PROJECT CHALKBOARD Rally to focus on school funding

The effort culminates next month in Columbus.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
CHAMPION -- Raising awareness in Columbus of effects of the school funding crisis is the aim of a program that will stop next week at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center.
Project Chalkboard, a project from the Equal Education and Fair Taxation Task Force, will conduct a rally at 5:30 p.m. April 15 at the center.
The task force started in 2003 as a "grass-roots response to continued inaction on the part of the Governor and General Assembly in reforming Ohio's system of funding public education," according to the organization's Web site at fixtheschools.org.
In 1997 and subsequent years, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Ohio's school funding system is unconstitutional. But the Legislature hasn't changed the system.
Gov. Bob Taft established a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Financing Student Success in early 2003 to recommend a method to fix school funding.
"They've come to no conclusions," said Mary Ann Isak, co-chairwoman of the Equal Education and Fair Taxation Task Force. "They decided they need to meet for another five months and I suspect that in another five months, we'll be exactly where we are now and that's nowhere."
Another view
Roger Samuelson, a TCTC and Champion school board member, said some legislators don't really think there's a problem.
"Some people think that school districts just want more money for this and more money for that," Samuelson said. "Sure, we'd all like to have more resources, but the system doesn't work."
Representatives from all Trumbull County school districts and the public are invited to attend.
TCTC's participation is a joint effort among employee unions, board members and administrators, he said.
Isak, a former Norton City school board member, stressed that it's a bipartisan effort.
"It's for school districts to be able to explain to their people how the school funding crisis is affecting them specifically," she said.
The yearlong Project Chalkboard effort culminates with five caravans from across the state meeting May 5 in Columbus.
"I actually had a Republican legislator tell me that no election has been won or lost as a result of an educational issue," said Isak, who is a registered Republican.
"We want to bring awareness to people that their selection of people that they pick to represent them does have an impact on them."
denise_dick@vindy.com