The dismal economic news for Ohio keeps piling up. State revenues continue to plummet and economic forecasters are predicting a shortfall, at best, of more than $7 billion for the next two-year budget. Buckeye State government is going to have to figure out how to do more with less. This is particularly true for education, where per pupil cuts of at least 10 percent are likely. Last week, Gov.
Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Chester E. Finn, Jr., Tuesday, hailed President-elect Barack Obama's pick for education secretary.
State Rep. Larry Wolpert, R-Hilliard, is completing his fourth term in the Ohio House and will leave the General Assembly because of term limits.
The fifth in the series of biennial national and state-by-state report cards for higher education is out this month. Ohio, like much of the nation, is doing better, as usual, but not good enough.
1. He's widely (and fairly) seen as the "consensus candidate," bridging the divides between two camps within the Democratic Party (the reformers and the establishment). But he's not so much a compromise as a canvas upon which people of various persuasions can paint their hopes and dreams (much like his boss). To the reformers, he's a crusader for charter schools and merit pay.
We've already weighed in on what president-Elect Obama's selection of Arne Duncan as the next U.S. Secretary of Education may mean for education policy.
The main media "narrative" of today's ed-sec pick is that Arne Duncan was the "compromise" candidate that both reformers and the teachers union camp within the Democratic Party could abide. Fair enough. Everyone sees something in Arne Duncan that they can claim as their own.
