BOARDMAN, Ohio – Ohio public schools have has fallen victim to rightwing dogma that private enterprise can do a better job of providing public services – including education – than government, says former Gov. Ted Strickland.
Strickland led a group of six educators and a member of the state school board to Boardman High School Monday night for a public forum to rebut this belief. The group would reverse privatization efforts enacted by the state Legislature and signed into law by Strickland’s successor, John Kasich.
Among these efforts are vouchers and charter schools. In too many case, these funds they get from Columbus go illegally to religious schools that masquerade as public charter schools, Strickland said.
Not only do most charter schools do a worse job of educating children they lure from public schools, they have made rich the men who founded these systems, men who have contributed generously to Republican campaign coffers, Strickland said in a press conference before a panel discussion at the school.
Such people are more interested in making a profit than improving the quality of learning although they pretend otherwise, he said.
In the meantime, public school systems find themselves strapped because voters turn down levies to make up for the reduced funding from Columbus, said Strickland and William L. Phillis, executive director of Ohio Coalition for Equity & Advocacy of School Learning. Phillis is also a former superintendent of the Salem school district and the man Strickland credited for bringing the DeRolph case before the Ohio Supreme Court.
In 1997 and again in 2001, the court declared unconstitutional the state’s reliance on property taxes to fund public schools, citing the disparity between rich districts and poor districts, and ordered the state Legislature to remedy the situation.
The Legislature failed to do so – twice. After its third ruling in 2003, the court gave up -- surrendered Strickland lamented.
The current Legislature’s failure to restore funding to public schools despite an improved economy on track to create an $800 million surplus alarmed the panel on stage last night: Kern Alexander, a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois billed as a “nationally acclaimed school finance expert”; Steve Dyer, education fellow at Innovation Ohio and a former state representative; Dick Murray with the Muskingum Valley Education Service Center; Ron Iarussi, superintendent of the Mahoning County Education Service Center; Frank Lazzeri, superintendent of Boardman schools; Deborah Cain, a member of the Ohio Board of Education; and Strickland and Phillis.
Also present were state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-33 Canfield, who sits on the Senate education committee; and state representatives Ron Gerberry D-59 Austintown, and Robert Hagan, D-60 Youngstown.
Privatizing education “is bad for democracy,” Strickland said. “It’s simply wrong.”
What passes for education reform and efforts to assure accountability, including the standard state tests, lead to a “manufacturing mentality” of education where “children are interchangeable parts, like widgets. Each child is different and can’t be treated as widget”
While some children benefit, the former governor said, “the majority are left behind and this is harmful to our society. … We need to value public education [which results from] fair and constitutional funding.”
The nation that has the best school system in the world, Finland, values education and accords its teachers with a respect that Americans accord physicians and lawyers, Strickland said. The lack of respect Americans show teachers is one reason why American students ranks 25th in the world, he suggested.
One reason the Finns have the best schools is “they stress equity,” Strickland said.
The cutbacks in funding have caused Ohio public schools to eliminate art and music program and third and four years of foreign languages. Such trends do not make the children brought up in this state more competitive or prepare them to go against foreign students in a global economy, the panelists agreed.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.