School Policy Fast-Tracked, Kept Secret from State Board of Education in One-Party Ohio | janresseger

School Policy Fast-Tracked, Kept Secret from State Board of Education in One-Party Ohio | janresseger:

School Policy Fast-Tracked, Kept Secret from State Board of Education in One-Party Ohio

According to the website of the Ohio Department of Education, “The State Board of Education is made up of 19 members – 11 who are elected and eight who are appointed by the governor.”  The website does not list the political affiliation of any of the members because being on the Ohio State Board of Education involves supposedly non-political oversight. The state board appoints and oversees (supposedly) the work of the Dick Ross, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction—also supposedly a non-political position.  Except that in Ohio, a state with one-party government, things don’t work as they are supposed to.  Power is wielded by the Republican governor and huge Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature.

Patrick O’Donnell, who is to be commended for becoming a whiz investigative reporter on the abuses of public education by those in charge in Columbus, broke another story in yesterday’sPlain Dealer about how power works as policy is set around our state’s public education. O’Donnell reports that the new plan that was fast-tracked through the legislature for the Youngstown schools and, in the future, other struggling school districts—a plan that resembles Michigan’s emergency manager plan and the kind of state-oversight school districts that operate in Louisiana and Tennessee—was designed with the active involvement of Ohio’s state school superintendent Dick Ross, but that Dick Ross kept the evolving plan a secret from the state board of education that appointed him and to whom he reports.  Members of the state board, particularly the Democrats, are furious. This was all in the works as members of the state board took a field trip in May to visit schools in Youngstown and consult with educators there about how to support this district—one of Ohio’s poorest.

O’Donnell reports: “State Supt. Dick Ross never told the state school board that he was helping with the secret improvement plan for the Youngstown schools that was rushed through the legislature and was just signed into law.  Even as he offered guidance since late last year.  And even as the board planned, took, and discussed a trip to Youngstown to review how an existing improvement plan was working. Board members said they spent a day visiting schools, talking to parents and school leaders about what was working and what wasn’t, completely unaware that Ross had been working with another group of city leaders there on a plan.  That new plan was amended to HB 70 in a mad dash late last month, blasting from introduction to passage by both Houses of the legislature in a single day without any School Policy Fast-Tracked, Kept Secret from State Board of Education in One-Party Ohio | janresseger: