Reporters are often accused of ginning up readership by painting issues in the darkest ways.
However, no news outlet has done enough to call attention to the gloomy forecast for public education if Ohio lawmakers don’t make big changes to the Ohio budget proposal.
It’s not hyperbole to call the new budget a game-changer for public schools. Or even an extinction-level event.
That’s because both the House and Senate versions of the bill include problematic proposals, many of which were explained at a recent rally hosted by Stark County school administrators at the Canton Civic Center on June 10.
Among these proposals is a requirement that school districts return any “rainy day” funds to voters if the amounts exceed a certain percentage of each district’s budget. The only difference between the House and Senate versions on this issue is the percentage that triggers the reimbursement.
Taxpayers with long memories may recall that rainy day funds exist because earlier lawmakers chided districts for not having such emergency funds. Current critics cite the balances as examples of how schools are allegedly flush with money. But, as any homeowner can attest, most budgets are only one roof-replacement estimate away from disaster. Taking the meager average household slush fund and scaling it up to school-budget level demonstrates that most districts’ “savings” are hardly an example of largesse. Instead, they’re a reasonable nest egg in case of a disaster.
Just as alarming is a provision that would force school districts to close buildings at less than 60 percent capacity and sell them to charter schools at less than market value. A district can have less than 60 percent capacity for many reasons, including the need for extra space to educate students with special needs or to house equipment necessary for specialized career programs, such as cosmetology, auto mechanics, or culinary arts.
I teach in a building that offers—or will soon offer—all three. These are in-demand professions, and public schools that offer such courses are setting students up for success. But if it all comes down to bodies per square foot, how will kids in such classes gain the knowledge and experience they need for success?
Worst of all, in this teacher’s opinion, is how the new budget subverts the Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), a bipartisan approach “based on the actual cost of educating kids, sharing that cost between the state and local communities by considering communities’ ability to cover the costs through local taxes,” according to Policy Matters Ohio.
So, while headlines may tout that the budget proposals increase funding for Ohio’s public schools ($226 million more from the House proposal, for a total of $534 million; $326 million more from the Senate, for a total of $634 million), this is not nearly enough to fund public education in the state.
The FSFP, by contrast, would have provided an additional $3 billion for public education over the next two years.
Tellingly, both the House and Senate proposals (and Governor DeWine’s, for that matter) provide huge increases for voucher programs, which allow public taxpayer money to fund private, charter schools. The House’s proposal, for example, would allocate $500 million for voucher programs, almost twice the increase it allotted for public education.
Charter schools don’t play by the same rules as their public brethren. They do not have to accept all students and do not need to test and report results for the ones they do accept. They can cherry-pick the best (or the best-paying) and leave the rest for the public schools, who must still provide the transportation to and from. And who, remember, may have been forced to sell the very facilities these new charter school students are attending.
“Follow the money” was the Watergate-era dictate. It’s still true today. Many lawmakers, it seems, view public education as one of the last remaining financial frontiers for their wealthy business allies. Public education, a public good, is ripe for for-profit entrepreneurs to exploit. And if it doesn’t work out (i.e., not enough profit), don’t worry—the government will bail them out.
Meanwhile, the money the legislature is saving by cutting education is enough to give the Browns a new stadium as a reward for the team’s many winning seasons and to provide tax cuts for folks already making six figures. Insert copious eyerolls here.
Various officials and superintendents at Tuesday’s rally made it a point to say the budget proposal isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue, but rather an issue for everybody concerned with properly educating the next generation of workers and leaders in the Buckeye State.
And, yeah, that’s true, but only from the taxpayers’ perspective. Because you must look at the letter that follows the names of the politicians who have a majority in the House and Senate (along with the party of the governor) to realize that some of this, at least, is most assuredly political.
These budget shenanigans are, in part, a clapback for the culture wars that critics say are playing out in our schools. The distorted belief that just because teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators care for and value all students, we are somehow grooming them to make nontraditional lifestyle choices and subverting parents’ rights.
I can assure you we are not. I’m busy teaching kids to think, research, and write. My colleagues are busy teaching them to calculate, to weld, to build homes. We are also teaching them to be informed citizens, to know for whom and why they pull the lever at the ballot box.
Not to tell them how to vote, but to teach them why it’s important to vote and to encourage them to do so.
If that’s indoctrination—well, I’m guilty.
The Senate passed its budget bill on Wednesday, June 11. Now it goes back to the House to reconcile the two competing versions. This process must be completed by June 30.
This would be a great time to reach out to your elected officials and let them know how disappointed you will be if they weaken our communities by weakening our public schools. Disappointed enough to vote for somebody else the next time, perhaps.
Maybe it’s not too late to reverse a gloomy forecast.
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