The growing diversity of central Ohio’s population means that schools continue to change. It’s up to families and school officials to take advantage of the opportunities this presents, even as they deal with the challenges.

The change is especially noticeable in suburban districts, where the percentage of nonwhite students has doubled, or something close to it, in most districts. Much of the change is because of immigration. While black students still are the largest nonwhite group, their percentage countywide is smaller than it was 10 years ago.

Percentages of Asian, Latino and multiracial students are up. The changes are detailed in a new report by KidsOhio.org, a nonprofit organization that studies education issues.

Click here to read full editorial from the Columbus Dispatch.

WASHINGTON — Ohio will get up to $70 million from the federal government as one of nine states awarded ”Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge” grants.

The winners will share $500 million to better prepare disadvantaged youngsters for kindergarten.

“This is a huge win for the children of Ohio and it is a major step towards achieving the goal of having all students enter school ready to learn,” said State Superintendent Stan Heffner in a prepared statement.

Thirty-five states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico competed for the money.

In 2010, Ohio won $400 million for school improvement initiatives in the main Race to the Top competition.

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Its 29.3 percent rate would have qualified Dublin as most diverse among 17 suburban Columbus districts 10 years ago. Now, it ranks seventh.

Whitehall topped the list a decade ago, when 29.7 percent of its students were not white. Today, white students are in the minority.

In every Franklin County school district, the percentage of white students has dropped while minority-student populations have grown, according to a study being released today by KidsOhio.org, a nonpartisan research group based in Columbus.

Click here to read the full Dispatch article.

Click here to read the full KidsOhio/Columbus Urban League report.

In the 2000-01 school year, when charters still were new in Ohio, 87 percent of the 748 Franklin County charter students were members of minorities. In the 2010-11 school year, roughly 33,000 students attended local charters, and 63 percent were nonwhite.

The local shift mirrors one statewide, where the total percentage of black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and multiracial students has dropped from 86 percent to about 60 percent in the past 10 years.

The reason for the shift, experts say, is twofold: Parents now have more charter schools from which to choose, which makes the option attractive to a wider range of parents. And many schools now are marketing to suburban families instead of focusing on students from urban districts such as Columbus.

“Charters are starting to look somewhat like the districts,” said Mark Real, president and CEO of KidsOhio, a Columbus nonprofit group that studies education issues.

A KidsOhio report to be made public today discusses enrollment trends in county public schools. It notes that all 16 Franklin County districts have more students of color than they did a decade ago.

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The Columbus Dispatch Sunday November 27, 2011 front page

More than 23,000 central Ohio students chose charters last school year, including more than 10,300 from suburban and rural districts.

And all 49 of the region’s school districts have some students in charters, a fact that defies the early view that charter schools were an escape for poor kids trapped in troubled schools — something that the Columbus City Schools had to contend with.

“We’re moving into the second generation of school choice. The first generation was about helping kids in failing schools and giving them a safety valve. The second generation of school choice is now actually about middle-class parents,” said Terry Ryan, vice president for Ohio programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The institute, based in Dayton, oversees several Ohio charter schools.

School districts traditionally have said that charters, which are publicly funded but often privately run, are a financial drain.

Click here to read full article.

Click here to review charter enrollment by school district.

The Columbus Dispatch Friday September 30, 2011 8:12 AM

Ohio will be among 20 states leading the development of new standards for what students should learn about natural science and engineering from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The Next Generation Science Standards will focus on analytical and conceptual thinking and aim to ensure students graduate ready for college and careers. Ohio will work with other states to write the standards, gather feedback and work through any issues. The standards are expected to be completed by next fall.

The multistate effort is being coordinated by Achieve, a nonpartisan, nonprofit education group based in Washington, D.C.

Ohio and the other states agreed to commit staff time to the initiative and to strongly consider following the guidelines once they are completed.

ccandisky@dispatch.com

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