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Gov. Ted Strickland Visits Toledo Elementary School – Touts
Seamless System of Education
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
Gov. Ted Strickland included Toledo as part of his
state-wide tour designed to boost various parts of the
education plan he outlined during last week’s State of the
State address. On Monday morning, he stopped by Grove
Patterson Elementary School and praised the strides that
school has made during its 10-year existence.
“This is a great school,” said the governor after he had
been given a tour of several classrooms. “There are a lot of
things happening in this school that I would like to see
happen around the state.”
Grove Patterson is a Toledo Public School that operates
under magnet or charter school principles – students are
chosen by lot, the schools days and hours are extended and
parents are expected to agree to participate in monitoring
their students’ activities.
Strickland was taken around to classrooms in which the
students were studying, as part of their daily routine,
German and Spanish. Even kindergartners at Grove Patterson
are introduced to a foreign language.
“I came to this school because I like what’s happening
here,” said the governor at a news conference after his
tour. “I am concerned about Ohio’s future. If Ohio is going
to have a bright and prosperous future, we have to make sure
children get the right education. I have been trying for two
years to see how we can have that seamless system of
education that starts for a child early in life and
continues for them through to college.”
Strickland had laid out a number of education proposals in
his State of the State address including:
·
expanding the school year from 180 to 200 days,
·
making all-day kindergarten mandatory,
·
reducing the minimum number of property-tax mills that
school districts must levy from 23 to 20 with the state
making up the difference,
·
implementing a two-year tuition freeze for community
colleges and regional campuses,
·
implementing a one year tuition freeze for four-year
colleges, adding new student topics to include global
awareness and life skills,
·
replacing the Ohio Graduation Test with the college ACT
college assessment test,
·
granting permission to districts to ask voters to convert
property tax levies into mills that would increase in dollar
value to the district as property taxes rise.
The last measure would eliminate, the governor stressed
during his visit to Grove Patterson, the problem of “phantom
revenue” that assumes that districts are collecting more in
local taxes than they actually are as property values rise.
“This is a good plan for Ohio in many aspects,” said
Strickland. “There are reforms in the way we organize and
teach and reforms in the way we fund schools.”
The governor’s proposed budget would invest an extra $925
million in K-12 education over the next two fiscal years -
$331.5 million in 2010 and 603.5 in fiscal year 2011.
Since Strickland put forth his proposals for a longer school
year last week, various critics, such as those in the
tourist and amusement parks business, have suggested that a
200-day school year would adversely affect the tourist
business from the standpoint of both visitors and summer
employees.
“I say let’s get serious about education,” said Strickland
when asked about the criticism. The governor took to task
those whom he said were unable to think creatively about
solutions to problems because they were so used to their
routines – whether successful or not. He used a term from
psychology called “functional fixedness” to describe some
people’s inability to “look and seek solutions beyond the
way they have always done things.”
Strickland maintained that he is committed to a longer
school year and that obstacles to such a plan could be
overcome. “I am committed to these changes,” he said.
“We have constructed a path forward that we are confident
will enable us to sustain this investment,” he added. “Over
an eight-year period of time, [we can] continue to put more
and more resources into elementary and secondary schools.” |
