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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 > 2010 > April > 10
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Editorial: Ohio schools could still win stimulus cash
Don’t think of Ohio’s poor performance in the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” competition for hundreds of millions of dollars as a defeat.
In reality, the state is better off losing in the first round. Getting passed over now may help more Ohio school districts get money, including Dayton. And it could be put to more effective use in the long run, provided school leaders get a clue.
What Ohio’s second-round application will need most, if the state hopes to grab as much as $400 million, is much more buy-in from local school districts and teachers’ unions. Far too many of them balked at signing on for the first round, which proved to be a crushing blow.
Ohio was one of 16 finalists for Race to the Top money. A team led by Gov. Ted Strickland and Deborah Delisle, the state school superintendent, went to Washington, D.C., late last month to pitch their case. It didn’t go well.
After a half-hour presentation to judges, Ohio was one of just three states that actually saw its score go down slightly. In the end, the state finished 10th — much closer to the bottom than to the top among the finalists.
Just two states — Delaware and Tennessee — were awarded first-round funding. The other 39 that applied for the grants can try again this summer when $3.4 billion in federal stimulus money will be doled out.
The judges’ comments made it clear that Ohio’s first priority must be to rally more support for its application. That means superintendents and union leaders need to get on board.
In a meeting last week with the Dayton Daily News editorial board, Gov. Strickland was particularly critical of school superintendents, saying they need to step up. “We’ve got to change education and the way we do it in Ohio,” he said. “Some superintendents like the status quo.”
The problem is also local union leadership, a judgment the governor shares. For the first round, only 266 of Ohio’s 614 school districts had letters of support signed by the superintendent, school board president and teachers’ union president.
To be fair, this was a tougher task for a big state like Ohio than it was for smaller states like Delaware and Tennessee. (The two combined have fewer students and school districts than were represented by the 43 percent of Ohio districts that signed on to support the first-round application.)
The grant’s final rules were not available until just before the Christmas holidays, though they had to be approved in early January. That left little time for really exploring the grant’s potential impact on local districts. A staggering number of Ohio districts took a pass, leaving millions in potential funding on the table. There is just no excuse for that.
Union complaints that Race to the Top rules might force teachers to be evaluated on students’ test scores alone were overblown. In fact, both statewide teachers’ unions — the Ohio Education Association and the Ohio Federation of Teachers — supported Race to the Top.
Complaints from some superintendents that the grant’s requirements were too draconian or usurped too much local control were equally overwrought. Local schools need to understand that Race to the Top is their best shot at a financial boost. With the next state budget already facing a huge deficit and the federal stimulus program nearing an end, they should grab the money.
The good news is everybody gets a second chance to do the right thing. School administrators, school board members and union leaders shouldn’t be standing in the way of money that can only help kids.
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