Not for the Timid: Breaking Down Barriers, Creating Breakthrough High Schools in Ohio

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March 2007
Donald Van Meter, Mitch Price

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In 2005, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation asked attorneys at the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) to explore legal and policy issues affecting high school reform and redesign efforts in a select number of states, including Ohio. As a major presence in funding and supporting redesigned high schools, the Gates Foundation has an obvious interest in these issues. To date, the Foundation has invested nearly $1.3 billion in efforts to improve education for all young people, including supporting the creation of more than 2,000 high-quality high schools in 41 states and the District of Columbia. The Foundation’s investments in Ohio’s school reform efforts are in excess of $60 million.

To identify legal, regulatory, and policy barriers to the creation and successful operation of redesigned high schools in Ohio, CRPE attorney Mitch Price interviewed high school principals, teachers, union officials, state and district policymakers, reform advocates, and others involved in high school redesign work. These interviews were structured to identify barriers to school reform, as perceived by educators on the front lines. Price then analyzed relevant laws and regulations to determine how valid these perceptions were. Both state and federal laws were analyzed, including the Ohio Revised Code and the federal No Child Left Behind statute. Collective bargaining issues, as well as policy statements by state education officials, also were examined.

Written by Donald Van Meter, an Ohio-based education policy and strategic communications consultant, this report presents the results of the analysis of perceived barriers to high school redesign and real impediments embedded in federal and state statutes and regulations, as well as in local district policies.