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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > July > 31 > Entry
Dog? Check! Pony? Check!
(Gov. Ted Strickland’s “conversation” on education in Dayton Tuesday)
Tuesday’s “conversation” in Dayton between Gov. Ted Strickland and a hand picked audience was quite a dog and pony show. Besides the friendly audience, the event featured a polished professional host, a promotional film touting Ohio’s education gains and strict discussion limits that kept big elephants in the room (funding?) from making it into the conversation.
There were few hard questions and even the mildly hard ones were basically not answered by Strickland. Today’s editorial cites one of the few examples of spontaneity when a city high school school student asked about the problem of getting to school without buses this year in Dayton. Strickland didn’t really get was he was asking and clearly didn’t know that high school busing had been cut. Thus he gave another non-answer.
Strickland said the event was to gather feedback and ideas for reforming the state education system. But if you really want ideas, wouldn’t it be good to get some from people who don’t necessarily agree with you?
And some of Strickland’s own ideas were just not worth discussing if funding can’t be part of the conversation. How can you, for instance, really consider the merits of extending the school year by 18 days — an idea Strickland floated — without also talking about the huge associated cost and the problems of paying for it?
He’s got eight more of these conversations yet to come and in March Strickland is due to unveil his big reform plan. It will be interesting to see if any of the feedback or ideas from the floor at these events make it into the final plan. Or was the whole thing just for show?
(Image credit: Jim Witmer, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Schools and Politics
Comments
By Mskiles314
August 2, 2008 9:28 PM | Link to this
I know the Ohio Education Association had an application process to choose who would go. So that wasn’t much handpicked by the governor. I’m guessing the questions weren’t very hard, because Ted wasn’t really putting forth many policies. Also, in an environment like that, you have to have some guidelines, and the governor decided to not talk about Funding. If he decided to talk about funding but not school reform, people would be screaming about how he was ignoring reform. I have no issues with how the Governor set up the forums, just that nobody took any time to question his central thesis that schools are in desperate need of reform and only the state can do it.By Concerned Mom of 3
August 2, 2008 11:23 AM | Link to this
The Governer would be wise to read the well written comments on this blog.By Basil
August 2, 2008 9:35 AM | Link to this
Strikland’s “forums” are more synthetic and more staged that a bad eposide of Jerry Springer. I watched the entire Dayton forum online, and Strikland was nothing more than the ring leader at a decrepit circus.I’m sorry that Ohio voters will fall for his fake approcach to this serious issue.By School Supporter
August 2, 2008 8:37 AM | Link to this
Check out pp 15-16 of the National Education Association’s “Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020” “Transformation Work in Ohio … key decision makers, including the Office of the Governor, the Chief State School Officer, the Board of Regents, and representatives from the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers … will engage school communities in a dialogue about common purpose. … NEA is committed to expanding this transformation dialogue to all 50 states.” Governor Strickland’s Panderpalooza is Ohio’s dose of Presidential election year politics, courtesy of union-dues-paying teachers (whether they like it or not). BTW, the handpicked innovation transformation consultant to Ted and Frances Strickland, Daniel Kim, received $130,312 from the National Education Association in 2005.By School Supporter
August 1, 2008 7:00 PM | Link to this
Has Senator Obama endorsed the NEA/OEA plan that Governor Strickland is pitching? NEA put it forward as a model for the nation in their position paper which Senator Obama called “a roadmap for educators, elected officials, policymakers, and all who care deeply about the future of our children to consider and debate in the days ahead. And it provides critical starting points for a new educational compact.” Education voters ought to check out slides 11 and 43 of “Telling the Difference Between Baloney and Serious Claims About What Works”.By Rick
August 1, 2008 5:44 PM | Link to this
Scott, you are spot on. There are a lot of things that need to be discussed honestly. If his plan includes the elimination of vouchers, the end of testing, or having no accountability, no dog and pony show is going to woo conservatives. If he were to propose plans that would be hostile to unions, the Democrats would not support that. (I doubt he would suggest that.) Lay out, honestly, how his plan relates to controversial items.By bobby
August 1, 2008 10:09 AM | Link to this
A discussion about education reform that doesn’t include funding alternatives, unfunded mandates and charter school impact IS just another dog and Pony show. SOSBy Leonard
July 31, 2008 9:17 PM | Link to this
Let me qualify my statement by saying that I am a school board member in Clark County in my 15th year. I have been an advocate for public education for the past 15 years. I had the opportunity to watch this presentation and felt much as you do about the whole process. I was impressed with the “selected” questioners, their nicely pressed logo shirts, and their well prepared and safe questions. What else could the Governor say but “thank you”. The educational issues in Ohio is one in need of dire resolution, not by those in the Legislature; they are only interested in getting votes and staying in their “I’m the servant of the people” environment. It is surprising that they have avoided incarceration after “thumbing their noses” at the Supreme Court. At first I thought they were putting large sums of money into correctional institutions because they knew that is where they were going to end up when they ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling that the funding system in Ohio was unconstutional. However, on the opposite spectrum, I do feel the need to totally restructure the educational system in Ohio is our biggest challenge. Starting with year round school, longer days and starting the learning process much before Kindergarten, is just a start. If we are to compete in a global economy and market, it is imperative that we quit using the techniques that worked in the 50’s and 60’s. I am aware of these techniques since I was educated during the 50’s and 60’s. The residents of Ohio need to rethink what is happening in education and demand more out of teachers and less from government who just adds more unfunded mandates to the schools in the name of accountability. You might be surprised what can happen when we “uncuff” our teachers from “Proficiency Test teaching” to doing what they do best…educate, nurture, challenge, and make education interesting. It is time for the residents of Ohio to quit whining about what you don’t have and start standing up for what we really need….less government in our schools.By Mary
July 31, 2008 8:33 PM | Link to this
Scott, have you found out who did the hand-picking of the audience? Who was the audience? Was this done the same way in other areas of the state?By mskiles314
July 31, 2008 7:57 PM | Link to this
I thought too it was a friendly audience, with no challenging comments. Strickland’s “imagine if you will…” scenarios were things middle schools do now. In the end, I thought the event was very heavily an urban education event, and failed to show proof for the thesis that Ohio education is broken and needs more government intervention. What about the excellent schools in Mercer and Shelby counties? Do they need reformed? Nobody pointed our that as the State intervened more, the perception, at least, of quality education has fallen. Take for instance the woman from Graham that talked about the gains from the Digital Academy. That reform didn’t come from the State, but was rather more of a free market response to an issue. Someone should of raised the issue of giving more control to the schools, so they can decide on longer days, shorter days, 4 day weeks, etc. That will drive innovation, not by pigeon-holing every school into a new set of rules.By Concerned Mom of 3
July 31, 2008 5:47 PM | Link to this
How in the world can educated people not see the need to fix the funding first???!!! And I don’t mean to just randomly throw money at it and expect the problem to correct itself… In my humble opinion, the state has a responsibility to fix the funding problem first- then focus on clearly defining the foundations of a well-rounded education. They also need to figure out a statistically proven way to measure the success or failure of individual schools. In the urban districts, there needs to be a system that educates the parents as much as it educates the kids. Again, in my opinion, the root of the problems in the urban districts stem from the problems the parents have.