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U.S. education secretary mum on Strickland’s school plan

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By William Hershey, Staff Writer 6:20 PM Friday, May 8, 2009

COLUMBUS — After U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and more than half a dozen other speakers whooped it up for Gov. Ted Strickland’s plan to overhaul education and school funding, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had his chance.

Duncan didn’t say a word about it to the crowd gathered outside the Schottenstein Center at the Ohio State University on Friday, May 8.

“It’s not really my job to endorse...,” Duncan told reporters after the rally after what Strickland aides had billed as a “rally for education reform.”

Strickland got endorsements from Dale and Nathan DeRolph, the father-son team from Perry County whose lawsuit led to four Ohio Supreme Court decisions declaring Ohio’s school funding system unconstitutional.

“Let’s put politics aside and do what’s right for the children of Ohio once and for all,” Nathan DeRolph told the crowd of about 500. He was 15 when the lawsuit was filed in 1991 and is 33 now. While some improvements have been made, much remains to be done, he said.

Duncan, former chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, urged Ohio to apply for some of the $5 billion in “Race to the Top” grants that President Barack Obama’s administration will award to states most aggressively pursuing school reform.

The administration wants states to focus on factors such as systems that track student progress and raising expectations for student performance, Duncan said.

Strickland said after the rally that his school plan meets Duncan’s expectations and that he hopes to join with other states in applying for some of the $5 billion.

The rally attracted both friends and foes of Strickland’s plan, which calls for all-day kindergarten, longer school days and school years and promises, over time, to increase the state’s share of school funding.

Johnnie Kimberlin, a member of the Jefferson Twp. Local School Board, was among the first to arrive and said Strickland’s plan sounded “very encouraging.”

Opponents such as Amy Price of suburban Columbus said spending reductions in the plan for the charter school her two sons attend would force the school to close. One son is autistic and the other has autism-related problems, she said.

The two-year state budget approved by the Democratic-controlled Ohio House includes much of Strickland’s school plan but the Republican-controlled Senate is expected to drastically overhaul it.

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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PJ: Home Schooling does solve a lot of problems,
however it doesn't get you out of the school taxes (for some, bad reason, as those home schooled kids aren't getting the money their parents paid into the system like they are supposed to). Just wanted to be sure folks were aware of that. You can choose alternate methods of education for your kids, but your still taxed for a public education,
whether you use it or not.

Stuart
1:56 PM, 5/31/2009

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display of the schooll plan

roni chakma
9:08 AM, 5/20/2009

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It's about time the state of Ohio stepped up and solved the school funding problem. The original lawsuit was filed in 1991, and Ohio still hasn't complied with the court ruling. If the state properly funded the schools, all these local property tax levies would go away. Take a look at how Indiana and other states funds their schools.

Jim
11:18 AM, 5/9/2009

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Isn't Ohio struggling financially? How is it that Ohio can now dump money into our school systems? Oh, wait, I know....raise taxes! Neither the state nor the federal governments can run anything efficiently - look at social security on the federal level & look at worker's comp on the state level. If I was starting over with my kids I'd home school them.

PJ
10:09 AM, 5/9/2009

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Governor Strickland seems ignorant to the fact that children don't have the attention spans that (most) adults do. Does he really think keeping them in school longer is going to change things? Teachers are already wasting most of the school days teaching only the info needed to pass proficiency tests. If this time was spent on the general curriculum, the extensions would not be needed. It seems to me, these tests are as worthless as the governor's ideas!

Albert
12:23 AM, 5/9/2009

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