As the Ohio House prepares for another series of hearings on the school-funding formula next week, a new report shows that, from a national perspective, Ohio schools are doing better than most financially. Even so, there is a lot of room for improvement.
When ranked on four criteria relating to how the state allotted and distributed funding in 2009 — the most-recent year of data available — Ohio was one of three states to receive an A in distributing funds fairly among districts of varying income levels.
The report recently released by Rutgers University and the Education Law Center, an education advocacy group, shows Ohio as having a “progressive funding system,” which gives more funding to high-poverty districts than low-poverty ones.
Ohio also received an A in “effort,” a category relating to the percentage of funding for schools in relation to the state’s gross domestic product. The score was up from the B received on the first report, which looked at the schools in 2007 and 2008.
In the other categories, where states were given a ranking instead of a grade, Ohio was 21st in the nation for the amount spent on individual students — $10,625, which was $149 below the national average. The recent ranking was slightly below the 17th spot Ohio occupied in 2007.
Ohio received its worst ranking — 37th out of 50 — in its response to the number of students utilizing public education and the income level of those students.
According to the report, 85 percent of children ages 6 to 16 attend public schools, and their families have an average income that’s only two-thirds as large as families with children in private school.
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