Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Gov candidates talk education
Ken Blackwell and Ted Strickland
Democratic candidate for governor Ted Strickland and his Republican opponent, Ken Blackwell, Wednesday debated education in Columbus and the offered starkly contrasting views of how our education system should work.
While both agreed funding was dysfunctional, Blackwell preferred to let money to follow kids to whatever schools they like — charter, public or private. Even beyond his support of charters and vouchers, Blackwell advocated more privatization — even outsourcing food service, busing and other non-classroom aspects of public school districts.
Strickland was sharply critical of Blackwell’s approach, calling charter schools a “rip off” and pointing directly to White Hat charter school operator David Brennan as an example of an education “profiteer” who makes millions from low-scoring schools. Blackwell ripped Strickland for not offering many specifics of what he would do if governor.
We have more in Thursday’s paper, but one thing jumped out at me. With Strickland well ahead in the polls, I’d think charter school and voucher advocates must be shaking in their shoes at the thought of having governor so opposed to the school choice movement. For the past eight years, the school choicers have mostly gotten what they wanted because they were so well connected to the state leadership.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Charters gobbling Columbus
Don’t look now, but here comes Columbus storming up the list of cities with strong charter school movements.
Dayton has long been No. 1 in Ohio, and until recently No. 1 in the country for the percentage of kids attending charters.
But it looks like Columbus could come up fast.
The Dispatch today reports a bigger flood of kids than expected left the district this fall. The story is very familiar to those of us in Dayton.
Columbus schools have been treading water, staying still this year in academic emergency when most other urban districts, Dayton included, moved up on the state’s rating scale. Like Dayton of five or six years ago, Columbus now is closing schools under financial pressure.
This is a developing story to keep an eye on. Columbus could soon join districts like Milwaukee, Detroit and Washington, D.C., among the large urban districts that families are fleeing. That would be curious because while Columbus has its problems it doesn’t have nearly as bad a reputation as the schools in those cities.
Interesting side note: Gene Harris applied for Dayton’s superintendent’s job and was never even interviewed during a 2000 hiring fiasco involving a search firm.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
