One-Party Government Undermines Education and the Common Good in Ohio and Wisconsin
First it happened in Ohio. Earlier this month, Ohio’s governor John Kasich used the power he is given in Ohio law to veto line items in the state budget—which an all-Republican House and Senate had approved. Kasich’s purpose? To cut taxes.
In policies that affect public education, Governor Kasich used his line-item veto to cut back the hold-harmless school funding guarantee that has ensured that school districts don’t experience a drop in state funding below what they received last year. Guarantees are needed when a school funding formula doesn’t work very well. While many districts protected by the guarantee in Ohio are wealthy suburbs that can replace the lost state funds if the guarantee is cut, others are districts like Cleveland and Warrensville Heights, which have been losing students as the population has been reduced by the foreclosure crisis. Through the line item veto in the the budget, Kasich also eliminated a state reimbursement Ohio provided for years to school districts to replace a local business tax that the state had eliminated.
Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio describes the $90.2 million drop in funding for public schools that Governor Kasich accomplished in one night as he vetoed parts of the state budget: “Cleveland is cut the most at more than $13 million. There are now 114 out of 612 districts that will receive less money in the 2016-2017 school year than the state sent them last school year… Warrensville Heights—one of the state’s poorest districts—will see a more than $1 million cut. And it’s worse if you look at how schools have fared since the 2010-2011 budget… If you adjust for inflation, there is now $187 million less money for schools than there was in the 2010-2011 budget and 334 districts receive less.”
As if the Ohio legislature itself hadn’t done enough damage during in its spring 2015 session, when it allowed urgently needed regulations for the charter school industry to go unaddressed, despite that passage of very modest oversight looked promising in early June. The Youngstown Vindicator editorialized: “After all, the charter school industry in Ohio is big business… Yes, there was legislation designed to block poorly performing charters from switching sponsors and poorly performing sponsors from sponsoring other charter locations. But with the investment of millions of dollars in Ohio’s political process by charter operators and others, only the most naive would believe that any legislation aimed at policing the system would be adopted without a fight.”
And then, just at the end of the Ohio legislative session the lawmakers sneaked in a 66 page amendment to a very positive bill to expand full-service, wraparound community schools. The bill passed without further debate through the Senate and House, and it was signed by the governor in a matter of hours. The secret amendment that had been folded into this lawestablished a state appointed emergency manager for the Youngstown Schools and any other district rated “F” for three years. Ohio’s state appointed emergency managers, like those in One-Party Government Undermines Education and the Common Good in Ohio and Wisconsin | janresseger:
