Ohio Sunday Papers – Casinos: State Newspapers No Likey

• Huron County’s 18.3% unemployment rate – Associated Press
• State making more records available online – Columbus Dispatch
• Banks face long climb – Cincinnati Enquirer
• New Schools Fall Short of Strickland’s Standards – Columbus Dispatch
• Editorial: Fool’s Gold (Casinos) – Toledo Blade
• Editorial: False Promises (Casinos) – Columbus Dispatch
• Editorial: Highway Funds, er, Safety – Toledo Blade
• Editorial: Strickland – Let Charter Schools Bloom – The Plain Dealer
• Editorial: Trust in Change (Higher Ed) – Akron Beacon-Journal
• Op-Ed, Dennis Willard: Big Brother, Big Brother, big money – Akron Beacon-Journal
• Op-Ed, David Skolnick: Congressman Ryan Man of the Hour – Youngstown Vindicator
• Op-Ed, Thomas Suddes: Gambling Promoters & Their Self Serving Ideas – The Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Jonathan Riskind: Pollution plan fuels bipartisan fight – Columbus Dispatch
• Op-Ed, Joe Hallett: Ohio needs to upgrade Capitol statuary – Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Budget Process On Hold Until Rep. Morgan Works His Way Through Strickland’s Bibliography

I got a chuckle out of this from the Associated Press today:

The House also announced it would delay final action on the budget until after its spring break, pushing expected passage from late March into mid-April. The spending plan has to make it through both the House and Senate before July 1.

One frustrated member of the House Finance committee, Republican Seth Morgan, filed a second public records request with Gov. Ted Strickland seeking a road map to understanding his “evidence-based” school-funding formula.

Morgan’s first request was met with an almost 400-source bibliography of studies and reports upon which the formula is based.

For as long it would take for a child to be born and advance all the way into junior high school, Republicans were in charge of both houses of the Ohio General Assembly.  They had the Governor’s Office for four years longer than that.  What did they do about public education in Ohio?  Not a freaking thing.

Ted Strickland has been all over the state and worked with groups interested in fairly funding public ed and providing a 21st century curriculum for two years.  He’s put his plan out there.  If you’ve got particular issues, bring them up.  But guess what Seth? Evidence-based study is not some right wing home schoolin’ methodology.  It means the Governor and others have gone through an intellectual process.  The road map is that bibliography.  You might want to get reading …

Ohio Sunday Papers – It’s the Economy and Education with a smattering of Fisher, Brunner

• Editorial: Lawmakers must stop Strickland from killing charter schools – The Plain Dealer
• Editorial: Governor needs to tweek how he pays for education reform – Akron Beacon Journal
• Editorial: No Stimulus for Teardown – Toledo Blade
• Op-Ed, William Hershey: Ohio Dems Face Likely ‘Family Fued’ – Dayton Daily News
• Op-Ed, Thomas Suddes: Will Ohio House Dems Hold Together on Budget? – The Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Joe Hallett: Governor Sinned a Bit in Securing Manna from Washington – Columbus Dispatch
• Welfare rolls soaring in Ohio – Columbus Dispatch
• Toledo aid agencies fear what’s over horizon – Toledo Blade
• Late bill payments cost state – Columbus Dispatch
• Big repairs needed for U.S. automakers – Toledo Blade
• How would you spend $500 million taxpayer dollars? – The Plain Dealer
• Dems’ fight a cost of success – Cincinnati Enquirer
• Op-Ed, Dennis Willard: Race crucial for Fisher, Brunner – Akron Beacon Journal
• Brunner: Senate bid not a conflict – Columubus Dispatch
• Ohio tries to clean up payday lending one more time – The Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Jonathan Riskind: Obama’s economic plans leave some edgy, angry – Columbus Dispatch
• Development board’s City Center planning only quasi-public – Columbus Dispatch
• Farmland disappearing – Columbus Dispatch
• Preservationists hope to see some stimulus – Columbus Dispatch
• Ohio businesses must file sales taxes electronically for first time this year – The Plain Dealer
• Ohio officials OK new workers compensation program – Dayton Daily News\
• KELLY PAVLIK COVERAGE – The Youngstown Vindicator

