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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > March > 14
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Strickland goes after school choice
(Gov. Ted Strickland speaks to reporters earlier this week.)
You can tell things have changed at the governor’s mansion.
After eight friendly years of state leadership that supported and nurtured school charter schools and vouchers in Ohio, the new Democratic governor went on the offensive against these public school choice programs in his state of the state address today. (You can download and read the speech here.)
Gov. Ted Strickland wants a moritorium on new charter schools, he wants to end the statewide voucher program and he wants to ban for-profit companies from operating schools in Ohio.
Wow.
Here’s what Strickland said:
“I believe the standards gap between our traditional public schools and other schools receiving public money is so glaring that we must act immediately. My budget imposes a moratorium on new charter schools and prohibits for-profit management companies from running charter schools. My budget eliminates the voucher program except for the means-tested voucher initiative in Cleveland. I am also requiring that we closely monitor all charter schools to determine if they meet educational and fiscal standards of accountability. “
To justify several of his proposed education changes, Strickland cited a recent report on Ohio by the education research corporation Achieve, Inc. I’m sure it won’t suprise you to learn that Checker Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation disagreed with Strickland’s take.
In his reply, Finn says Strickland “so grossly misreads the section on school choice that if this were the Ohio graduation test he would flunk ‘reading with understanding.’”
More from Finn’s response:
“Presumably he’d rather pander to his pals in the teacher unions than honor Achieve’s recommendation that every Ohio child should be given bona fide choices among quality schools. His approach to the state’s fledgling voucher initiative and its uneven charter school program might best be termed “slash and burn.” Freezing, capping and eliminating things doesn’t make them better. It just makes it harder for needy Ohio children to find decent alternatives to the woeful public-school systems in which too many of them are trapped today. Those kids and their families need more good choices, not fewer. The governor’s package will worsen their lot, not improve it.”
What do you think of Strickland’s school choice proposals?
(Image credit: AP)
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