The school funding conversation raging right now in the gerrymandered and deep-red Ohio Legislature has strayed far from the principle of justice defined by adequate and equitably distributed public school finance as a state responsibility.

Ohio's State Investment in Public School Funding Continues to Decline: Erodes Adequacy and Equity janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/10/02/o...

“The Education Department has sent non-continuation notices to… grant recipients, saying their projects no longer align with the administration’s education policy focus on ‘merit, fairness, and excellence’… "

Trump Admin. Quietly Accelerates Cancellation of Federal Education Grants Said to Promote D.E.I. janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/30/t...

Richard Rothstein: "Were housing segregation not pervasive, school desegregation would have been more successful.”

Trump Attack on Fair Housing Will Impact Public School Integration janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/t...

Ohio's legislature has shorted the state’s public schools by underfunding the Fair School Funding Plan, slashing the state income tax, diverting state revenue into private school tuition vouchers, and failing to oversee the diversion of state dollars into tax breaks.

Policy Matters Ohio on tax exemptions, exclusions, and deductions: "Spending through the tax code too often benefits select groups and special interests instead of funding public services that are available to everyone.”

Ohio Legislature Underfunds Public Schools While Granting Billions of Dollars in Tax Breaks to Business janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/o...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently restricted the use of nationwide injunctions, but Martinez said one was necessary in this case because some providers have preschools in multiple states, including programs designed to serve migrant farmworker families.”

Two U.S. District Court Judges Protect Access to Head Start for Undocumented Children janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/18/t...

The attempt to withhold the already allocated federal funding for these colleges and universities is another step in the Trump administration’s attack on equal opportunity for groups of students who have historically experienced discrimination and exclusion in our society.

Trump Admin. Ends Funding for Minority-Serving Colleges and Threatens States’ Financial Aid for Undocumented College Students janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/t...

"Besides its denial of federal grants to Minority-Serving Institutions, the Trump administration has focused specific attacks on financial aid states and universities have been providing for undocumented students and “dreamers,” students brought to the U.S. often as toddlers..."

Trump Admin. Ends Funding for Minority-Serving Colleges and Threatens States’ Financial Aid for Undocumented College Students janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/t...

Ed Week's Mark Lieberman: “The Trump administration has begun canceling dozens of competitive federal education grants years before they were set to expire, and the educators behind hundreds more in-progress projects worry that funding delays mean their grants could be next."

The kind of fiscal instability we are watching threatens our society’s capacity to provide adequate educational services and to distribute education funding equitably to serve all children and adolescents.

Public School Finance Is Fragile at Federal and State Levels janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/p...

"Burroughs’ decision last week is the second U.S. District Court decision in the past month banning Trump administration policies that threaten freedom of speech and academic freedom in educational institutions."

"Burroughs’ decision last week is the second U.S. District Court decision in the past month banning Trump administration policies that threaten freedom of speech and academic freedom in educational institutions."

Judge Burroughs’ Decision on Harvard Protects Freedom of Speech in Educational Institutions janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/09/c...

Sacramento: How Could a Charter School Misuse $180 Million in Two Years? dianeravitch.net/2025/09/08/s...

Trump administration has rescinded an important federal education guidance document released in 2015 by the Obama administration to protect the right to English language instruction for all public school students whose primary language is not English. janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/t...

WaPost's Laura Meckler: "The moves are an acceleration of President Donald Trump’s March 1 order declaring English the country’s “official language,” and they come as the administration is broadly targeting immigrants through its deportation campaign and other policy changes."

Trump Admin. Says Public Schools Can Stop Protecting Students’ Right to Learn the English Language janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/t...

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Important New Court Ruling Protects Equity and Inclusion in Public Schools and Students’ Civil Rights janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/i...

Plain Dealer's Brent Larkin: "In the name of cutting taxes for Ohio’s wealthiest citizens, the state’s legislative leaders are determined to harm poor kids by cutting funding for food, health care and education.”

Ruth Conniff: “Behind all of this budget math is the sad reality that, if we don’t agree to shoulder some expenses as a society, a lot of the elements of a decent life are out of reach for most people. Not paying for things through taxes doesn’t make expenses go away."

Widespread Tax Cuts Eviscerate the Social Contract janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/w...

Sherrod Brown Plans to Try for a Senate Comeback in Ohio www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/u...

Unless powerful institutions stand up and refuse to comply with the Trump administration’s demand that our society turn away from 70 years of work to expand civil rights protections for all people, the administration’s attack on civil rights will not stop.

The administration’s understanding of merit as measured by statistics like test scores and students’ grades neglects to consider the role of family wealth for shaping children’s opportunities.

“(T)reating people differently is not always unjust, especially when doing so corrects a broader pattern of systemic injustice. Considering race and gender in the context of historic unjust discrimination... doesn’t in and of itself constitute discrimination….”

Trump Intensifies Attack on Civil Rights in Education janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/t...

“Once heralded as a bold experiment in innovation and opportunity… (the charter school sector) is now characterized by stagnation, retrenchment, and rising school closures."

“Once heralded as a bold experiment in innovation and opportunity… (the charter school sector) is now characterized by stagnation, retrenchment, and rising school closures."

Network for Public Education Tracks a Charter School Sector in Decline janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/n...

Jan Resseger: Senate Appropriations Committee Rejects Trump Plan to Slash Education Funding dianeravitch.net/2025/08/05/j...

Last week, 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats on the Senate Approp. Committee proposed a bipartisan federal education budget for FY 26 to keep the Dept. of Education intact and increase federal funding for essential programs from $78.7 billion this year to $79 billion next year.

U.S. Sen. Committee Protects Dept. of Ed. in Proposed Budget; Impoundments and Rescissions Still a Worry janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/08/05/u...

Kicking Away the Ladder open.substack.com/pub/educatio...

A Term So Outdated, Even President Trump Wouldn’t Use It www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/o...

EXTRA: Trump Administration Will Release Remaining Dollars Held Back on July 1 from Public Schools janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/07/25/e...

This is very good news!

We are all watching the Trump administration test whether it can slash federal funding at will from public schools by impoundment. Congress, as we all know, is supposed to hold the “power of the purse.”

What Do the July 1 Federal School Funding Cuts Mean for Students, Communities, and the Constitution? janresseger.wordpress.com/2025/07/24/w...

This year, FY 2025, the state is paying 38.4% of Ohio public school funding. “The average state share will drop to 35.0% in FY 26 and to 32.2% in FY 27,” writes Howard Fleeter.

"When a state violates the social contract by reneging on its responsibility to fund public schools, the funding burden falls more heavily and more inequitably on local school districts."