Strong evaluation systems are foundational to improving teacher and principal quality; evaluations recognize excellence, support development, and address ineffectiveness. They must be meaningful, objective, and fair. In this area, Ohio is a leader in several aspects. Teachers are evaluated annually according to a four-tier rating system that includes multiple measures, including classroom observations and student growth, which comprises 50% of the total evaluation. Principals are required to be evaluated on a comparable scale. Ohio must continue on its path of investing in its educators by incorporating student feedback in teacher evaluations and the effective management of teachers in principal evaluations. The state's evaluation criteria are not subject to contract negotiations, ensuring these systems will be subject to change based on student interests alone.

Basing personnel decisions on performance is critical to building schools that retain effective teachers and make student achievement paramount. Ohio is behind in this area; specifically, the state does not use teacher effectiveness to drive decisions around teacher assignment, layoffs, and tenure. However, because teachers with consistently ineffective performance can be dismissed, and because seniority cannot be a factor in teacher reinstatement, Ohio mitigates (but does not eliminate) the negative impact of forced placement. When teachers are forced to be laid off during a budget-induced reduction in force, seniority is explicitly prohibited from being used as a basis, although Ohio allows districts to prioritize tenured teachers during RIFs. Ohio teachers receive tenure status after serving a probationary period of five years. Attainment and revocation of tenure are not tied to performance standards. Prioritizing students and great teachers requires that performance, evident through strong evaluations, be the driving influence for all personnel decisions.

To encourage a high-quality, diverse workforce, professional pay should be based on performance rather than other non-classroom factors such as seniority or degrees held. Ohio only permits school districts in the city of Cleveland or those that are Race to the Top subgrantees to implement performance-pay compensation systems. Otherwise, districts must use the state's minimum salary schedule, which bases teacher pay on years of experience and degree type. To prioritize the hiring and retention of effective teachers statewide, Ohio should prohibit automatic salary increases for master's degrees alone and require all districts to link pay increases to performance measures that prioritize student outcomes.

Ohio offers alternative certification and teacher preparation by permitting non-universities to provide teacher preparation programs. A bachelor's degree is required, but not in the subject taught. However, there is only a minimum 2.5 GPA requirement for admission. To attract the highest-quality teachers, Ohio should increase the selectivity of admissions criteria to a 3.0 GPA minimum. Ohio does not have a clear process for authorizing, evaluating, and decommissioning alternative certification programs that is based on teacher effectiveness. The state requires performance designations, but these are based solely on state examination pass rates of program graduates. To ensure the most robust alternative certification programs, Ohio needs to establish clear processes for authorizing, evaluating, and decommissioning programs based on teacher effectiveness data and evaluations.

Ohio has taken some steps to empower parents in the state, but there is still room for improvement. Ohio requires an annual performance report for each school, but to further empower parents with accessible information, Ohio should require that these reports give each school an A_F letter grade based on student achievement. The state also should give parents access to teacher effectiveness data and require schools to notify parents and obtain their consent prior to placing a student with an ineffective teacher. Lastly, Ohio has introduced a strong pilot program for parent trigger in the Columbus City School District. To further enhance parental empowerment, Ohio should establish a parent trigger law that allows a majority of parents to band together at the grassroots level and petition to turn around low-performing schools throughout the state.

Ohio is taking important steps to increase high-quality school choice options to ensure its students are not trapped in failing schools. The state allows for the creation of public charter schools and holds these schools to high accountability standards that require closure of persistently failing public charter schools. Ohio's new charter accountability rules can serve as a national model. However, the state should not restrict the growth of new public charter schools and should create a fast-track authorization process for high-performing charter schools. Additionally, the state should amend its current publicly funded scholarship programs by restricting eligibility to low-income students attending chronically failing public schools.

Children stuck in chronically failing schools should have an option to attend another school of their choice without being punished by the state through reduced funding. Ohio law concerning public charter school funding contains a number of differences from how traditional public schools are funded. Ohio should provide comparable funding, fully fund facilities financing programs, and prohibit skimming. Ohio should also amend its scholarship program to provide a scholarship tuition amount that is competitive with private school tuition. The amount is currently limited to $4,250 for kindergarten through eighth grade and $5,000 for high school annually. Ohio provides charter schools with access to unused school facilities; however, high-achievement schools are not prioritized.

The ability to turn around failing schools is often hampered by bureaucratic red tape and politics. Ohio allows for governance flexibility at both the local and state levels. At the local level, the state allows for limited mayoral control of specified districts, including newly enhanced mayoral authority in Cleveland. Ohio could strengthen its mayoral control law by allowing the mayor to directly appoint a chancellor to oversee the district rather than establishing a middle layer of governance through an appointed nine-member board of education. At the state level, Ohio has a strong takeover model. It allows for numerous types of state intervention in school districts that have been identified for improvement for three consecutive school years.

Given the limited resources available for public education, states must ensure that districts spend as many dollars as possible in the classroom rather than in bureaucracy and that the dollars invested drive the greatest change. To promote cost efficiencies, Ohio established the Educational Regional Service System, a robust network of authorized shared services for school districts and charter schools. However, Ohio should provide greater staffing and spending flexibility to school districts by removing less effective class-size restrictions past the third grade and other restrictions that limit districts' ability to reallocate resources to their greatest needs. Ohio should also empower data-driven decisionmaking by improving the financial data it collects and linking spending to academic achievement.

Attracting a high-quality workforce will require a competitive retirement plan. Portable retirement options, such as 401(k) plans, are an essential component of compensation packages and make the teaching profession more competitive. It is a classic win-win for teachers and districts. Under current policy, Ohio provides three employer-sponsored retirement options for employees of traditional schools and certain public charter schools, including a defined benefit plan, a portable defined contribution plan, and a hybrid plan. To provide the most career flexibility and ensure sustainability of the existing system, Ohio should require all employees of traditional public schools to participate in its defined contribution plan or offer a cash balance plan and permit public charter schools to opt out of the plan.