Ohio Dems join suit to fix school funding

The federal court is being asked to enforce a state court ruling on funding.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Ohio Senate Democratic Caucus has joined a federal court lawsuit seeking to force Ohio to revamp its school funding system.
Sens. Marc Dann of Liberty, D-32nd, and Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown, D-33rd, announced the filing of a "friend of the court" brief Monday with the federal Southern District Court in Columbus.
The filing supports the Doe v. State of Ohio federal lawsuit, which is asking the court to force Ohio to provide adequate funding for all school pupils.
It's a companion case to the DeRolph v. State of Ohio case filed 10 years ago in which the state Supreme Court ruled that Ohio's education funding system is unconstitutional, Dann said.
The state has essentially ignored that ruling, and now the Ohio Legal Rights Service, with the backing of Senate Democrats, is asking the federal court to intervene, Hagan said.
"The Senate Democrats have filed this brief to show we support the Ohio Legal Rights Service's goals of trying to achieve adequate funding for all students," Hagan said, accusing the Republican-controlled Legislature of failing to address the issue.
Both senators were critical of charter schools' drawing off state educational funding.
What's been happening
Instead, Ohio has increasingly given charter schools more funding, hurting public schools and forcing them to rely too heavily on tax levies to cover school funding, he said.
Over the last three years, charter school enrollment has risen from 21,342 to 65,673 while state funding of charter schools has climbed from $139 million to $483 million, Hagan said.
Last year's state budget bill made changes that actually provided school districts with $400 million less than the previous budget, Dann said.
Dann noted that White Hat Management of Akron, the largest operator of charter schools in Ohio, received $120 million in the last state budget.
That loss of revenue forces school districts to be more reliant on tax levies to make ends meet, Hagan said.
Schools should be going after the state to pay its fair share of education, not to the taxpayers asking for more property tax revenue, he continued.
He asked how can schools continue to ask voters for more money when the state is ignoring its responsibility.
gwin@vindy.com