Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law that will require school districts to create a mandatory religious instruction release time policy and require educators to out a students’ sexuality to their parents.

The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.

during the final day of the lame duck session in 2024 and LGBTQ advocates called on .

State Reps. D.J. Swearingen, R-Huron, and Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, introduced . Supporters called the bill the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” while opponents called it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, due to its similar language to Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law that passed in 2022.

The bill requires public schools to let parents know about sexuality content materials ahead of time so they can request alternative instructions.

It also prohibits any sexuality content from being taught to students in kindergarten through third grade. H.B. 8 defines sexuality content as “oral or written instruction, presentation, image or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology.”

This bill is one of a few during the most recent General Assembly.

This new law strengthens Ohio’s existing law around religious release time by creating a mandate. Currently, Ohio allows school district boards of education to make a policy to let students go to a course in religious instruction during the school day, but this now becomes a requirement for Ohio school boards.

“Parents, not government bureaucrats, should be making healthcare and education decisions for their kids,” Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer said in a . “H.B. 8 protects children by safeguarding parents’ rights to make important decisions for their children.”

The United States Supreme Court upheld religious released time laws during the 1952 case, which allowed a school district to have students leave school for part of the day to receive religious instruction.

Religious release time instruction must meet three criteria: the courses must take place off school property, be privately funded, and students must have parental permission.

a Hilliard-based religious instruction program, already enrolls students in about 160 Ohio school districts and celebrated the governor’s signing.

“All Ohio families have the freedom to choose off-campus religious instruction during school hours for their students,” LifeWise said in a statement.

Two central Ohio school districts, Westerville and Worthington, rescinded their religious release time policy last year. Both districts formerly allowed  off-campus for Bible classes during school hours.

“We are especially grateful that any local programs that had been put on hold will be able to resume their growing programs and that communities will now have the clarity they need to provide families with the opportunity to choose Bible-based character education for their child,” LifeWise said in a statement.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

Like most colleges, posters and artwork line the hallways at the Cleveland School of Cannabis. Except the key difference here is what’s featured on the posters — marijuana.

The Cleveland School of Cannabis prepares students to work in the marijuana industry by giving them hands-on experience in the school’s grow room, dispensary, and cooking lab.

“We’re not sitting around smoking all day,” said Nicole Fenix, the school’s director of education. “We do have fun, but it is like any other educational institute.”

The school expects to see a boom in Ohio’s cannabis industry if Issue 2 passes next week.

The citizen initiative would legalize and . It would also legalize home grow for Ohioans 21 and up with a limit of six plants per person and 12 plants per residence, and impose a 10% tax at the point of sale for each transaction.

A recent  estimates the potential annual tax revenue from legalizing marijuana ranges from $276 million to $403 million in the fifth year of an operational cannabis market.

While Fenix is excited Issue 2 is on the ballot, she said it’s been disheartening hearing from the opposition.

“You feel like you’re making such great strides, and then you hear all this rhetoric come back up,” Fenix said. “It’s a shame that (marijuana has) been ostracized and villainized for as long as it has been.”

Protect Ohio Workers and Families, the opposition to marijuana legalization, predicts Ohio would see an additional 48 fatal vehicle crashes and 2,298 more injury crashes if voters approve Issue 2, based on projections using the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s crash statistics and research from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety.

“Legalization of marijuana use leads to public safety issues as well, including higher percentages of fatal car crashes directly attributed to the marijuana impaired drivers,” Delaware County Sheriff Jeff Balzer said in a .

Doug Berman, the executive director at the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at Ohio State University, previously told the

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who is against legalizing cannabis, has previously said “this is not your grandfather’s marijuana.”

Fenix agrees with the governor’s assessment.

“Now we test it to make sure it’s safe,” Fenix said. “It’s regulated, it’s a better quality, it’s gonna have more medicinal effects. … The cannabis industry is a science from growing the plant, to how the plant works in the body to processing. So chemistry, biology and a little bit of physics.”

Cleveland School of Cannabis

CSC opened in 2017 — one year after medical marijuana was legalized in Ohio, but the state’s first dispensary didn’t open until 2019. 

