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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 > December > 16
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Guest column: Career colleges clearly serve Ohio students well
This commentary was written by R. David Rankin, the executive director of the Ohio Association of Career Colleges and Schools, headquartered in Columbus.
Each year about 37,000 Ohioans work toward associate degrees at career colleges. Hundreds of others receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
It’s disappointing to learn the Daily News believes “the vast majority of those seeking college-level programs would be better off at a traditional school” and claims some career colleges “are scams designed to grab cash while providing little of value.”
(“Financial aid too available to shady schools,” Monday, Dec. 7.) The facts are otherwise. Career colleges educate and place into jobs students who, for many reasons, have determined that traditional public and private colleges do not meet their needs.
No other colleges receive as much oversight and regulation as career colleges. Let’s please remember, too, that state and federal financial aid does not flow to any of these institutions, but is paid directly to students. All Ohio students should be able to choose whatever accredited college or university they wish to attend.
The Daily News’ undocumented assertion that students are better off at “traditional” schools simply doesn’t square with the facts. Statewide data shows:
• 80 percent of career college students begin earning wages and pay taxes within 90 days of graduation.
• Ohio career colleges enjoy a 60 percent retention rate compared to 53 percent for community colleges.
• They graduate students at a rate more than 2.5 times better.
• About a third of career college students enroll after having tried other colleges, often community colleges.
• While career colleges instruct only about 19 percent of Ohio students enrolled in two-year programs, they comprise about 40 percent of all Ohioans who earn an associate degree.
If “quality” is measured by comparing student retention and graduation rates, the Daily News’ assertion that Sinclair Community College is “better” is simply not true:
• According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, Sinclair retains 56 percent of its full-time and 42 percent of its part-time students, but actually graduates only 10 percent.
• Nearby National College retains 91 percent of its students and graduates 78 percent of them, while RETS college retains 82 percent and graduates 97 percent.
• To add more perspective, the statewide average graduation rate is 47.3 percent for career colleges; 17 percent for public colleges.
Students who determine a career college education is best for them should have the same access to financial aid programs like Pell Grant as other students.
Readers should understand Ohio career colleges have always been results-driven and outcome-oriented. They do not receive federal or state subsidies. They welcome full disclosure on outcomes.
Student success is paramount and they continually ensure their curricula meet the relevant needs of Ohio’s employers.
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Editorial: Ohio’s GOP Senate to blame if cuts come
While you’re consumed by the holidays, the politicians who represent you in Columbus are doing nothing to solve a big, urgent financial problem.
They hope you will not notice.
They don’t see things this way, of course. But if they are doing something, it’s not getting the job done.
When the Ohio Supreme Court rightly said Gov. Ted Strickland couldn’t unilaterally put thousands of slot machines at racetracks, that created an $850 million hole in the current two-year budget. The governor was delusional in counting on that money, and doing so has cost him politically.
The court’s decision, however, came down Sept. 21. That means that for almost three months now, everyone has known that something sigfnicant and painful was going to have to be done. You don’t find almost $1 billion under a mattress.
That painful thing is suspending the last increment of a five-year, 21 percent cut in the state personal income tax. Doing so would raise almost exactly the amount that the state is short.
But the decision must be made by Dec. 31 or it won’t affect this year’s tax collections.
The Democrat-controlled Ohio House has voted in favor of a suspension. Gov. Strickland is publicly asking for it. In short, the Democrats went first and got behind the tough decision.
But the Republican-controlled Senate is in chaos.
Some senators don’t want to vote for what they’d like to label a tax increase. Some are worried about disqualifying themselves from being John Kasich’s running mate when he runs for governor against Mr. Strickland next year.
Some are willing to vote for the suspension, but only if they can exact one or more things from the Democrats.
(Five Republican votes are needed; you watch, in the end, if the suspension is adopted, there will only be five votes. That is, no one is going to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing.)
The stakes are this:
If the suspension doesn’t happen, the state will have to cut most of the needed money from schools. And public colleges will be looking at taking big hits, too.
Education in Ohio could be looking at cuts on the order of 10 to 15 percent.
It’s hard to exempt schools and colleges when they’re such a big portion of the budget and considering that other areas — libraries, prisons, mental health services and so forth — have already been clipped hard.
The people who have been intimately involved in the back-and-forth about what to do — including Kettering’s state Sen. Jon Husted — know there is only one reasonable way out.
If the Republicans knew of another path, they would have suggested it. They have not and that’s the outrage. If you’re not for a tax cut suspension, well, what are you for?
The things some Republicans are demanding as a condition of getting their votes — public construction reform and changes in Ohio’s sentencing laws — are not small matters. They deserve to be vetted, not crammed down the public’s throat.
If the changes are so good, they can be passed on their merits — not as a ransom.
Gov. Strickland was reckless in counting on slots for so much money when he knew the idea might not pass constitutional muster. In doing so, he put off hard choices for himself and for the Republicans, too.
The Democrats haved faced those facts. Now the Republicans need to do so.
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Editorial: Dayton’s school stimulus plan is sound, if not sexy
Dayton schools could be hiring 100 new employees to work with students to prevent violence, get parents involved with their children’s schools and to point kids toward college.
That’s what Cleveland is doing with a big part of its $24 million in federal stimulus money.
Meanwhile, Dayton is spending one of the biggest chunks of its $21 million on textbooks. It’s tempting to view Cleveland’s approach as bold, while Dayton’s seems more business-as-usual.
Cleveland is pushing a massive new program in hopes of jolting the district in a new direction. But Dayton’s more conservative approach likely will look smarter in two years when the stimulus money dries up.
Chief Academic Officer Eric Gordon told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer he views Cleveland students as desperately in need of better social and emotional support. Hiring 60 “family liaisons” is supposed to get parents more involved, connect families with services and help them navigate the school system. Many liaisons, who will earn $22,000 a year, live in the neighborhoods they will be serving.
Another 27 “coaches” will help students prepare for college and support a new district-wide reading program.
Mr. Gordon acknowledges that the district may not be able to keep them all employed when the federal money runs out. The total cost is about $4.5 million.
Dayton kids could use social and emotional support, too. Both districts have large numbers of children living in poverty and coming to school behind. But, for Dayton, a wide-ranging new program and a slew of new hires didn’t make sense.
Here the district plans to use a similarly sized chunk of stimulus aid — about $4.7 million — to buy textbooks. Book purchases were delayed during the past several years as Dayton fought its way out of a severe financial crisis that climaxed with a major levy defeat in 2007.
Treasurer Stan Lucas says administrators chose to spend stimulus money for one-time expenses wherever possible to avoid creating new programs, like the one in Cleveland, that would be hard to sustain.
Dayton did make some exceptions. The Challenger Center, a science program at Kiser Elementary School that allows students to execute mock space missions, is an example. One of a few dozen centers nationwide, it was founded in memory of the 1986 space shuttle disaster. Dayton’s facility opened in 1990 and was rebuilt in 2006.
The district was prepared to shutter the center when it lost grant funding, even though there is a good chance it could win money down the line. The stimulus money gives the center a two-year reprieve.
The hiring of three algebra intervention teachers was another exception. Mr. Lucas says Dayton couldn’t pass on the chance to provide special help to students in a critical math course, even if it’s a short-term fix and administrators will have to figure out how to keep the teachers down the road.
The stimulus money was a one-time gift. Confronting that reality and not getting overextended is smart.
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