Ben Lindy currently serves as the president of the Cincinnati Public School Board. He is a Cincinnati native, a CPS graduate, and the father of two current CPS students. He has spent almost 20 years working in public education, starting as a public school teacher. Ben first ran for the CPS Board in the fall of 2019, and his first term started in January of 2020. Ben believes that although CPS has made important progress in the last decade, we still have real work to do to ensure that every child – regardless of zip code – has access to an excellent education.  

MEET BEN LINDY

THE ISSUES

COMMITTED TO CINCINNATI'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Ben brings 15 years of experience working in public education to this race, and that experience has left him with an unshakable belief in what’s possible for all children.  After graduating from Yale in 2003, he taught middle school social studies in North Carolina as a part of the Teach For America program, during which time he was nominated for the organization’s award for excellence in teaching.

He went on to study education policy and law at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and Yale Law School before leading new teacher hiring at the DC Public Schools.  Most recently, he has served as the founding executive director of Teach For America in Southwest Ohio.  In that capacity, he has helped recruit, train, and support over 200 outstanding and diverse teachers in the region’s low-income public schools.

There has been real and important progress in CPS over the last two decades. We should be proud of that progress and the incredible teachers, parents, and community leaders who helped make it possible.

However, if we want our education system to be one that provides all children with an opportunity to receive an excellent education, we have much more work to do. Today, 77% of students attend a school that receives a D- or an F-rating on the state report card. We can and must do better. As adults, we have a moral obligation to do better for our children. 

We often hear our education leaders note that Cincinnati Public Schools is the “top-performing urban district in Ohio.” This is true, and a sign of improvement, but we shouldn’t accept settling for simply being better than other urban districts. We need to expand upon the progress we’ve seen while also acknowledging that there’s more work to be done and that we do not have a monopoly on good ideas. Our kids, their families, and our city deserve nothing less. 

To that end, Ben's vision for CPS has three parts that will improve the district for students, teachers, parents, and neighborhoods across the district:

OUR THREE PRIORITIES

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More Outstanding Teachers and Principals

Strong Parent and Community Engagement

Schools that are Safe, Inclusive, and Welcoming for All Kids

There is no substitute for great teachers and great principals. We need to identify and empower our most effective leaders, and we need to ensure that every teacher is equipped to help students graduate with real choices about their future.  There are so many current teachers and principals who do not want to settle for where we are; we need to support them and find more of them.

We need to do a better job of engaging parents and community members and aligning the district’s offerings to the hopes they have for their kids. We have had some improvement here, but we can’t settle for where we are.  We need to do a better job of engaging parents and community members, and we ultimately need to hold ourselves accountable here in a rigorous way.

The world around us is changing, and we have to face those changes head-on. The threat of gun violence makes it harder for our teachers to teach and our students to learn, and we must confront this issue with commitment and courage. It must be clear that our schools are welcoming places, regardless of a student’s background and immigration status.  Finally, for a district as diverse as ours, our curriculum has to help kids feel a sense of pride in their own background while also helping them build bridges with people who are different. 

Ben Lindy for Cincinnati School Board
NOT PAID FOR AT PUBLIC EXPENSE 

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All children deserve access to an excellent education.

All children deserve access to an excellent education.

WHERE I HOPE WE CAN GO NEXT AS A DISTRICT

Newsletter Archive

Please click on the links below to read any of the newsletter updates that I’ve sent since taking office in January of 2020. You’ll see reflections I wrote on reopening schools during Covid, on requiring our staff to get vaccinated, on our “responsible bidder” policy, on our superintendent search, on becoming board president, and more.

Over the last several years, I’ve had the chance to hear from thousands of parents, students, staff members, and community members.  These voices have come from every zip code and every school community in the city, and across all of these conversations, four themes emerge with incredible consistency.  With your support, these four areas are where I hope we can do the most good work in the months and years ahead.