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Strickland, Kasich disagree on school funding
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Governor John Kasich
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Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
In a defining moment in the Ohio governor’s race, Gov. Ted Strickland and his rival in the fall election are locking horns over the new public- schools funding system on which Strickland has staked his governorship.
Republican John Kasich says the plan is unfunded and should be scrapped. Democrat Strickland says it’s transformative and calls Kasich reckless.
The system, called the “evidence-based model,” was enacted as part of last year’s state budget to address a previous funding system that the Ohio Supreme Court had repeatedly found unconstitutional.
The disagreement crystallizes political differences between the major-party candidates seeking to control a key presidential battleground state ahead of the 2012 elections.
It is the third call by Kasich, a former congressman, presidential candidate, Fox News commentator and investment banker, to do away with an existing government program.
He also has called for the elimination of the state income tax over an unspecified period and the shuttering of the state Development Department in favor of a private, nonprofit board of corporate executives.
Strickland, by contrast, defends government’s role in areas such as extending public-health benefits to more children or using federal stimulus dollars to build a high-speed rail line or retain teachers.
The philosophical divide was apparent in Wednesday’s political sparring over schools.
Through a spokesman, Kasich eviscerated Strickland’s funding scheme as an unfunded pipe dream.
“John Kasich will liberate schools from expensive unfunded mandates and instead help local schools make their dollars go further by freeing local schools from Strickland’s one-size-fits-all mandate regime — helping schools share services to increase efficiency, and make better use of technology to enhance kids’ learning experience,” said spokesman Rob Nichols.
Strickland called Kasich irresponsible for wanting to do away with the plan. He said significant time has been spent by his administration, lawmakers and a bipartisan implementing council to iron out how it will be phased in.
He said the disagreement revealed “a major fault line” between the two candidates’ beliefs, defending what Kasich called mandates as accountability measures.
“When the congressman talks about getting rid of mandates, I’m not sure exactly what mandates he’s talking about,” Strickland said at a news conference.
Under the old funding system, Ohio officials determined how much the state wanted to spend on education, then divided the money among school districts, with special consideration for those in poorer areas.
The new funding system gives aid to school districts based on the cost of funding a high-quality education. The costs are determined using the latest research findings about everything from class size to teacher training to testing. It also calls for reducing the amount of money that comes from local property taxes, which was a central reason why the old system was found unconstitutional four times.