Ohio's Education Reform Challenges Lessons

Charter schools have emerged as one of the central policy debates in U.S. education--and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute team has been a key participant in this debate since day one, both nationally and in Ohio. Despite President Obama's call for states to strengthen the charter sector and widen the options it provides to needy youngsters, established interests in education and politics oppose this disruption of the status quo. Ohio has struggled with these issues for more than a decade, struggles in which the authors of this book have played influential--and controversial--roles, including that of an actual authorizer of charter schools. They write from wide experience on the ground as well as extensive research and nationally-respected policy expertise.

Chester E. Finn, Jr. is a scholar, educator and public servant who has been at the forefront of the national education debate for forty years. Born and raised in Ohio, he received his doctorate from Harvard in education policy. A senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and chairman of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K-12 education, Finn is also president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. The author of 16 books including Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut (Hoover), Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform since Sputnik (Princeton), We Must Take Charge: Our Schools and Our Future (Free Press), What Do Our 17-year-olds Know? (Harper & Row), and Charter Schools in Action (Princeton).

Terry Ryan is vice president for Ohio programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. A 2008 New Schools Venture Fund/Aspen Institute Fellow and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Ryan leads all Ohio operations for the Institute, which include charter school sponsorship, grant making and leading state research and policy efforts. Ryan lives in Dayton and has testified to the Ohio House and Senate on various occasions on matters related to education reform and charter school policy. Ryan co-authored The Unfinished Revolution (ACSD Press) with John Abbott of the United Kingdom. He received his Master’s Degree from the University of Denver’s Graduate School if International Studies. Ryan was awarded the Paterson International Fellowship from the University of Denver and worked for 18 months on education reform issues in Warsaw, Poland.

Michael B. Lafferty is a freelance science and education writer. He is a retired science reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. He was editor-in-chief of “Ohio’s National Heritage,” a volume on the natural history of Ohio and now serves as a writer for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Ohio Education Gadfly newsletter.

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
Dayton's Decline	p. 5
The Dawn of Charter Schools	p. 21
Urban School Reform: Part I	p. 37
Be Careful What You Wish For	p. 51
Urban School Reform: Part II	p. 67
Plunging Ahead	p. 79
Baptism Under Fire	p. 95
An Education Tragedy	p. 111
Polarization and Politics	p. 127
The Rest of the Story	p. 141
Hard Lessons	p. 155
Glossary	p. 167
Key Moments in Ohio's Charter School Program	p. 171
The Growth of Ohio's Charter Program, 1998-2009	p. 175
List of Contributors	p. 177
Index	p. 179
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Ohio's Education Reform Challenges Lessons from the Frontlines

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