Ohio's history is rich with inventors: The Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison were born here, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame is located in Akron. Perhaps, then, it's that Buckeye spirit of creating something new that inspired Governor Ted Strickland to re-invent the wheel when it comes to recruiting new teachers into hard to teach districts and schools.
One aim of Strickland's audacious education reform plan is to entice "excellent undergraduate students" to become teachers. Great! The governor could start by amending Ohio's licensure and collective bargaining rules to make the Buckeye State compatible with Teach for America and The New Teacher Project. Ohio already sees hundreds of its top college students apply to TFA and TNTP each year, and applications are on the rise. If Ohio opened the doors to TFA and TNTP, then some of this talent and energy could stay in the state as teachers and Ohio would benefit from an influx of these teachers from other states. Plus, the effort wouldn't cost taxpayers much money beyond teacher salaries as TFA and TNTP leverage private dollars to fund the programs.
Instead, Strickland is proposing new, state-funded scholarships for college students who want to teach in hard-to-staff subjects and schools, the same niche TFA and TNTP would serve. The governor's "Ohio Teaching Fellows" scholarship is part of a proposed $6.1-million-per-year "Teach Ohio" teacher recruitment effort. If the governor weren't asking state employees to take up to 6 percent across-the-board pay cuts, reducing the budgets of 33 state agencies, raising 120 state fees by more than $236 million, and still needing at least $3.4 billion from the federal government to balance the state's budget, then perhaps we could afford to embark on this effort. But given the state's fiscal woes, it would be smarter for the Buckeye State to jump on the TFA and TNTP wagon.
