Monday, February 8, 2010

Strickland is cutting school funding, and schools are noticing.

In Strickland's recent State of the State speech, Governor Strickland attempted to use lyrical gymnastics to avoid the fact that he had cut state funding for education.

Well, this cut is real, whether he likes it or not, and it's being felt throughout the education community.
Rising costs, state funding cuts and a drop in property values are causing school districts to struggle to keep out of debt.

Schools continue to ask their communities to fill the financial gap through operating levies based on property taxes. But, as the economy stays stagnant, districts are finding cash-strapped voters reluctant to pay additional taxes.

[...]

Schools are experiencing increased costs because of growth in enrollment, increasing health insurance premiums and rising costs of supplies and materials, and salary negotiations, among other things. But they are seeing a reduction in state funding based on recent reallocations under Gov. Ted Strickland’s education plan.
Nearly four years ago, Ted Strickland said his Administration should be considered a failure if school funding wasn't fixed under his watch.

Clearly, the educational communities in counties like Warren have a clear understanding of the Governor's failure to live up to his promise. The question then becomes, how much of an effect will it have on the Governor's re-election effort?

Rhetoric like his from four years ago can easily come back to haunt a campaign. Of course, a clear failure like this one isn't enough to disable a campaign, but it does provide Kasich an opportunity to knock Strickland off the tracks for a few days during key points in the fall.

Usually a pretty safe Dem voting bloc, many teachers in Ohio are not happy with Governor Strickland. Whether their unhappiness is enough to pull the lever for John Kasich or even not vote at all is yet to be determined, but Strickland clearly has some work to do.

8 comments:

  1. You left out the impact of Strickland's change in the teacher to student ratio from 1 to 25 to 1 to 19. This made our new high school designed around a 1 to 25 ratio immediately obsolete. This was done last summer when everyone knew we were in budget trouble.

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  2. Yeah, because Warren County was in play? LOL. If you lived in Ohio, let alone Warren County, you'd realize that the Little Miami school districct has been struggling with a deficit problem for years now. You'd also know that Kasich's plan to "shrink government" by reducing state revenues up to over 40% is not going to make things EASIER for schools.

    So, tell us, oh wise Keeling, how John Kasich is going to reduce school district's reliance on property taxes under his income and estate tax repeals? We've been waiting for him to explain that since 2007.

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  3. Thanks for the top, Anonymous.

    As for Modern, your obsession with my blog continues, as does your obnoxious behavior. If you want to have a civil discussion, great. If not, please go somewhere else.

    As for your comment, I think you're missing the bigger picture of the story - that being state funding for schools has been cut across the board throughout the state, and it's not going to make teachers happy. Warren County is simply an example.

    As for Kasich, I first find it interesting that you incline to deflect from Strickland's failures and try to talk about Kasich. We'll know about his plan when he announces it. Plain and Simple. And as I've gone over time and time again, I hope he doesn't announce it until the voters are paying attention. Seeing as you seem to believe it will be nothing but a negative for him, I'd imagine you'd hope for the same thing.

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  4. Say it with me, "Strickland cut school funding."

    Olentangy LSD is facing a $12.7M funding shortfall "because of state budget cuts."

    http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/01/23/olentangy_cuts.ART_ART_01-23-10_B1_HKGCRFC.html?sid=101

    Strickland didn't cut taxes, he cut school funding. Nice work by the "Education Governor."

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  5. Keeling--

    Thank you for admitting that this entire post is crap because John Kasich has no announced plans to do better than Strickland on public school funding.

    That's the problem with your attack. You're trying to attack the Governor when Kasich does not even claim, let alone make a credible claim that he'd do any better.

    Quit pretending that Kasich has a plan when both he and his running mate have been quoted in the papers as admitting that he has no plans, even though he's been actively running for Governor since 2007.

    The fact is that public schools are going to face substantial cuts if Kasich's tax plan is put into place. There's simply no way for Kasich to avoid this.

    Which is why you won't see Kasich mention this and why your attacks fall flat.

    You can't write about one side of the race and then ignore yours. The average voter isn't going to look at this issue in the vacuum you're trying to present it in.

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  6. Wow...

    "You can't write about one side of the race and then ignore yours."

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  7. For a supposed attorney, he doesn't come off as particularly bright, does he? The fact of the matter is, until Kasich presents his plans for taxation and budgetary issues, there is no way to know what ramifications they'll have for schools or any other area of the state government. It's not clear to me why M.E. is being so obtuse about the subject.

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  8. Personally, I'm glad something was cut, even education. I wish more programs were cut.

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