Aired September 20, 2006

It's been four years since the Ohio Supreme Court last ruled the state's public school funding system unconstitutional, saying it relies too heavily on local property taxes. Since that time, the legislature has taken no action to change that, even as inequities in school quality continue to persist. As part of our focus this month on the obstacles Ohio faces to better public education, we get a read on where the issue of public school funding stands as the November election approaches.

Listen to the MP3

See Also: All Education Series reports

Don Plusquellic: I don't know how teachers teach American Government in Ohio knowing we're supposed to have three branches of government, and we have a Supreme Court that ruled and the other two branches just ignored them.

Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic has lost faith in the Ohio State Legislature to do anything on its own to reform the way public schools are funded in Ohio. That's why he, the Ohio Mayor's Association, and several educational associations are writing up a constitutional amendment for the 2007 ballot.

Don Plusquellic: So there's no misunderstanding or misinterpretation as to the right of a child to have the state provide for quality of education... This will be an opportunity to shift off the property tax on the local level to something else and the state is going to fulfill the its responsibility once and for all.

Plusquellic is tight-lipped about just how the amendment would accomplish that - he says he's waiting until his coalition reaches consensus on the specifics before making it public. But past calls for school funding reform have included some kind of major tax restructuring, and that's something that, in today's political climate, most candidates for office are shy to propose. Democratic candidate for governor Ted Strickland, referring back to the DeRolph Supreme Court decisions, says he'll make the school funding issue part of his legacy if he's elected.

Ted Strickland: If I fail to give Ohio a constitutional system of school funding, I will have failed. It is the most pressing problem in our state, because it affects every other problem in our state.

But beyond that, Strickland has offered little in the way of details, and hasn't indicated any willingness to propose tax changes beyond small incremental ones. His republican rival Ken Blackwell has acknowledged that some schools are failing and that money is a problem, but his strong anti-tax stance doesn't change when it comes to education. And other conservatives agree. Joy Padgett chairs the Senate Education Committee. She concedes that the system favors wealthy, mostly suburban school districts. And, she says, those voters aren't going to favor changes that would divert tax dollars away from their schools.

Joy Padgett: Of course they don't want to give up their dollars to sent it somewhere else. Do I think that's wrong on their part? If they're the one's that earning it, maybe not.

David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron's Bliss Institute for Applied Politics, says it's unlikely that Republicans will ever support a state-based system of paying for public schools - whether it's a state property tax or any other tax. He says such a proposal, even if it doesn't go against ideological beliefs, would be too much of a political liability.

David Cohen: It's likely going to cost lot of money and its going to anger people. I think Republicans were worried about a backlash, anger from their own base, that view really any attempt at over hauling the public school funding system as betraying Republican
principles.

Kevin O'Bryan at the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State agrees. He says high quality schools are it vital to the health of the state, but solving the funding issue can't translate into votes like a new ball field or factory can.

Kevin O'Bryan: The issue is how do you balance your political life to do both the school finance projects and the brick and mortar projects where you get a great deal of credit for.

But some believe sooner or later Ohio's political leaders will have to face the funding issue. Tom Mooney, who heads the Ohio Federation of teachers, is hopeful that the two sides may even find common ground - eventually.

Tom Mooney: We live in a global economy. It really matters to the people in a wealthy district weather the kids across the invisible line in the next district get an education or don't get a good education because that determines whether or not we're going to have a prosperous economy in the region and in the state.

Later today Blackwell and Strickland will debate in Cleveland on the topic of education. Yet, it remains to be seen if they will touch on public school funding at all, since the topic of higher education and its raising costs to be more fertile ground for debate. Lisa Ann Pinkerton, 90.3.