Ohio Newsbreak – State Budget Coverage

• State of Pain – Columbus Dispatch
• Budget winners and losers – Columbus Dispatch
• School funding plan not so simple – Columbus Dispatch
• Pay cuts, medical facilities stir outcry – Columbus Dispatch
• Higher fees a tax hike? – Columbus Dispatch
• GOP leaders troubled by one time budget money – Columbus Dispatch
• Federal money for federal debt – Columbus Dispatch
• Governor Strickland’s transportation plan – The Plain Dealer
• Budget effect on NE Ohio schools – The Plain Dealer
• New and increased fees – The Plain Dealer
• Strickland reveals budget – The Plain Dealer

If You Read One Thing This Sunday …

… read David Leonhardt’s long piece in the NYT Magazine.

If you’re from Ohio and watching the debate over Gov. Strickland’s education plan, you will get some additional perspective on the long term importance of a world class education system.  Additionally, you may understand what Strickland means by “evidence-based.” Leonhardt’s article highlights successes in other parts of the country with education policies that sound like what our Governor has in mind ….

Full Text: Gov. Ted Strickland, Ohio State of the State, January 28, 2009 | Ohio’s Economic Future & A New Plan for Education

(Source: Office of the Governor)

Governor Strickland’s 2009 State of the State address

I’d like to first recognize that one of Ohio’s great leaders, Senate President Bill Harris, was not able to be with us today. I know that he is in all of our thoughts and prayers, and we wish him a very speedy recovery.

Speaker Budish, Senate President Pro Tem Niehaus, Leader Batchelder and Leader Cafaro, Lt. Governor Fisher, statewide elected officials, members of the Cabinet, members of the General Assembly and the Supreme Court, distinguished guests, First Lady Frances Strickland, and my fellow Ohioans…

There was a time when Ohio State University played its football games on a dusty field surrounded by a humble collection of wooden bleachers.

Back then, OSU played teams from universities and small private colleges. They even scheduled a game against the soldiers from an army camp in Chillicothe.

Just after World War I came to an end there was a painful combination of high inflation and high unemployment that produced economic misery in Ohio and across the nation.

It was a truly frightening moment – hardly the time for a bold new idea.

Read more

Ohio Sunday Papers: January 11, 2009 – Education, Homebuilders, Gambling Debate, Salmonella, Ohio Legislature, UT, BGSU, Casinos, Budget Cuts

• Op-Ed, Dennis Willard: Economy easy to blame – Akron Beacon Journal
• Strickland cracks door on casinos – The Plain Dealer
• Gambling proponents to try again – Toledo Blade
• Editorial: That Gambling Itch – Akron Beacon Journal
• Casino backers not giving up in Ohio – Dayton Daily News
• Op-Ed: Time for casinos in Ohio – The Plain Dealer
• Editorial: Comity in the legislature – Toledo Blade
• Op-Ed, Thomas Suddes: Auspicious beginning for Budish – The Plain Dealer
• New faces abound in local Statehouse delegation – Dayton Daily News
• Editorial: Ohio public universities and colleges need to cut to – The Plain Dealer
• Editorial: Ohio Supreme Court and Public Information – The Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Jonathan Riskind: Homebuilders want stimulus to help home buyers – Columbus Dispatch
• Salmonella prompts Ohio peanut butter recall – Associated Press
• UT, BGSU pledge more cooperation – Toledo Blade
• District leaders call 2008 turning point – Columbus Dispatch
• Nothing goes to waste – Columbus Dispatch
• Investors want tally of salvaged gold – Columbus Dispatch
• D.C. Dispatches – Columbus Dispatch
• Rehab effort no deal for city – Columbus Dispatch
• Editorial: One of the shuttles must rest in Dayton – Dayton Daily News
• Rep. Fudge committee assignments – The Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Aaron Marshall: Budish begins leaving mark – The Plain Dealer

Ohio School Funding Has Me Seeing Red Today, Literally

It’s no wonder school funding in Ohio makes folks see red. What I got in my mailbox today, did, literally.

Notice to the left an image of the cover of some publication or other the wife and I received today from the Ohio Department of Taxation. This bad boy is all orange, red and scary. One minute you’re leafing through a handful of junk mail and in a second you are assaulted with this catalog-sized publication, seemingly on fire in your very hands, screaming: TAXES FOR SCHOOLS!

