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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > March > 18 > Entry
School Funding: 10 years after the landmark decision
By Scott Elliott and William Hershey
Staff Writers
The changes have come fast and furious: curriculum standards, high stakes tests, school ratings and the birth of a sprawling school choice program.
In the 10 years since the Ohio Supreme Court declared the school funding system unconstitutional, Ohio has made more dramatic changes to its education system than perhaps in any comparable period in a century.
But have the changes answered the questions first posed by the court on March 24, 1997?
Even Thomas Moyer, chief justice throughout Ohio’s winding decade-long journey through four top court decisions, isn’t so sure.
“Until someone tests their action in court, we don’t know the final answer to the current system,” he said.
House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, and state Sen. Jeff Jacobson, R-Butler Twp., two of the key players shaping Ohio’s funding system in recent years, say significant improvements have been made.
They point to the billions of dollars the state has spent constructing new schools in response to complaints about the terrible state of school buildings by a coalition of more than 550 of Ohio’s 613 school districts that filed the original lawsuit challenging the state funding system.
And more recently, they say new programs to provide extra aid to poor schools are addressing the court’s concerns about the disparity between wealthy and poor districts. The system, they say, is constitutional.
But the method Ohio uses to pay for schools has few defenders in the education community. And now a new alliance of education groups — teachers unions, school boards, administrators and parents — wants voters in November to amend the constitution to take the authority to determine school funding away from the governor and legislature and put it in the hands of the state board of education and a new advisory commission.
Meanwhile, there is quiet but constant talk about other alternatives, such as finding ways to save money by getting school districts to merge.
Ten years ago the Ohio Supreme Court drew a line in the sand over school funding. Ten years later the line hasn’t completely disappeared.
“I think the inequity that continues to exist within the system is at the core of what the Supreme Court concluded was an unconstitutional feature of our current system,” said Gov. Ted Strickland, who has yet to make his own school funding proposal. “There are some wealthy areas that have all the resources they need to provide a high quality education to their students and there are other schools and districts, low-wealth districts, that have an insufficient level of resources needed to provide a quality education.”
(Image credit: Chris Stewart, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: My Favorite DDN Stories, School Funding
Comments
By Buford
March 19, 2007 8:59 AM | Link to this
Perhaps what we need is a class action lawsuit by the ACLU against any and all school boards or other entities who continue to use the in place system to attempt to extract more homage/taxes from property owners. It would seem - if property tax reliance has been deemed unconstitutional - then the ACLU would find such a case right down their alley.