Students are not smoking marijuana in classes and it is not a licensed cultivator or dispensary, so the school is not actually growing or selling medical marijuana. Instead, the school uses hemp which is destroyed after it’s been fully used.

The school received state approval from the Ohio State Board of Career College and Schools and their certificate program teaches students in five different areas — cannabis dispensaries, cannabis horticulture, cannabis processing, industrial hemp and medical applications of cannabis. There is also an executive program, which is a combination of all five certificate programs.

CSC’s tuition ranges from $7,500 to $14,000 and it is the only State Approved Career School for Cannabis education east of Colorado.

The school — which offers a mix of in-person and online classes — usually has between 130-150 students per term. More than 900 students have graduated from the school, which has an 82% graduation rate.

“Our students have a good foundation of understanding what their job is going to be,” Fenix said.

CSC has capped their in-person classes to 24 students and they try to keep their online classes between 30-35 students. They offer six-week terms and six terms are offered per year.

A sampling of courses include history of cannabis, dispensary operations, cannabis law & policies, and CBD comprehensive, among others. Some of the career options graduates pursue include master grower, cannabis gardener, dispensary manager and cultivation consultant, to name a few.

While a majority of their students are from Ohio, it’s not uncommon for an out-of-state student to attend. One student drives in from Pittsburgh everyday, Fenix said. Most of their graduates stay in Ohio after graduation, but sometimes students move out west for the jobs.

While the school typically attracts young adults and those fresh out of high school, CSC also enrolls people in their 30-40’s who are looking to make a career change. Students have to be 18 or older to take classes, but the marijuana industry only hires people 21 and older.

From high school teacher to marijuana educator

Education is Fenix’s background. She previously taught in an alternative high school setting and also worked with homeschooled students.

But her introduction to cannabis started when her son started using medical marijuana to help treat his ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation and sores in the digestive tract.

“I really got to witness cannabis as medicinal through my son,” Fenix said. “It was just a big eye opener.”

She started working at CSC at the end of 2017, the same year the school opened.

“I’m a big believer in cannabis as medicine,” Fenix said.

Ohio Medical Marijuana

There are 29 active dispensary licenses, but 104 certificates of operation as of Sept. 21, according to the .

Twenty-three cultivators in Ohio have received Level I provisional licenses and 21 have received certificates of operation. Fourteen have received Level II provisional licenses and 13 have received certificates of operation.

There have been 822,760 medical marijuana patient recommendations (a patient can have more than one recommendation), 391,692 patients have registered and 182,068 patients have both an active registration and an active recommendation.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

A lawsuit is trying to prevent a new law from changing how Ohio students learn how to read.

Reading Recovery Council of North America, located in Worthington, filed a lawsuit on Oct. 3 in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas to block the science of reading from being implemented in schools across the state.

The science of reading is of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Reading Recovery Council of North America’s reading intervention programs would be banned under the new law.

The association has seen a decline in Ohio school district memberships since the state budget was signed into law and a major portion of its operating revenue comes from annual membership fees paid by Ohio members, according to the lawsuit.

“The unconstitutional, improper and unlawful teaching, instructional and educational policy directives of the Ohio Legislature … directly and significantly impact RRCNA’s mission and outreach,” wrote David Yeagley, an attorney with Ulmer & Berne that filed the lawsuit.

DeWine’s press secretary Dan Tierney said the governor is disappointed this lawsuit has been filed.

“I truly believe there’s nothing more important than the science of reading, and making sure that every single child in the state of Ohio, as they are learning to read, has the benefit of the science,” . He has visited several schools to learn about how the science of reading method has been implemented in lessons.

State budget

A chunk of the state’s two-year operating budget goes implementing the science of reading — $86 million for educator professional development, $64 million for curriculum and instructional materials, and $18 million for literacy coaches.

DeWine, who first began advocating for the science of reading during his state of the state address back in January, signed the state budget in July. He originally put the science of reading in his proposed state budget and it remained, with some tweaks, as it went through the budget process.

“If permitted to take effect, it will allow the General Assembly to disguise a policy-based law in a must-pass appropriations bill,” the lawsuit said. “The literacy curriculum statute intrudes on classroom teaching and learning programs, models, methodologies and materials.”

The lawsuit argues the General Assembly is trying to set education policy and curriculum, infringing on the Ohio State Board of Education’s authority to oversee the Ohio education system.

