The school funding landscape

Ohio has a legacy of school funding controversy that includes four Supreme Court decisions declaring its system unconstitutional. To determine the best solution for Ohio – or other states with similar problems – it’s important to know how we got here and what researchers and others are learning about what works.

How Ohio got here » Since the now famous DeRolph school funding case, Ohio has struggled to find a solution that provides enough resources, balances out inequities among schools, does not place too large a burden on taxpayers and gives citizens enough control over local education decisions.

Best practices and new thinking » We provide pertinent resources and support the sharing of best practices as a way to promote innovation and progress in state and local school funding.

School funding and you

Basics of school funding

A guide from the Center for Public Education explains the ins and outs of school funding.

Tracking local levies

Curious about how your community has voted on school levies? You can get results of local ballot issues from the Ohio Department of Education.

Ensuring Equal Opportunity in Public Education: How Local School Districts Funding Practices Hurt Disadvantaged Students and What Federal Policy Can Do About it from the Center for American Progress explores what it calls "perhaps the most important component of (the country's) mismatch of U.S. educational resources — inequality in the funding of local schools by their own school districts."