Education

The state says Ohio schools are getting nearly $38 million in the first chunk of casino-tax revenue.

This is the first distribution to schools since casinos opened last year. The money is distributed on a per-pupil basis twice per year to more than 1,000 school districts and charter schools across Ohio. It works out to $20.93 for each of the roughly 1.8 million students.

The breakdown was announced Tuesday but the Ohio Department of Taxation. Schools receive 34 percent of the revenue, with 51 percent going to county government.

The Ohio Department of Education notified the Fairborn City School District yesterday that it will be placed in "a state of fiscal caution" next week and the Huber Heights City School District is also facing a similar designation.  It would mean that the districts would borrow money from the state for operations which would need to be repaid.

An expanding program in clean and renewable energy at the University of Dayton is exceeding enrollment expectations and drawing students from around the world.

The program at UD has swelled to three times the school's expectations for enrollment since it was launched in 2009.

Among its 50 students, the program has three Fulbright scholars - a record for any one program at the university.  Fulbright scholars are international students chosen for their academics and leadership potential.

2012 saw many education reforms in Ohio. . Students got new tests and requirements. Teachers got a new evaluation systems. Charter schools and universities saw changes as well.  But as StateImpact Ohio’s Ida Lieszkovszky reports, the New Year will bring plenty of changes to the way the state’s schools are run. 

Ohio runs on a two-year budget, but that doesn’t mean off years are slow. Governor Kasich crammed in several education initiatives into his mid-cycle budget. Several other education bills passed the legislature. Among the new programs is the third grade-reading guarantee.

In May 2012, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a partnership to offer on-line courses, free to anyone anywhere in the world. There is a historical resonance in MIT's involvement in the MOOC (massive open on-line courses) movement. MIT is a land-grant university and the announcement came during the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land Grant Act which created the land-grants. Arguably the greatest democratization of higher education in history, the Morrill Act stressed that higher education should be practical and that it should be accessible. This month historian David Staley looks back over the 150 year history of this experiment in state-funded, democratic higher education.