Stephen Dyer follows education in Ohio, where the General Assembly is preparing to shaft poor, minority kids in order to subsidize private school for wealthy families.
The so-called Fair School Funding Plan — the state’s second effort to calculate and fund the needs of every student in every school district (after the Evidence Based Model, which I developed with then-Gov. Ted Strickland while I was in the General Assembly in 2009) — was supposed to be phased in over 3 budgets, or six years. The state largely kept its promise during the first two budgets.
But will it continue this year? Especially given current House Speaker Matt Huffman’s position that taxpayers should subsidize wealthy parents’ private school tuition bills — and even pay for those private school buildings, which no other state has done.
For his part, Gov. Mike DeWine did follow through (for the most part) on the promise with his introduced budget. But there’s no question where the real power on Capital Square lies — in the Speaker’s chair.
Huffman claims that fully funding the plan is “unsustainable”, even though his plan that created a $1 billion plus taxpayer subsidy for private school tuition somehow is sustainable. Since that $1 billion program is NOT audited by the state while every dollar spent in public schools is, one would think that someone as sincerely concerned for our tax dollars as Huffman might be concerned that $1 billion literally can’t be accounted for.
But I digress.
So let’s assume that Huffman will take the $347 million remaining to fully fund the Fair School Funding Plan, which is unsustainable, and give even greater tuition subsidies to wealthy parents, which apparently is sustainable.
What would that mean for the 1.6 million Ohio students attending its public schools?
Simple: If you’re poor, minority kid living in Ohio’s urban communities, you’re going to get screwed.
