it was the easiest thing to do"
-- Stephen Stills, The Southern Cross
Many poor schools get poorer under Gov. Strickland's new plan to fix public education, while some of the rich schools get richer. His lack of vision and penchant for bullet-point fixes puts him in the Bob Taft class of "education governors."Mr. Strickland's "bold" (according to the Colmbus Dispatch) six-point plan would not work as planned for more than a few actual school districts in the real world.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports this morning about the impact of Mr. Strickland's plan on actual school districts. It turns out that the governor's plan has many unintended consequences.
And that's the problem with a system that's broken beyond repair. My daughter recently had a car accident. Her 1999 Honda had 190,000 miles on it, and needed about $3,500 in repairs. It didn't make sense to try to fix it.
So, we bought another car and started over. Ohio's public school finance and management system is in the same condition: time to start from scratch, not tinker with a system that's just too out-of-date and expensive to fix.
There are too many schools systems -- more than 600 of them. The people in charge of managing them are handcuffed by work rules in labor contracts.
The Ohio Supreme Court has detailed the problems with the 19th-century property tax system that finances schools. And the formula used to dole out state money to local districts is a maze of complexity that guarantees perverse results like the ones detailed in the Plain Dealer article.
Former Gov. Bob Taft squandered a priceless leadership opportunity. With control of the executive and the legislature, the Supreme Court handed him political cover for a radical redesign of Ohio's education system when it declared Ohio's system unconstitutional.
Gov. Taft could have spent his political capital -- he actually had some, back then -- and really re-imagined the system. Real change. A new car.
Mr. Taft chose to fix the old car instead. Mr. Strickland is heading down the same unimaginative road.
2 comments:
Dave,
So what's your solution: a solution that will control taxes and not just drop cash on union contracts?
Public education is a tax-hungry beast with a dangerous agenda. So what is the fix?
I continue to notice this trend among Democrats (as a party, not as people necessarily). They go out of the way to eliminate the mention of God as a provider and object of worship...but then, under the moniker of "progressive politics", insert a bigger state...which earns all their devotion and serves as the nourisher of all their needs. Democratic leaders become the face of the state, or mini-gods... ensuring our eternal gratitude, and their everlasting re-election. That's an awful lot of religious language for a picture that doesn't involve God. Could it be that...just sometimes...the simplest, more traditional explanation actually makes the most sense? Or is the concept of God now SO reviled that it's somehow worth all the mental gymnastics required to worship the one system that we know attracts fragile, shallow men with out-of-control egos, a simpering willingness to say anything at all, and an unquenchable thirst for cash?
Post a Comment