School funding frustrations…


Two pieces in our local papers this past weekend seemed to magnify a major issue facing our school system…funding.
An apparent lack of fiscal discipline and long term planning are creating great hardship in our schools. Not only are we continuing to battle with a State mandated Budget Recovery Plan designed to remove $5 million of expenditures over a 2 year time period. We are also being held in limbo over our state education funds while a budget is being hashed out in Columbus.
So while our State Government continues to ignore the Supreme Court order to fix School Funding we are faced with 2 options to survive. The painful elimination of personnel and programs coupled with an endless stream of Levy initiatives pushed onto a struggling populace.
With a local economy under extreme duress, a State Government more concerned with political infighting than solving problems and long term School Board members unwilling or unable to think outside of their very small unsuccessful box, the road ahead looks rocky at best.

The Independent
Posted May 26, 2009 @ 09:55 PM
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MASSILLON, OH —
Massillon’s unemployment rate has doubled in one year.
In April 2008, just 5.9 percent of city residents were without a job. In April 2009, 11.8 percent were unemployed, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
The estimates pertain to where the civilian labor force lives, rather than where they work.
The unemployment rate for April is a notch higher than where it was in March (11.6 percent) and still lower than January (12.3 percent).
Stark County’s unemployment rate jumped a half percent between March and April, reaching the highest level in 22 years.
Some 21,700 people, or 11.3 percent, were without work in April, according to DJFS. That’s the most since February 1987.
“It’s a concern,” Mayor Frank Cicchinelli said. “We’ve got people out of work and that doesn’t help.”
Cicchinelli said Massillon and Stark County are a reflection of what is going on throughout Ohio, which posted a 10.2 percent unemployment rate for the month as reported by DJFS on Friday.

Repository Editorial
Posted May 31, 2009 @ 12:49 AM
It’s showdown time in Columbus. The Finance Committee in the Republican-led state Senate dismantled Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed two-year budget Friday, reducing spending by $650 million and sounding the death knell for his “evidence-based” plan for schools.

It was inevitable that the Senate and the Democrat-led House and Democratic governor would clash over money. Having dealt for months with a worsening economy, legislators learned at the 11th hour that the state was facing a deficit not only in 2010-2011 but also in the last weeks of the fiscal year that ends June 30.

And it was inevitable that basic differences in ideology would surface. It’s no surprise that the Senate is likely to restore full funding to charter schools, for example, while Strickland and the House want to cut it.

What’s especially disappointing is that aspects of the budget that need not have hinged on unity of political philosophy, and might have saved money, also will be sacrificed. We’re thinking of Strickland’s plan to abandon the Ohio Graduation Test in favor of the ACT college-entrance exam. The Senate Finance Committee is saying no because it hasn’t had time to study the idea.

That may or may not be the case, but it’s true the administration was slow out of the gate with details about its evidence-based proposals, including the ACT plan, which is supported by the Stark Education Partnership.

This is not the largest issue on the Legislature’s plate, but it’s a shame that political and financial differences will also doom this and other deserving proposals.

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