The munificently-funded Thomas B. Fordham Institute, based in D.C., controls Educatuon Policy, graduation requirements, curriculum, and testing in Ohio. Mr. Fordham, for whom the institute is named, had no known interest in education, but his namesake is part of the rightwing ALEC nexus, where contempt for public schools, hatred for unions, contempt for gun control and environmental regulation are reflexive.
Laura Chapman, who lives in Ohio, writes:
This numbers game is routinely pushed by the Ohio arm of Thomas B. Fordham Institute/Foundation. Oped’s written by employees at criticize the Fordham routinely criticize teacher unions for pointing out the debilitating affects of poverty on students. In a typical rhetorical move, the Fordham “expert” will find one exceptional school with an “A” rating of the state report card rigged to ensure few schools are rated A. Then when you read in detail, you will see that the most exceptional thing about this school is really rare. The same principal has been there for 18 years, lives in the community, and has an uncommon level of trust from her community, the teachers, and students. Test scores were a byproduct of that not the aim of her work as an educator.
In Ohio, the writer most responsible for this misleading journalism and “research” is Aaron Churchill, the Institute’s Ohio Research Director. The Institute says this: Since 2012, Aaron has worked on “strengthening” Ohio policy on standardized testing and accountability, school evaluation, school funding, educational markets, human-resource policies and charter school sponsorship. He writes for the Fordham’s blog, the Ohio Gadfly Daily and contributes op-eds to the Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Dayton Daily News, and Cincinnati Enquirer. Aaron previously worked for Junior Achievement.”
He has not an ounce of documented experience in teaching or studies of education as an undergraduate or graduate student. He gets a free pass on almost everything he submits to the Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Dayton Daily News, and Cincinnati Enquirer. These local newspapers are shrinking and have few if any staff available for questioning this “throughput” of misleading but ready to post news.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You too can become a Gadfly Influencer and leave little brown spots and maggots throughout the body politic! Just send a check or wire transfer for $2 million dollars to The Fordham Institute, c/o Flake Mammonson, Treasurer
The Fordham Institute for the Securing of Big Paychecks for Officers of the Fordham Institute
Because we know better (heh heh) than teachers do and have the donors to prove it!
Fordham, where thinking tanks
ALEC’s henchmen hired by billionaires to roam the U.S. banana republic, targeting for annihilation the common good.
With impunity Fordham and AEI (Rick Hess and Daniella Pletka – Meet the Press) inflict punishment on the government of the people, by the people, and for the people in service to the ruling class. AEI is among the 5 largest tax sheltered charities in the U.S. Their failures are legion and on display in a nation with 1 in 5 children living in poverty, Americans without affordable healthcare, the birth mortality rate of a third world country, stagnant worker pay, significantly higher personal debt than Russia, voter suppression,
gerrymandering, a growing divide racially and economically because of income disparity.
The staff of AEI and Fordham- Roger Ailes, Papa Doc and Trump wanna be’s.
DeVos is a major contributor to AEI.
“Their failures are legion…”