Chris Orban
Chris Orban ran for election to the Ohio State Board of Education to represent District 6. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Orban completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Chris Orban was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2004 and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 2011. His career experience includes working as a professor. He also leads an education nonprofit called STEMcoding Education Ohio. He was previously a member of the leadership of the Weinland Park Civic Association in Columbus, Ohio.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Ohio State Board of Education election, 2024
General election
General election for Ohio State Board of Education District 6
Cathye Flory defeated David Donofrio and Chris Orban in the general election for Ohio State Board of Education District 6 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Cathye Flory (Nonpartisan)  | 39.9 | 118,964 |
 | David Donofrio (Nonpartisan) | 33.4 | 99,327 | |
 | Chris Orban (Nonpartisan) | 26.7 | 79,537 | |
| Total votes: 297,828 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Endorsements
Orban received the following endorsements.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Chris Orban completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Orban's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- We need to modernize the curriculum! I have a lot of experience working with the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce on modernizing high school math to connect with computer science skills. I think this is just the beginning of what we need to do.
- Ohio lags other states in obtaining federal education research grants. We need to mend the fences with higher ed so we can tap into millions of dollars of federal education research funding that will help us figure out what's working and what's not without costing Ohio taxpayers a dime.
- We need to think outside the box to re-empower the state board and we need people with a different perspective than normally would sit on the board. I am an educator and I have real expertise with science, math and computer science that has rarely been represented on the board if ever.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Orban’s campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
My Platform Without hesitation, I fully support the platform of the Democratic party including their stance on reproductive rights. I have a daughter and in November 2023 I voted in favor of Issue 1 which enshrines reproductive freedom and abortion rights into the Ohio constitution. A majority of Ohioans voted to approve the change. I outline below my views on the education system and education funding. These are my personal views. Education Platform Since 2017, I have served as a content expert for physics, math and computer science to different committees in the Ohio Department for Education (now Ohio Department of Education and Workforce) which has given me a front row seat to see how the agency operates, how it interacts with the legislature and some of its strengths and weaknesses. As a member of the state board of education here would be some of my priorities. 1. Stop letting multi-million dollar federal education research grants go to other states! Each year the US Department of Education accepts proposals from State Educational Agencies that compete for tens of millions of dollars in funding to help train teachers and figure out what actually works in the classroom. Each year, Ohio does not even apply for these funds either because of the timing or because of bureaucratic red tape. Instead the funding goes to places like California where they are more organized. We need to stop leaving money on the table and use these grant programs to stretch Ohio taxpayer dollars as far as it can go. 2. Add binary numbers to elementary, middle and high school math standards Computers store information with a series of ones and zeros called binary numbers. Outside of the US it is not uncommon for elementary and middle school students to learn binary numbers but in Ohio and most other states, binary numbers only appear in high school standards. There is a lot of discussion how we can give every student the opportunity to participate in the tech economy in Ohio. Every student has a math teacher, so if that math teacher taught binary numbers then every student in Ohio would be exposed to at least some computer science skills. Currently, according to the 2022 State Plan for Computer Science, only about 1 in 7 Ohio students take a computer science class before graduating. 3. Protect public and charter school budgets from the spiraling costs of the voucher program Recently, the legislature voted to generously fund a voucher program that would defray the cost of private school for students across Ohio. This program likely represents one of the largest increases in education spending in our state’s history and soon (if it hasn’t happened already) most students in private schools will be receiving state funds which will stress other education spending. Meanwhile, there are legislators in the statehouse who dream of eliminating the state income tax. A top priority for me will be to protect urban and rural public and charter schools from the fiscal cliff that the legislature seems poised to jump off of. I am especially concerned for funding for public, non-charter schools because these schools serve many students with special needs and IEPs. 4. Be a watchdog over the Governor’s overhaul of the Ohio Department of Education In 2023, the legislature voted to strip most of the power from the state board of education so that the Governor’s office would directly control the agency which is now called the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. This move disenfranchises voters on both sides of the isle and members of the current board of education are working in a bi-partisan way to try to reverse the decision. Whether or not the board can get back the power it had, I believe there is an important role for the board to play as a watchdog during a transition that will affect the school system in Ohio for decades to come. 5. Data-driven decision making The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has troves of data that could be mined for insights for improving our schools. I have a great deal of experience analyzing data myself and I will leverage my colleagues at Ohio State and potentially other colleges to make sense of the data that is there. Recently, there was a precipitous drop in 4th grade and 8th grade reading and math scores. There is important work to be done to look at schools that did better than others to try to understand what they did differently and whether this can be emulated in other schools. A hero of mine is California congresswoman Katie Porter who uses charts and graphs and her white board during congressional hearings to powerfully advocate for her constituents.[2] |
” |
| —Chris Orban’s campaign website (2024)[3] | ||
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Ohio State Board of Education District 6 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 12, 2024
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Chris Orban for State Board of Education, “Platform,” accessed October 21, 2024
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