagnosed as "a nation at risk," academic standards for our primary and secondary schools are more important than ever?and their quality matters enormously. In 1983, as nearly every American knows, the National Commission on Excellence in Education declared that "The educational foundations of our society…

The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with a general introduction to: (1) the growth of the charter school movement in Ohio since 1998;(2) the reaction of some who oppose this expansion in school choice; and (3) legal and political challenges that need to be met to ensure the sustainability and educational success of the charter…

Does it matter where public-school teachers send their own children to school? If so, how and why? What can we learn from them? What we are grappling with here is the question of connoisseurship. Stock analysts, for example, watch carefully when corporate directors buy or sell the stock of companies on whose boards they serve. Similarly, we can…