I wanted to weep. We’re just trying to get the credit card balance back to zero after Christmas. The Four Horseman of the American Economic Apocalypse may be just around the corner and I’m staring into the Great Seal of the State of Ohio with a nuclear burst in the center and the words, “2008 School District Income Tax Return and Instructions.” To add insult to my heightened senses, this document has pages and pages.

Well, this will be our first tax year in Ohio. I grew up here, went to college at Ohio University and then left for 15 or 16 years. I never owned property here and thought that my school district taxes were property-based and bundled into my mortgage like back in Illinois. I didn’t know there was ‘rigamarole.’

But then, this says, “School District Income Tax …”. Huh? I knew moving to Bexley, Ohio the property taxes were high because of the good city services and school system. What’s this with another income tax? I guess I’m going to have to read this damn book.

One hint to the marketing folks at Taxation. Taxes already make people see red – whether they willingly pay them, like me, or join the local chapter of Posse Comitatus, like others. I would suggest you adjust your color palette more to the muted blues or greens.

Well, I guess I know how I’ll spend the next hour or two …

John McCain Administration Would Throw in the Towel on Public Education

From Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech at the RNC in Minneapolis:

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parent — when it fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them.

Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have the choice, and their children will have that opportunity.

If a public school is failing doesn’t it deserve to be reformed?  Just because we have let what used to be a crown jewel in the American experience — public education — fall on hard times, doesn’t mean we abandon this noble cause.

Public schools, a quality public education – these things are the great equalizers in the United States.  A quality education used to be a hand up that both parties agreed on.  The Republican abandonment of public education has taken yet another step forward with the nomination of McCain.  It wasn’t enough to give the whack jobs Sarah Palin, let’s trash public education.

Public funds, public resources, public officials’ time – if spent on education – should be spent on improving public schools. How many charter schools in Ohio have lived up to their promise?  A few have, but many have essentially turned in to financial boondoggles which struggle to stay open.  Parochial Schools?  Many of them offer a quality education and if I had children, I wouldn’t hesitate to send my child to one.  But, I don’t want my tax dollars spent in a church. 

The Republican Party is not putting ‘Country First’ with the abandonment of public education and the subsidizing of churches and private enterprise educational experiments.

Saturday Morning – Sick days, Education, Strickland, Foreclosures, Ohio AG Race, Bears, Boehner

Ohio News

• Strickland seeks business-labor compromise on sick days – Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Three Cleveland charter schools join forces – Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Aaron Marshall – Raussen, Spada jobs come with perk – Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Bleak stats for black youth – Columbus Dispatch
• Bexley considers limiting protesters – Columbus Dispatch
• Foreclosure frenzy may ease in Ohio – Columbus Dispatch

• Editorial: Keep Ohio AG race on high road – Columbus Dispatch
• Ohio man charged in bear shooting – Dayton Daily News
• Union leaders fear Packard plant closing – Youngstown Vindicator
• Akron area foreclosures up 59% – Akron Beacon Journal
• Editorial: Talking with Ted – Akron Beacon Journal
• Editorial: No Marc Dann – Akron Beacon Journal
• Boehner pushing for Alaska drilling – Cincinnati Enquirer

Friday Clips – Gov. Ted Strickland, Keno, Education, Marc Dann

Strickland education forums coverage

• Editorial: Setting tone for reform – Wheeling Intelligencer
• Editorial: Answers to school funding needed soon – Newark Advocate
• Governor quizzes Akron – Akron Beacon Journal
• Local residents to attend education forum with Strickland – Urbana Daily Herald

KENO!

• Mansfield pastors voice opposition – Mansfield News Journal
• Op-Ed, Ben Mutti – Ohio citizens bound to lose if state bets on Keno – Mansfield News Journal
• Op-Ed, Joe Blundo – O’ how low can we go to raise more dough? – Columbus Dispatch

Other Ohio News

• Op-Ed, David W. Jones – O’Neill, LaTourette: Follow the $$$ – News Herald
• Op-Ed, Bertram de Souza, – Marc Dann’s selective cronyism – Youngstown Vindicator

More later …

Strickland orders Ohio state colleges and universities to offer in-state tuition to all GI Bill participants

You can read more here.