Obama and Ohio's Dems race to victory--now they must get along

November 5, 2008

It's a cliché, perhaps, but one worth repeating. The real winners in Tuesday's election are the people of Ohio. An incredible number turned out to vote (rivaling the record set in 2004), and a clear majority delivered the state's electoral votes to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. As Thomas Friedman observed in today's New York Times, this election was not only a complete rejection of President George Bush, but also "a rebellion against a traditional Democratic version of the common good-that is simply the sum of all interest groups clamoring for their share" (see here).

Now, Obama's historic election as president of the United States sets the stage for a clash between Obama's reform-minded idealism and the entrenched interests of his party. Education will be a central front in this struggle, and how it plays out nationally will impact what happens in Ohio.

Specifically, it is easy to contrast Obama, who appears to be an educational free-thinker looking for solutions, with Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and the soon-to-be majority Ohio House Democrats. Up to now, Strickland and his fellow Dems have been joined at the hip with the teacher unions, which have largely "had it up to here" with the Republican education-reform efforts of the last decade. Those efforts, mirroring what has happened in other states, have brought accountability through state standards, statewide testing with high-stakes attached to the results, and value-added measures to gauge progress. Importantly, these reforms have also provided

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Obama and Ohio's Dems race to victory--now they must get along

School boards must be better stewards of hard-earned urban tax dollars

November 5, 2008

Passage of all the school levies on the ballot in Dayton, Columbus, Toledo, and Youngstown is a good sign of increasing support for education where it's needed most. The Gadfly knows that school districts don't always spend wisely or frugally but we also know that, in Ohio's largest and most economically depressed urban areas, public schools are getting hammered financially. They need the money. The success of levies in these four cities stands in contrast to the mixed bag of results in the 237 issues statewide.

Results are especially mixed in the suburbs, where upwardly mobile voters once helped with ballot-box success. For example, in suburban Columbus, which arguably has faired better economically than the rest of the state, four of eight levy requests were shot down. It's also useful to contrast Dayton, where a levy is needed just to keep the district afloat, and the effort in Columbus, where the money will be used to push the district forward, in part by hiring more teachers and establishing special college-prep schools.

Here's a look at the issues voters approved in Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown:

• Columbus voters approved a 8.96-mill issue that combines a 7.85-mill operating levy (three years) and a 1.13-mill bond issue for 24 years. The operating levy will pay for restoring one period cut from the school day, hiring more teachers and counselors, and opening four regional college-prep schools. The bond issue will pay to replace or renovate 10 to

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  School boards must be better stewards of hard-earned urban tax dollars