The year is 1997. George Clooney debuts as Batman, "The English Patient" wins Best Picture, and Google.com is first registered as a domain name. The world has changed dramatically since then.
Google is slightly more than just a domain name; Clooney has been replaced as Batman several times over; and the recent Best Picture winners have been much worse than "The English Patient." But what has not changed is the political fight in Ohio over education funding that was set ablaze by the 1997 Ohio Supreme Court decision DeRolph v. State.
Since DeRolph, legislators have overhauled the education funding formula not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in the past 30 years. Four different gubernatorial administrations have attacked this problem,
with each new attempt leading to newer, but somehow familiar, fights from the usual suspects in the political arena.
Thirty years of the same fight
My time as president and vice president on my local school board fell during the last two overhauls in particular, and I heard every argument about every potential pitfall of each of them. I learned two important lessons during this experience.
First, like everything else in our current political environment, professional activists on both sides of the fight have dragged education funding policy into the sharp partisan divide that animates our country.
Second, the rhetoric and hostility between the two sides have forgotten that our job is to provide kids with the opportunities that work best for them. Not for those trying to win a political fight, but the kids the system is supposedto serve.
Some teachers unions and public school enthusiasts treat private schools and charter schools with outright contempt, despite the obvious reality that those environments do provide a better fit for many kids in our state. And school choice advocates often forget that for many in Ohio, the public school system in many communities isn’t just the only option − it’s the best option. Letting public schools fail is not acceptable and is particularly cruel to many in Northwest and Southeast Ohio where the communities revolve around strong, healthy public school systems.
Our state needs both traditional public schools and private schools to give Ohio families the opportunities they need. Providing funding for both is not a radical proposal; it’s a necessity. But with taxpayer dollars in play, transparency is a requirement.
An improvement that can be made to our current system is the passage of House Bill 715. This bill is an effort by Gayle Manning and local legislator and former St. Xavier teacher Mike Odioso to require annual reporting for chartered nonpublic schools that mirrors what public schools are required to report, including enrollment, the amount of state funding received, and other metrics that taxpayers deserve to see.
If both systems are to receive public dollars, then they must both meet the same standards of transparency. This is common sense, and I’m glad to see Manning and Odioso push for this reform. The ability for families to find a schooling option that works best for their kids is a winner for Ohio. So is keeping track of our public investments.
Ohioans deserve better than rehashing the same fight since "Titanic" graced the big screen. Ordinary people need to demand that our elected leaders ignore the noise of paid activists and partisan politics and make sure that all Ohio schools have the resources they need and that they are held accountable for our investment.
Our kids will be better for it.
Nancy Aichholz is the Republican candidate for Ohio House District 27. She lives in Indian Hill.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio schools need funding, choice and accountability | Opinion
