Kasich: Education will lead to new jobs

Increased job training urged; Dems say their policies spurred growth.

Tony Dejak/Associated Press Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivers his State of the State address Tuesday in Steubenville.

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Blog: Blog: Recap of the address
Video: Watch the address At newstalkradiowhio.com

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By Laura A. Bischoff, Staff Writer Updated 8:52 AM Wednesday, February 8, 2012

STEUBENVILLE — Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday said that jobs in manufacturing, logistics and other industries are moving back, but the state needs to revamp public education and align work force training to match job openings.

In his State of the State speech, Kasich said Ohio has picked up 43,500 jobs and climbed from being ranked 48th in job creation to ninth and is No. 1 in the Midwest.

“We are alive again. We are out of the ditch,” he said.

The state’s unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent in December 2011, down from 9.5 percent a year earlier, just before Kasich took office.

Honda, Chrysler, U.S. Steel and other companies have announced major investments and hiring plans. Ohio’s sales tax and income tax revenues are running slightly ahead of projections, according to a monthly financial report due out next week.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said in a press conference that credit for the turnaround belongs to President Barack Obama and former Gov. Ted Strickland, particularly since they supported a federal bailout of Chrysler and General Motors.

“They stopped the bleeding,” he said.

Kasich said he is asking four-year universities to commercialize their research, collaborate to avoid duplicative programs and step up the graduation rates.

He is also pushing community colleges to align courses with available jobs and is asking businesses to forecast what sort of skills they need in future employees so that they can be trained.

“If we can train, if we can educate, forecast, use our location, use our great people, use our resources, use our assets, we’ll be the No. 1 state in America,” Kasich said.

Mike Freed, senior consultant of the Workforce Development Division at Sinclair Community College, agreed with Kasich’s points about rebounding manufacturing and encouraging young people to pursue work in the field. He said the manufacturing sector remains strong in the Miami Valley.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t get a call from an employer who wants to hire one of my students,” Freed said. “There is clearly a rebound, no question, and fewer people to fill the jobs that are available.”

Kasich noted that only 65 percent of students in Ohio’s urban districts graduate high school and 41 percent of high school graduates end up taking remedial math and English classes in college.

“We can change urban education in Ohio, and we can change urban education in America. And that is worth fighting for and worth risking for,” Kasich said.

Kasich said he is eager to see how Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s new K-12 education reform package works. Jackson wants to eliminate seniority rules for layoffs and make performance a key factor in deciding how much teachers are paid.

State Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton, a former Dayton school board member, said what works in Cleveland may not work in Dayton. “We have a long way to go,” he said.

Normally, governors deliver the State of the State address in Columbus. Kasich moved the speech 160 miles east to Steubenville High School and Wells Academy, an adjacent school with 215 preschool through fourth-grade students.

Wells Academy boasts the highest scores on state achievement tests: 100 percent of third- and fourth-graders tested met the state standards for math and reading last school year.

Kasich said Ohio needs to use Wells Academy and other successful schools as blueprints for overhauling those that are failing.

Brian Cayot, Centerville High School math teacher and president of Centerville Classroom Teachers Association, said Kasich wants to reward districts for doing well yet cut funding across the board.

“(In Centerville) we’re the highest rated — ‘Excellent with Distinction’ — according to the state report card, but at the same time they’re taking our money,” Cayot said.

He noted that even Steubenville Schools and Wells Academy in particular, which Kasich said were to be emulated, took a funding cut last year.

Regarding the voucher program that Kasich wants to expand from 30,000 to 60,000, Oakwood Superintendent Mary Jo Scalzo said the premise of making schools meet the needs of all students is sound, but the playing field has to be level.

“Right now, the parameters shift,” she said. “The whole premise of charter schools is to provide schools that can be innovative by releasing them from the bureaucratic shackles that some have. But why not release all schools from those shackles? Why not make all schools accountable?”

Kasich said he is working with the Ohio congressional delegation to convince the Federal Aviation Administration to approve Ohio airspace for the testing of unmanned aerial vehicles. “This could change the whole face of Ohio,” he told the crowd.

State Rep. Jim Butler, R-Oakwood, agreed. “That is really going to be an important part of the future of aviation,” he said.

Michael Gessel, a vice president of the Dayton Development Coalition, which advocates for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, praised Kasich’s comments.

“We’re delighted that the governor highlighted the importance of unmanned aerial vehicles for Ohio’s economic development,” Gessel said Tuesday.

Kasich spoke for 83 minutes without extensive notes or a TelePrompTer as he skipped through a long list of what he says he has done and what he still wants to do as Ohio’s 69th governor.

During the address, Kasich presented one of the first Governor’s Courage Awards to the family of Army Spc. Jesse Adam Snow, a 2003 Fairborn High School graduate who was killed in Afghanistan in November 2010.

More than 120 protesters outside the site of the address urged Kasich to hold off on allowing hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells.

Residents near the wells and environmentalists are urging caution.

Ohio is on the cusp of a potential oil and gas boom as energy companies look to tap into the Utica Shale deposits in the eastern part of the state.

Staff writers Jill Kelley, John Nolan and Steve Bennish contributed to this report.

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