John Glenn College of Public Affairs
Ohio Education Research Center

Current Projects

  • Ohio’s Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment
    In this project, we evaluate the effectiveness of Ohio’s Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program, which aims to help eligible Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants return to work more quickly by providing job search assistance. Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT), the study measures the causal impact of RESEA services on key claimant outcomes, including the duration of UI benefits, reemployment rates, and earnings.
  • Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes Initiative
    The Ohio Department of Higher Education has contracted with the Ohio Education Research Center to facilitate the collection and submission of graduate records from private colleges and universities in Ohio to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program for inclusion in the Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) initiative. The purpose of the data collection and submission is to generate employment and earnings outcomes for college and university graduates by degree level, degree major, and post-secondary institution. This effort will enhance Ohio’s current PSEO participation, which currently includes public institutions of higher education.
  • Principal Pipeline Study
    The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, in collaboration with the Wallace Foundation and Columbus City Schools, is partnering with the Ohio Education Research Center to conduct a statewide study on the school principal workforce. This mixed-methods study aims to examine the characteristics (e.g., prior experiences and persistence) of the current principal workforce in Ohio’s schools. Additionally, the study seeks to learn how the current principal workforce describes the pathways to principalship, the barriers to continuing to serve in administrative roles, and ideas for improving these transitions in the future.
  • Industries of Ideas: Mapping and Accelerating Research-Led Economic Growth
    The OERC is part of a new three-year, $4.5 million pilot funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The pilot will develop novel approaches to assess the impact of investments made by the agency's Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) on regional firms and jobs in key technology areas. The pilot will initially focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and electric vehicles in Ohio to demonstrate the feasibility and value of the approach.
  • Multi-State Data Collaborative
    The Ohio Education Research Center provides administrative and operational support to the Multi-State Data Collaborative (MSDC) through a contract with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA). The MSDC is a network of state agencies and partners working together to utilize their administrative data to inform policy and improve public programs. State-driven and peer-governed, the MSDC helps states build capacity and access partnerships and infrastructure that enable effective, data-driven policymaking.
  • Ohio Literacy Coaching Study
    The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is partnering with the Ohio Education Research Center to conduct a study on the ReadOhio Literacy Coaching initiative. This study will explore how ReadOhio literacy coaching transfers to instructional practices across a variance of schools and seeks to identify common barriers and successes in program implementation.
  • Engaging Policy Stakeholders to Inform a Future National Secure Data Service
    In a project led by Clarivate, Anand Desai and Joshua Hawley are exploring the development of a National Secure Data Service framework to enable the federal policy community to use data efficiently and effectively for informed, evidence-based decisions. The effort is supported by the National Science Foundation and National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
  • Workforce Data Quality Initiative
    The Ohio Education Research Center (OERC) is a partner in the State of Ohio’s successful application to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Workforce Data Quality Initiative (WDQI). Under the direction of the lead agency, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the OERC will undertake three tasks over the course of three years: 1) Create a process for collecting Eligible Training Provider (ETP) data from private entities which will enable wage-record matches and outcome reports that can be returned to the ETPs, submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), and provided in a public-facing report to inform the choices of the general public; 2) Establish a streamlined data governance process for using SNAP, TANF, and TAA data as part of Ohio’s SLDS routines to report employment and labor market outcomes for Health and Human Services (HHS) programs; and 3) Build a Reemployment dashboard to document the economic changes Ohioans face after periods of unemployment and inform effective strategies for reemployment.
  • Early Childhood Education (ECE) Workforce Study

    The Ohio Education Research Center’s Dr. Joshua Hawley is a co-Principal Investigator on a project led by NORC at the University of Chicago to study the early childcare workforce. The study, funded by the Sloan Foundation, examines two research questions:

    1. How does the expansion of school-based pre-kindergarten - and other targeted pre-K funding for specific subgroups - affect the earnings, and recruitment and retention of early care and education workers?
    2. Do changes in the minimum wage, or other efforts to increase wages, affect the earnings and retention of early care and education workers?

    This study will leverage the administrative employment data from a newly formed and growing collaboration of six participating states from the Multi-State Data Collaborative.

Archived Projects

  • Adult Protective Services
    Develop specific metrics to assess three aspects of Ohio’s county-administered Adult Protective Services programs: (1) Data quality; (2) Compliance and (3) Performance. The goal is to generate metrics for each county APS program and provide ODAPS administrators and managers at JFS with a dashboard to monitor compliance and help identify opportunities for improvement.
  • Broadband & 5G Sector Partnership
    The transformative impact of 5G is increasingly apparent worldwide. However, many citizens have limited access to high-speed internet, of which the State of Ohio is a primary example. The race to 5G has become a matter of national competitiveness and economic security for the United States, and although the wireless industry is poised to make major investments in building out the 5G network, a lack of a skilled workforce is limiting such efforts.
  • Attendance Study
    The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is partnering with the Ohio Education Research Center (OERC) to conduct a statewide study on school attendance. This study seeks to learn more about patterns and outcomes related to student attendance in Ohio, as well as local school district attendance policies.
  • Applied Data Analytics Training at The Ohio State University
    State and local agency professionals with a masters’ degree or above with some emphasis in a quantitative field (e.g. statistics, economics or computer science) or at least two years working in a hands-on, data-oriented field.
  • Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program (CCMEP)
    CCMEP is an effort to integrate Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to serve low-income Ohioans ages 14-24.