On the same day that Ohio's legislature begins deliberating his biennial budget proposal (which counts on $3.4 billion in federal stimulus money), Governor Ted Strickland is warning that the Senate version of the stimulus bill is ???????hugely harmful.??????? According to the Columbus Dispatch, the Senate measure (which reduces Ohio's share by close to $1 billion) ???????threatens Ohio with a tuition increase for 40 percent of public-college students, the loss of thousands of state- and local-government jobs, closure of two ???????medium-sized' prisons, and 50,000 fewer people receiving mental-health services.???????
The governor hasn't indicated what a reduction in federal aid would mean for his plan to increase state spending on K-12 education by $925 million over the next two years (and by even more for the next six years after that). But, it's a safe bet that the state employee union (whose members are already facing across-the-board pay cuts and layoffs), mental health advocates, colleges and universities, and others won't easily swallow additional cuts to their budgets and the programs they care about while local school coffers continue to fill up.
Even if Strickland gets the federal aid he's hoping for, his education reform plan isn't without critics. The Dayton Daily News observed:
After two years of listening to briefings about the issue, apparently [Governor Strickland] has decided that having a more uniform approach to running schools would result in the quicker adoption of best practices, and that some important decisions simply have to come from the top.
If you like what the "top" wants, no problem. If you don't, well, try fighting Capitol Square and the Ohio Department of Education. It won't be easy.
Will local communities and school leaders????????and more specifically the lawmakers who represent them????????be willing to accept the rigid, state-mandated operating standards, staffing rules, and other regulations that are part of the governor's plan?