Three-cueing

The budget bans teachers from using the “three-cueing approach” in lessons unless a district or a school receives a waiver from the education department or a student has an individualized education program that specifically includes the “three-cueing approach.”

However, the lawsuit argues the budget fails to clearly articulate “a clear standard for assessing what teaching models or methods might be categorized under the “three-cueing” approach.”

The budget defines the “three-cueing approach” as any model of teaching students to read based on meaning, structure and syntax, and visual cues. The three-cueing method encourages children to read words by asking three questions: Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right?

Reading recovery is “often referred to or perceived as a “three-cueing” approach, and therefore is targeted as being anti-science of reading,” according to the lawsuit. “There are no recognized or established teaching, instructional or educational approaches that strictly and exclusively fall within either the “science of reading” or the “three-cueing approach.”

Louisiana, Arkansas and Virginia have laws that .

Other education lawsuit

This is the second education lawsuit filed against DeWine that relates back to the budget bill. Seven members of the Ohio State Board of Education  DeWine on Sept. 19 to block the transfer of power over Ohio K-12 education from the board to the governor’s office.

On Sept. 21,Franklin County Judge Karen Held Phipps issued a temporary restraining order that currently remains in place and is set to expire on Friday.

The lawsuit is trying to prevent the Ohio Department of Education from transitioning to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, which would create a cabinet-level director position and puts the department under the governor’s office. These changes would also limit the State Board of Education’s power to teacher disciplinary and licensure cases and territory disputes.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

On June 30, the Ohio House and Senate passed the state’s biennial budget bill for Fiscal Years 2024-25, and Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill into law July 3. The legislation makes historic strides in K-12 education, most notably through strengthened educational choice programs, an overhaul of the state’s school governance framework and requirements that schools adopt scientifically based reading practices. The bill also includes significant steps forward in career-technical education, teacher licensing and transportation. The one blemish: gutting the state’s third-grade retention policy. That aside, the budget bill is packed with reforms that promise a better future for Ohio students. 

Significantly increases overall K-12 education funding: The budget increases core foundation funding for all public schools, including both traditional district and public . The decision to update the “inputs” to the drove the increase — e.g., using 2022 teacher salary data to calculate base amounts, rather than 2018 salary data as in the prior biennium. The table below indicates that both districts and charters receive a 12% boost in state foundation aid between FY23 and FY25.

Narrows longstanding charter funding gaps: Ohio charter schools have historically been underfunded, receiving just 70% to 75% of local districts’ overall taxpayer funding. This year’s budget helps to close this large and persistent funding gap in the following ways:

• High-quality funding: Led by DeWine, charters that register strong performance on will now receive an additional $3,000 per economically disadvantaged student and $2,250 per non-disadvantaged student annually. In FY23, the supplemental funding amounts provided to high-quality charter schools were $1,416 and $809 respectively.
  
• Facilities funding: All brick-and-mortar charters will receive $1,000 per pupil for facilities, up from $500 per pupil in FY23.
  
• Equity supplement: In a brand-new funding component, all brick-and-mortar charters will receive an additional $650 per pupil.

The average Ohio brick-and-mortar charter school is projected to receive 86% of district funding in the next biennium; high-quality charters will receive 92%. In terms of actual amounts — including the increased foundation aid — the average high-quality charter will receive approximately $4,000 per pupil in additional monies (or roughly 40% more aid) in FY25 compared with FY23. Though still less than the total taxpayer support received by similar district schools, these dollars will help Ohio’s best charters recruit and retain talented teachers, cover more of their facilities costs, expand their capacity so they can reach more students and make Ohio an attractive destination for top national charter networks.

Expands private school scholarship eligibility to all families: Under former policy, students whose incomes were under 250% of the federal poverty level ($75,000 for a family of four), or those of any income level attending specific low-performing schools, were eligible for EdChoice scholarships. Led by state Senate President Matt Huffman, the budget moves Ohio to universal eligibility, as any student — regardless of family income or school attended — is now eligible for EdChoice. Students whose family income is above 450% of federal poverty ($135,000 for a family of four) will receive reduced scholarship awards — the exact amounts will be based on a sliding scale — while lower-income students will receive the full amount. Ohio can now proudly join with universal private school choice programs.

