Blue Ribbon Task Force on Financing Student Success: Seventh Time’s the Charm?
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August is back-to-school season—this time for the 33 big kids on Ohio Governor Taft’s new task force, appointed July 29, 2003.
The assignment?
To go where no task force has gone before, in six previous attempts. As reported in the Columbus Dispatch, the goal is “a plan that will be embraced by taxpayers and educators and will ultimately win approval from the General Assembly.”
Can it be done?
You be the judge, but here’s a rundown of previous attempts to fix Ohio’s funding system, originally court-ordered in the DeRolph finding, July 1, 1994: (excerpted from the Columbus Dispatch)
July 1994: This commission eventually recommends a new methodology for determining per-pupil state aid and a spending increase of up to $4 billion a year. The solution is never implemented.
April 1997: Ohio School Funding Task Force convenes, with the following responses from Ohio lawmakers:
- Create a commission to expedite repair and replacement of aging schools.
- Enact performance standards and require districts to maintain budget reserves and set-asides for books and building maintenance.
- Refuse to ask voters for a penny increase in sales tax to raise more than $1 billion annually for schools.
September 1997: Bicameral legislative committee convenes to develop a remedy without a sales-tax hike. No report issues from this panel.
April 2000: Governor’s Commission for Student Success recommends new curriculum standards and a student assessment system to replace existing proficiency tests. Lawmakers approve the recommendations.
May 2000: Legislative Joint Committee on Education Funding and Accountability loosens financial set-asides established in 1997.
May 2000: Committee to Re-Examine Base Cost of Education reviews the school-aid distribution formula enacted in 1998. The committee recommends basing state aid on what successful schools spend.
August 2003: Here we are again, with a decidedly optimistic committee poised, as one member said, “to do this right, like getting away from this phantom-revenue issue and move away from local property taxes.”
Source: Candisky, Catherine. “School-funding panel optimistic.” Columbus Dispatch, August 4, 2003, sec. C: 1-2.
