The Ohio High School Transformation Initiative: A Study of Financial Sustainability

Overview

The small school movement continues to receive national attention as educators, school reform advocates, and support organizations have joined forces to re-conceptualize traditional, large comprehensive high schools. For example, over the past decade, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a major leader in this effort, investing millions to help create hundreds of high schools across the vast majority of the states. The Ohio High School Transformation Initiative (OHSTI) is one mechanism through which the Foundation has channeled this support. Established in 2002, OHSTI is supported through the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Ohio Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education, and local community-based foundations. The initiative aims to address low student achievement and graduation rates, school violence and truancy, and a lack of engagement in Ohio's urban high schools.