Earlier this summer, Terry wrote about the disconnect between DC and the states when it comes to education policy.???? In Ohio, there is a second disconnect, between the sunny optimism we hear about K-12 education at the Statehouse and the grim fiscal reality facing many of our local schools.
Yesterday was a special election day in the Buckeye State.????Eighteen school districts had funding requests on the ballot.???? Voters rejected most of these requests, including one from South-Western City Schools, a district located less than ten miles from the state capitol that serves about 20,000 students. When the same levy failed in May, the district cut $8 million from its budget, eliminated 77 positions, closed two school buildings, and cancelled all extracurricular activities (including athletics, band, and clubs) for middle- and high-school students.????The levy money would have helped the district restore about half of these cuts.????But South-Western's pain isn't over.????Because of yesterday's levy failure, the district still needs to cut another $5 million in spending to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, Governor Ted Strickland is busy touring the state touting his education reform plan that was enacted via the state's biennial budget bill last month.????The cost of that plan is where the disconnect starts to emerge.????Take, for example, a single reform from Strickland's plan: lowering the teacher-to-student ratio in grades K-3.???? (Earlier this week, Jamie explored the nonsense behind the push for mandated small class sizes.) Ohio's current ratio for core teachers is 1:25 for grades K-12.???? Under Strickland's plan, the K-3 ratio will roll back to 1:19 in 2010, to 1:17 in 2012, and to 1:15 in 2014. ????So, Monterey Elementary in the South-Western district, a school rated "B" by the state, would go from needing 16 teachers under state law in 2009 to needing 22 teachers five years later to serve the same number of students.???? The district will need almost 170 new teachers within five years to comply with the new mandates.
New teachers cost money, which South-Western doesn't have.????Nor does the state. And those new teachers need space to teach in, which might be hard to come by.????In March, Michael Shoemaker, the Strickland-appointed head of the commission that oversees the state's massive effort to build and renovate its public schools told the Columbus Dispatch in reference to the governor's proposed class-size reduction, "It's going to be tough to tell districts we just built you a new building, it's two years old, and by the way, it's outdated. Districts may get hammered by a change in statewide policy that no one knew was coming."???? Mr. Shoemaker was fired by the governor this week, leading some to speculate that his earlier comment led to his dismissal.
The governor has been mum on where the money will come from to fund his reform plan down the road, disclosing neither how the state should fund the new mandates as they are rolled out nor how to fill the $7 billion revenue hole that the feds patched for Ohio this biennium.????Of course, Governor Strickland doesn't need to worry about such matters.???? Even if he is reelected next fall, Ohio's term limits will keep him from being the state's chief executive when the full financial impact of his reform plan and its many mandates is realized.???? Meanwhile, his path to that reelection likely got easier with the passage of his education reform plan.???? The state's powerful (and deep-pocketed) teacher unions are pleased with most aspects of the plan, lowering teacher-to-student ratios foremost among them. Might this have something to do with the fact that--despite having shortages of????science, math, foreign language, and special education teachers--Ohio????has a glut of early childhood teachers who can't find jobs?
