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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > May > 08
Friday, May 8, 2009
Strickland, education and money
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined Gov. Ted Strickland for a rally in support of the governor’s embattled education plan today and there were a couple interesting revelations about the possibilities for future federal cash for Ohio’s education reform efforts.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Education, Scott Elliott
Martin Gottlieb: Can national hardliners reshape Ohio GOP?
OK, so Arlen Specter leaves the Republicans, having decided he was insufficiently conservative to prosper among them. And, as this column briefly documented last week, the next least conservative Republican senator is probably Ohio’s George Voinovich.
So where does that leave the Ohio Republican Party? After all, all its holders of the biggest statewide offices in the last decade — Voinovich, Mike DeWine and Bob Taft — have some problems with conservatives.
Here’s Voinovich on the subject of the people behind the challenge to Specter in the 2004 and 2010 Republican primaries in Pennsylvania:
“They’re really not interested in Republicans,” he said, “even ones that are relatively conservative. (They say,) ‘If you don’t pass my litmus test, then you don’t qualify.’”
At issue, specifically, is a national organization called the Club for Growth, whence sprang the challenger to Specter. Voinovich, when asked specifically if he thinks the Club for Growth is a problem, said, “I think it is. I think it’s a big problem.”
You would, too, if you were him.
The club — on whose board sits former Ohio politician J. Kenneth Blackwell — applies big money to the task of promoting tax cuts, among other conservative causes. The club Web site says:
“The primary tactic of the separate Club for Growth PAC is to provide financial support from club members to viable pro-growth candidates to Congress, particularly in Republican primaries.”
The club and its supporters would love to take Voinovich out of the Senate if he were running again, which he isn’t. (Whether they could come up with a “viable” Republican alternative is another question.)
Voinovich, after all, believes that tax policies and spending policies should be somehow connected. For some reason, he has a problem with the whole idea of taxes going down while spending goes up. This put him at odds with his party when the spending was being done by Republicans.
When a party has suffered a string of losses like the Republicans lately, it inevitably has an internal fight over its soul. The fight takes an inevitable form, like a choreographed dance.
First the hardliners say that the party’s losses result from it having become too moderate, too much like the other party. Then the softliners say that is the single dumbest thing they’ve ever heard in their lives.
Or, as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says more gently, “We are not losing blue states and shrinking as a party because we are not conservative enough. If we pursue a party that has no place for someone who agrees with me 70 percent of the time … then we are going to keep losing.’’
Jump ahead to the end of the dance: the party makes a comeback. Always. It’s built in. It’s not an accomplishment, any more than the tide deserves credit when it comes back in.
When the “in” party runs out of luck, the “out” party comes back in. So the shape of the parties is of some interest.
The Club for Growth and other hardline conservatives are not likely to go after many incumbent Republicans in primaries. After all, most congressional Republicans are already quite conservative. But the club can have impact without launching many races. It can deliver a message about what happens to the few independent-minded people, a message that will be heard by Republican politicians in moderate states like Ohio and places like Dayton.
That’s the “big problem” Voinovich referred to: that Republican politicians will feel that meeting Graham’s 70 percent standard will not sustain them in office, not satisfy the hard right.
What would happen to Ohio Republicans if they went in the Club for Growth direction. Well, what we know for sure is that Ken Blackwell suffered a loss of historic proportions when he ran for governor in 2006. Admittedly, it was a bad year for Republicans; DeWine lost, too.
The upshot of that history may be the emergence of somebody like former Congressman Rob Portman, who splits the ideological difference.
But what splitting the difference means is that he is right in the mainstream of a party that is dominated by the south and west, not places like Ohio, which is why so many Republican officeholders have diverged from party orthodoxy in the first place.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Martin Gottlieb, National Politics, Ohio politics
Obama can push Ohio to reform even more
Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed two-year budget is a thing of the past.
This week numbers came out showing that state income tax revenues are coming in so far below projections that it’s possible — make that probable — that the state’s “rainy day” fund could be used up by the end of June.
That pot — almost $1 billion — was one of the sources of $7 billion in one-time money that the governor was counting on to help pay for the first steps in his huge 10-year education reform plan. Even before this bad news came out, critics were saying that Gov. Strickland couldn’t possibly fund his ideas unless a windfall arrives (or he raises taxes).
One source the governor may be banking on is money from the U.S. Department of Education. It has $100 billion in federal stimulus money to spend. In a speech last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the states that adopt the president’s priorities will be rewarded with extra money from “challenge grants.”
“There will be lots of pressure to fund all 50 states,” he said. “I promise you that is not going to happen. We will focus on the states most committed to these (the president’s) reforms.”
Maybe tellingly, today Secretary Duncan is appearing with Gov. Strickland at a rally in Columbus supporting the governor’s education plan.
Is it possible that Gov. Strickland has cut a deal with the Obama administration, insisting that Ohio deserves something for its support of the president and, by the way, the state is on board for the president’s priorities for schools? Has Gov. Strickland reminded the administration that there’s another election coming up in 2012, and Ohio is tired of being so important during presidential campaigns, but being forgotten later?
These would not be ridiculous points.
But do Gov. Strickland’s goals really match up with President Obama’s? Yes and no. In a recent speech, the president focused on five things:
Invest in early childhood education
Gov. Strickland has actually proposed cutting money for pre-school, after speaking up for early childhood education in his State of the State speech. He has dedicated some people to the cause, but spending money in pre-kindergarten classrooms is where the real work gets done.
Better standards and assessment
President Obama is critical of states that give easy proficiency and graduation tests that students score well on, even as they do poorly on national tests. Ohio is not in that group. Its state and national test scores compare fairly well.
Meanwhile, the president also opposes using just proficiency tests. Gov. Strickland is with the president on that score, proposing to require that all high-school students take a college entrance exam and calling for end-of-course exams and senior projects.
Recruiting, preparing and rewarding teachers
Though Ohio should have merit pay, the state doesn’t push that practice. President Obama, however, favors it. In what may be a back-door approach to the controversial issue, the governor has called for a “residency” program for new teachers, coupled with a “career ladder” and new sorts of licenses for top teachers. Those changes could lead to paying the best teachers more.
Promoting innovation and excellence
President Obama wants to lift caps on the number of charter schools. Gov. Strickland says he’s a fan of good charters (Ohio has a ton), but many charter school advocates complain his budget doesn’t reflect that. In his defense, the governor has pushed for more accountability from charter operators.
Quality higher education
This is a big strength for Ohio. Under the direction of Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, the state has pushed colleges to create opportunities for high-schoolers to start college early, and the state has kept a lid on tuition increases, with the goal of making Ohio colleges more affordable. Its colleges also are increasingly partnering with K-12 schools.
Gov. Strickland has plenty of good stories to tell Secretary Duncan about what Ohio’s doing in and with its schools. If, however, he wants to argue that the state can be a poster child for the Obama administration’s goals, he has more work to do.
Given how desperately Ohio needs Washington’s money, President Obama and his people can’t be criticized if they insist the state should be even more in sync with them.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
