An editorial from NE Ohio captures it perfectly. Strickland doesn't have time to bask in the glow of Clinton's win in Tuesday's primary. He has other things to attend to: like the overdue and promised plan to overhaul school funding. As levies on Tuesday across the state proved, voters are impatient and unwilling to approve new property taxes. They want the state to act:
Strickland and his fellow leaders in Columbus should take notice.
Voters throughout the state are angry that it's already been a full year since the governor took office after pledging during his campaign that he'd fix school funding. Sadly, he said it will be another year before he releases his plan to solve the crisis. You're making us wait, Gov. Strickland.
We hope you're paying attention to the disappointment your inaction has fueled.
As you sit by and watch more districts fall into financial trouble, you should be hopeful our disappointment doesn't turn into resolve to make some fixes ourselves.
There's another decision pending. With Democrats in Washington insisting they'll wait for a new president rather than go along with Bush's voucher proposals built into his education budget.
Will Ohio continue to go along with NCLB? The states are becoming increasingly outspoken in their opposition to it, and Virginia is the most recent, sending messages that would indicate it might pull out of the federal compact all together and tell Margaret Spellings to take her money and stick it.
What about Ohio? Our arcane "accountability" system is getting almost as hard to understand as the funding formula for Ohio schools. A lot of it could go away if NCLB were not reauthorized, of if Ohio decided the federal money weren't worth the hassle. The governor and legislature need to decide where they stand on NCLB and school funding. It's been long enough.
2 comments:
Dave:
I think the fundamental problem with Ohio's school funding program is that those in power are trying to figure out how to preserve the 'affluent enclave' school districts, yet keep the poorer districts funded well enough that they quit filing lawsuits.
Someone, perhaps you, said that the per-student funding average across all of Ohio is sufficient - the problem is that it isn't distributed properly. GIRFOF might be a good idea if wasn't an attempt to make the State BOE a kind of super-legislature that gives education a constitutional first dibs on the state treasury. I think the problem can be solved by just continuing to crank down the State Aid to affluent districts and letting that money go to the truly poor ones.
Frankly, our school district has the proverbial champaign taste and a beer budget. We need to complain less about our state funding and adjust our own spending. Our new high school is going to cost $60 million and will house only 1,800 students. That's just nuts.
And yes, our 9.5 mill operating levy bombed big time: about 9,500 for and 12,500 against (out of 40,000 registered voters). Our School Board has been terrible in its communications over the years, and this is the result. Maybe they should have spent less on the high school and left some capacity in the community to take on the operating levy.
It's going to get ugly in our little town...
well dont forget, he did move his office to a new state building. he is fan of bringing that up.
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