Consistent with public school increases, the budget raises the scholarship amounts (including for ). The full EdChoice scholarship is estimated to be $6,165 for students in grades K-8 and $8,407 in grades 9-12. These funding levels, while above , still remain modest in comparison to total average public school funding of roughly . Considering all programs, Ohio is expected to increase scholarship funding from $595 million in FY23 to $1 billion by FY25.

The legislature also wisely added a requirement that the state education agency calculate and report of scholarship students attending private schools. This new provision will offer parents a more complete picture of school quality relative to the current system that considers only on standardized assessments.

Overhauls K–12 education governance: Due in part to an incoherent governance structure at the state level, Ohio has struggled to rigorously implement education initiatives. One of the most obvious has been its 19-member state Board of Education. It currently consists of 11 members elected from broad regional districts and eight appointees of the governor. Unfortunately, the body has often failed to provide clear direction for and oversight of the state education agency. To address these problems, the budget bill puts the agency and its chief under the direct oversight of the governor, rather than the state board. The renamed Department of Education and Workforce will be responsible for implementing most education laws, with the state board largely relegated to handling matters of licensure. With a clearer chain of command and fewer cooks in the kitchen, the new governance model should promote stronger, steadier state leadership.

Aligns literacy instruction to the science of reading: the centerpiece of his education budget this year. He proposed requiring all schools to follow the science of reading — an approach that emphasizes phonics and other key elements of effective reading instruction — and prohibiting discredited reading curricula from Ohio classrooms. His budget also set aside roughly $170 million over the biennium to provide high-quality curricula that align with the reading science and to support professional development for teachers. The governor’s proposals were approved, and the General Assembly even built on them by requiring in the science of reading.

Invests in high-quality career-technical education: Another of the governor’s was career-technical education. He proposed $300 million over the biennium in additional state spending that would support the expansion of CTE programming in in-demand career fields, with a particular focus on covering facility and equipment costs unique to advanced CTE fields. These investments will allow Ohio’s schools and career-technical centers to upgrade their programs to meet the demands of high-tech industries while expanding access to quality CTE to more high school students. The funding was approved in the final budget bill.

Strengthens teacher pipelines: With many schools (including charters) expressing concerns about , the legislature pared down some of the licensing requirements that make it harder to recruit and retain teachers. The budget eliminates burdensome coursework requirements for out-of-state teachers to become licensed in Ohio, as well as for current teachers who entered the profession via alternative pathways to renew their license. Lawmakers also created a grow-your-own teacher initiative that provides scholarships for individuals who aspire to teach in high-need schools ($15 million allocation over the biennium).

Improves pupil transportation: Ohio law requires districts to provide transportation to eligible district, charter and private school students. Unfortunately, some districts have struggled to fulfill this responsibility, often citing issues with busing out-of-district students. As a result, transportation has become a major headache for charter and private school families. The legislation should by allowing greater flexibility in the use of vans, strengthening the state’s noncompliance provisions and creating a pilot program in which regional educational service centers take responsibility for busing out-of-district students.

Shines a light on intradistrict open enrollment: Thousands of students likely attend non-residentially assigned schools within their home district — to access a magnet school, for instance — but there are no numbers on how many do this. The budget requires districts to report how many students participate in intradistrict open enrollment, allowing for a more comprehensive picture of school choice in the Buckeye State. Policymakers, however, didn’t mandate that all Ohio districts participate in interdistrict open enrollment. The decision to open their doors will continue to be up to districts, and many will refuse to accept non-resident students who might benefit from attending their schools.

Holds the line on charter school accountability: As discussed in , Senate lawmakers included provisions that would have softened accountability for charter school sponsors (or authorizers) and weakened accountability for the schools they oversee. To their credit, legislators stripped these provisions from the final budget during conference committee, reiterating Ohio’s commitment to strong, academic-focused charter accountability that has helped drive in recent years.

Ensures that parents receive test scores in a timely manner: The budget adds a requirement that schools provide parents with their child’s state exam results by June 30 annually. Without a deadline, many parents have received this information to take steps on behalf of their child.

