No, the Ohio Supreme Court didn’t deny Youngstown voters the right to elect a school board. But on May 13, a majority of the Republican-run court did uphold the General Assembly’s 2015 decision to strip that school board of meaningful power over its schools – and in a way that limited rank-and-file voters’ input on the legislation.
That’s what happens when legislators, in Columbus, decide they’re better at running a community’s schools than its school board, and the voters that elected that board.
Maybe the Youngstown board shouldn’t have as much power as any other Ohio school board. Or maybe it should.
The reason it’s hard to say is because GOP leaders of the state Senate and Ohio House, along with then-Gov. John Kasich, also a Republican, didn’t really want to hear voters’ opinions. Instead, legislators bloated, over roughly 24 hours, what had been a 10-page bill on another subject (community learning centers) into a 77-page bill that gelded the Youngstown board, then rammed the bill to Kasich, who signed it.
The issue (with the legislature’s antics) isn’t whether the bill was or wasn’t a good idea. Obviously, some Youngstowners think it’s a terrible idea. In counterpoint, some of the Youngstown-Warren area’s Powers That Be think it was a great idea – and said so, in Senate committee testimony.
If you’re a General Assembly Republican who isn’t from Northeast Ohio, maybe never been to Mahoning County, perhaps what Kasich, and then-Senate President Keith Faber (who’s now state auditor) and then-House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, both Republicans, wanted passed was something to more or less automatically support.
The state Senate passed the bill 18-14; the Ohio House of Representatives passed it 55-40. (Some General Assembly Republicans, both in the Senate and House, did vote “no.”)
Would the bill have passed anyway, even if it had taken the Statehouse’s slow, scenic, hot-air route? Likely, yes. But acting as they did, General Assembly leaders signaled that an individual Ohioan’s viewpoint on the bill (for that matter, the viewpoint of teachers’ unions) just didn’t matter once insiders signed off. Legislators seemed to follow the maxim attributed to railroad mogul William H. Vanderbilt: “The public be damned.”
Contrast that round of Statehouse Beat-the-Clock with another facet of the legislature’s approach to school policy: For 23 years, the General Assembly has failed (arguably, refused) to act on the Ohio Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling that public school funding must be completely overhauled. Yet in a day or so in 2015, the General Assembly seemingly had enough data and gumption to assess and address the needs of pupils in Youngstown, just one of Ohio’s 600-plus school districts.
At Ohio’s Statehouse, the Age of Miracles is not over.
Ohio school funding takes a pandemic hit
This fall, Ohio’s schools must protect pupils and teachers and support staff from the coronavirus. That will boost school districts’ costs.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has blasted holes in Ohio’s operating budget. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine has ordered a $775 million state spending cut, including a $300 million reduction in state aid to local schools. Realistically, he had no choice; Ohio is constitutionally required to balance its budget. But also realistically, reductions in state aid to local schools will force school boards to ask school districts’ voters to boost property taxes.
Yet it’s hard to imagine that Ohio homeowners, many of them hurting financially, would be willing to boost the property taxes they pay on their homes. But if they don’t, that’ll squeeze local schools – a consequence of Ohio’s (unconstitutional) overdependence on property taxes. What’s more, it appears that big shopping malls, which for decades have helped bolster property tax collections in suburbia, are going the way of the dinosaurs.
Meanwhile, at least some Ohio General Assembly members seem more worried about financially protecting so-called school-choice plans (using public money to help parents pay for private schooling) than about financially protecting the public schools most young Ohioans attend.
School choice is admirable – when Ohio can afford it. But the Ohio Constitution, which every legislator swears to uphold, requires him or her to “secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state.” That is, the General Assembly’s sworn duty is to adequately fund Ohio’s public schools – first.
Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.
To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-408-9474
Have something to say about this topic?
* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.
* Email comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
"control" - Google News
May 24, 2020 at 05:01PM
https://ift.tt/3d3Vefe
Taking local school control from Youngstown; pushing school choice over adequate funding - cleveland.com
"control" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bY2j0m
https://ift.tt/2KQD83I
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Taking local school control from Youngstown; pushing school choice over adequate funding - cleveland.com"
Post a Comment