The debate in education at the local and state level is far from placid (as Mike recently described it), and is sometimes incredibly toxic because the issues affect our children and our collective future. There are many fundamental disagreements about what quality education should look like, what it costs, and how it should be delivered. We've been in the middle of many of these debates in the Buckeye State over the last decade. I've in fact been accused by a lawmaker of making "erroneous and insulting accusations" aimed at not just him but his parents. This was in response to a school choice piece I wrote in a local newspaper.
Further, the screaming mobs fighting against the healthcare bill at town hall meetings are not far off from debates we've seen here in Ohio over school choice and school funding issues. I was reminded just how intensely personal education gets in today's Columbus Dispatch article, which describes how a member of an anti-levy group told the crowd, "I don't take lightly to threats....do not try to come to my front door." He was responding to a website that had been created to criticize his viewpoints; the site also posted contact information and maps to the home of a man sharing his name.
Here in Ohio, the battle over school choice and funding has been downright nasty at times, with former Attorney General Dann taking legal action to close down Dayton-area charter schools, the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris voucher decision that made its way all the way to the US Supreme Court, and the saga of the DeRolph school funding lawsuits that are still at the center of the political debate around school funding in Ohio.
The red versus blue war that Mike describes in healthcare happens in education too, although the lines have begun to blur some (at least nationally, with Obama and Duncan) on issues of charter schools and academic standards. Still, in terms of teachers unions acting as a solid blue voting bloc, and Republicans being characterized as free-market radicals (accusations scattered across our Flypaper blog)-such divides are still very real out in the states.