A landmark budget is now on the books, exciting things are ahead for Ohio schools, families and students. Schools from all sectors will have more resources that they can use to provide students with a quality education. Parents can look forward to having a larger set of quality public and private school options at their fingertips. With the promise of more effective instruction and personalized opportunities, more Ohio students will be well prepared for life after high school. Kudos to state lawmakers for making K-12 education a top priority. 

With Gov. Mike DeWine spending the day before a holiday poring over a 1,200-page document debating line-item vetos, he had a lot of input from advocacy groups as to the final education budget.

A conference committee of Ohio House and Senate leaders last week, and on the last day of the month, the original deadline for passage of the budget, sent the document on to DeWine with a three-day extension.

Before it even hit the governor’s desk late Sunday night, education groups and some members of the Ohio State Board of Education had already sent messages urging vetos and explaining their lack of support for some parts of the education budget.

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EdChoice vouchers

Ohio’s biggest teacher’s unions, the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Ohio Education Association, joined with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and think-tank Policy Matters Ohio to praise an increase in state funding that landed in the final budget via the Ohio House’s version, but also to express concerns about the private school vouchers expansion.

The groups, all part of a coalition called “All in for Ohio Kids,” called the nearly $1 billion increase in public school funding as part of a phase-in of the Fair School Funding Plan “a monumental step forward,” considering multiple rulings in DeRolph v. Ohio, in which the state’s highest court said the public education system in Ohio was unconstitutional.

“After decades of non-compliance with the Ohio Supreme Court rulings, the legislature is on the brink of finally meeting its constitutional responsibility to fairly fund Ohio’s public schools,” the coalition said in a joint statement.

The funding increases, which also included current data accounting for real-time costs of education disabled students and those for whom English is not their native language, unfortunately don’t distract from the “serious concerns” the coalition said it had about private school vouchers.

The compromise budget included near-universal private school scholarship eligibility, in which households earning up to 450% of the federal poverty level, or $135,000 for a family of four, qualifies for a full scholarship.

The scholarships amount to $6,165 for K to 8 students and $8,407 for high schoolers.

But the financial help doesn’t stop there, even for those families making more than $135,000 annually.

“Scholarships for students in families within incomes above 450% will be means-tested with scholarship amounts adjusted based on their income,” Senate President Matt Huffman’s office said in announcing the new budget. “Every student in Ohio will be eligible for a scholarship worth at least 10% of the maximum scholarship regardless of income.”

House Majority leadership said the program “is designed to safeguard lower-income families and offers options beyond traditional public schools,” according to a statement.

But the teacher’s unions and advocacy groups see the voucher “scheme” as a way to “ensure that state support for our public schools will be diminished to pay for tuition for private school students, no matter how wealthy their family is or how their school performs.”

“Priority should be given to fully implementing the Fair School Funding Plan so that our public schools, where 90 percent of students attend school, receive the resources they need instead of expanding unaccountable private school vouchers,” the coalition stated.

Preschool and child care

Even before K-12 education comes into play, the child welfare advocates at Groundwork Ohio say more could have been done within the budget to promote child care and preschool.

The group praised the restoration of $47 million the had removed in child care/preschool allocations, but pointed to the end of one-time COVID-era federal funding as a “massive cliff” that won’t be accounted for in the new budget.

The fact that the new funding won’t allow the publicly funded child care in the state to serve new children could result in the state “continuing to trail behind the rest of the nation as we only will now offer public support to a family of three making at or below $16.05 per hour when the average cost of infant care is well over $11,000 per year across the state,” according to a Groundwork budget analysis.

“The stark reality is that Ohio’s child care system is no more stable with this budget today than yesterday, despite years of parents, professionals and community leaders sounding the alarm – and the problem only gets worse,” the group said in a statement.

One element of education that did see improvement was the school lunch program. Nutrition advocates are relieved that the conference committee discussions ended in the restoration of expanded school lunch programs, something that was removed by the Senate in the previous budget draft.

The new state budget, barring any unexpected changes from DeWine, will include reimbursements for school districts so that any child eligible for the free or reduced-lunch program can receive breakfast and lunch at no cost, as long as the school participates in the National School Breakfast or Lunch Program.

