CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Takeover Battle Comes To Senate

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Takeover Battle Comes To Senate

OH: Takeover Battle Comes To Senate

Our story so far: The Ohio House has passed a bill scrapping Ohio's disastrous takeover bill, HB 70. The new language was incorporated into the budget (HB 166) and, having cleared the House, must go to the Senate, where education committee chair Peggy Lehner is not particularly sympathetic to public education. So Lehner and a committee of various "interested parties" put together their own proposal for offering "relief" from HB 70. It's another version of a state takeover, packed with $20 million in pork for "consultants."

Wednesday, May 29, was the Senate's day to hold a hearing about the issue, and all the players came out of the woodwork, some offering audacious and amazing words for or against the bill, with particular emphasis on Lorain, Ohio, a city and school system that has caused all sorts of problems by refusing to roll over and play dead.

Mark Ballard, hearing MVP

But we have lots of testimony to look at, all of which paints a picture of a direct head-to-head clash between pub lic education and those who would like to privatize it.  In fact, before we wade into this, let's start with some of the testimony from Lorain School Board President Mark Ballard, because this may win the Quote of the Day award:

A new law is being crafted, in secret, AGAIN - because you admit the last two laws were ineffective - all while Lorain is dealing with the negative consequences of those bills.

Now, if this new bill is approved, we will be required to collaborate with our CEO, even though he doesn’t believe in collaboration and refuses to meet with us.

And our end goal is to create a plan that is exactly...the... same...as what we already had in place before you gave us a CEO?

Please remember this: If the state of Ohio thinks it can continue to experiment with it’s poor CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Takeover Battle Comes To Senate