“Ohio should be incredible proud of this step to expand access to free breakfast and lunch for our students, which will directly support working families and which acknowledges that adequate nutrition is an essential part of every child’s ability to learn, grow and fulfill their potential,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, in a statement.

SB 1

It wasn’t just advocacy groups speaking out against the inclusion of language previously a part of , which splits the Ohio Department of Education into the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, puts the department under the authority of the governor’s office, and limits the State Board of Education.

Seven of the members of the board to DeWine the day he received the budget asking for him to veto the voucher expansion, along with the “power grab” of changing the the state board’s roles.

“The budget moves educational governance from a primarily elected body, the State Board of Education, to an appointed director who answers to the governor and the legislature,” states the letter from board members Christina Collins, Teresa Fedor, Katie Hofman, Tom Jackson, Meryl Johnson, Michelle Newman and Antoinette Miranda.

Under the senate bill now included in the budget, the board authority would now be mainly limited to teacher disciplinary and licensure cases and territory disputes.

According to the , creating a new director position for the ODEW “may increase annual costs by up to $254,000,” and creating two deputy director position, one for education and another for workforce, could up costs from $151,000 to $189,000 for each position.

Appropriation for the state board would be $14.4 million in fiscal year 2024 and $14.7 million in the next fiscal year, which would be in a “standalone budget” strictly for the board.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

A chunk of Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget zeroes in on what’s called the science of reading method.

Specifically, it includes $64 million for science of reading curricula, $43 million each year for the next two years to offer science of reading instruction for educators, and $12 million to support 100 literacy coaches in schools and districts.

“I truly believe there’s nothing more important than the science of reading, and making sure that every single child in the state of Ohio, as they are learning to read, has the benefit of the science,” . DeWine has been making literacy stops in classrooms around Ohio to learn about how the science of reading method has been implemented in lessons.

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The science of reading method incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, said Brett Tingley, the president of both and OH-KID (Ohio Kids Identified with Dyslexia).

“Teaching reading should be systematic, explicit, and direct based on the system of processing language,” said DeJunne’ Clark Jackson, president of the , a Louisiana-based literacy nonprofit organization.

Meanwhile, some skeptics argue that the science of reading method doesn’t do enough to provoke the kind of thinking that enables deep comprehension in realistic reading situations.

“We must teach comprehension as a multidimensional experience,” wrote educators Jessica Hahn and Mia Hood . “We want children to comprehend what’s happening literally in the text (who did what when), but we also want them to be able to analyze how parts of the text (literary devices, figurative language, structural choices) work together to develop ideas. And we want them to interpret the purpose and significance of the text in relation to their lives and to society.”

How children best learn how to read has been debated for decades, and a recent has thrust this hotly-debated issue further into the national spotlight.

A little more than half of the states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or implemented new policies related to evidence-based reading instruction since 2013 as of August, according to . DeWine is hoping Ohio can be added to that list.

Structured literacy

that applies the knowledge of the science of reading method, and it includes explicit and systematic instruction in foundational reading skills, including phonics. The science of reading says most children need explicit phonics when learning how to read.

“Phonics isn’t the only component of literacy instruction, but it can’t exist without phonics,” said Troy McIntosh, executive director of the Ohio Christian Education Network.

The science of reading method prioritizes this.

“To have a student say that they can comprehend what they’re reading, there’s two components to that, that go hand in hand, and it’s word recognition and language comprehension,” said Lindsey Roush, an assistant professor at Walsh University’s division of education.

Walsh University, a private Catholic college in North Canton, converted all their education courses to be aligned with the science of reading method in 2019, Roush said.

The method focuses on how letter sounds and printed letters work together, she said.

“We want their eyes to stay focused on the word and start from those little points of the sounds to bigger chunks of the word to analyze the word to be able to decode it and understand it,” Roush said.

Which is where phonics comes into play.

“Phonics is a very big part of this in terms of really getting down to those phonemes the letter sounds and understanding which sound each of those letters make, individually, and as they’re grouped together in different formats,” Roush said.

Balanced literacy

There is another approach to reading instruction called balanced literacy that does not teach phonics in an explicit, systematic way, but prioritizes students’ comprehension of a text.

Critics of that approach say it’s not based on the science. “It’s not using the foundational skills,” alleged Danielle Fontenot, vice president of program development at the Center for Literacy and Learning.

Balanced literacy incorporates the three-cueing method, which encourages children to read words by asking three questions: Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right? For example, there could be a picture of a horse on a book’s page and a student may say “pony.”

“When you get to books without pictures your strategy’s not working,” Tingley said.

The science of reading method eliminates guessing, Roush said.

“We don’t want them looking at pictures,” she said.

Whole language is another approach to reading that is more in line with balanced literacy that, as the name suggests, teaches students the whole word instead of parts of the word, Jackson said.

The balanced literacy and whole language methods teach children the “habits of poor readers,” Tingley alleged.

“The children are the ones who are suffering,” she said. “It’s hard to have someone you love struggle to read. … If you can’t read, you can’t do a story problem. You have a hard time in math, you can’t access science or social studies, so reading is the most important thing.”

Linda Fenner, a founding member of Citizen Advocates for Public Education (CAPEOhio), said she wonders if there is a “global solution or a one-size fits all program” that works best for teaching all students how to read.

“Different kids need different things in order to learn how to read,” she said. “The kids who need the most support really need different things and in different combinations.”

Ohio school districts

It’s unclear which Ohio school districts are using which methods when it comes to the reading curriculum. Ohio law gives about curriculum, so there is no required state curriculum, said Ohio Department of Education Spokesperson Lacey Snoke.

But one thing is clear — there are Ohio school districts not teaching the science of reading method and DeWine is working hard to change that through his proposed budget.

“This is a problem that we know how to fix,” Tingley said. “And we owe it to these children to fix it.”

Athens City School District in Athens County currently uses what would be considered a balanced literacy approach, but supports DeWine’s science of reading method budget proposal, Superintendent Thomas Gibbs said in an email.

“We have continued to see stagnation in our reading scores and have been internally training and reviewing different curriculum that is more in line with the Science of Reading,” Gibbs said. “The allocation of dollars in the budget to purchase new materials that are in line with SOR and dollars to support the additional time and commitment our teachers will have to put into professional development is necessary and would be a good investment.”

Athens Schools third grade English Language Arts reading scores from the 2017-18 to the 2020-21 school year have been between 9% to 29% for limited scores, between 17% to 25% for basic scores, between 13% to 22% for proficient scores, between 11% to 20% accomplished, and between 12% to 34% for advanced scores, .

Ohio’s tests scores

Ohio’s test scores dipped in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which published in October.

Eighth grade math proficiency dropped from 38% in 2019 to 29% in 2022. In reading scores for the same grade level, proficiency went from 38% in 2019 to 33% in 2022, according to the NAEP data.

Fourth graders saw decreases as well, going from 38% in 2019 to 33% in 2022 in reading scores, and from 38% in 2019 to 29% in 2022 in math.

“I believe that one of the biggest educational mistakes we have made over the last three to four decades is abandoning direct phonic instruction,” McIntosh said. “That has been disastrous for Ohio’s kids.”

“One of those ‘aha moments’”

Roush distinctly remembers being introduced to the science of reading method through Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) professional development training about four years ago.

“It’s just one of those moments, I feel as an educator, like one of those ‘aha moments,’ like, why haven’t we been doing this?” Roush said.

She previously taught for 13 years at McKinley Elementary School, part of Lisbon Exempted Village Schools in Columbia County, and remembers seeing frustrated students struggling to read before the district switched to the science of reading approach.

“If we can prevent that, of course, we should want to do that as educators,” Roush said.

She remembers students looking at a picture in a book that was near the word on a page and say something that might have started with the same letter, but was ultimately incorrect.

“(It) made zero sense whatsoever, because they were just simply guessing by looking for context clues in the pictures rather than trying to decode the word,” she said.

She starting noticing a difference after incorporating the science of reading method in her third grade classroom.

“It started to click with students,” Roush said. “The big thing was seeing them start to problem solve and how to break apart a word. If they came to a word that they didn’t know, they had the strategies to decode that word.”

Educators say it’s worth putting in the time to learn the science of reading method.

“It’s our obligation to do what’s best for students and if we have been doing it one way for so long and it isn’t working, then we have an obligation to our students to know better and do better,” Fontenot said.

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