Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Election 2006: What’s it mean for education?
(Governor-elect Ted Strickland)
From this morning’s media reports, it seems the Democrats have taken the U.S. House and appear likely to also take control of the U.S. Senate. In Ohio, we will have a Democratic governor for the first time since 1991 and the D’s picked up several seats in the statehouse (although they are still well short of a majority).
That’s some serious change. And it has implications for education.
Let’s start on the national level.
No Child Left Behind
Democrats will now be in control when it comes time to reauthorized the controversial No Child Left Behind Law, which many of them have derided in political campaigns despite its bi-partisan birth in 2002. I see edublogger Alexander Russo doesn’t think they’ll be eager for big changes, but you can bet there will be changes that come with reauthorization and even small changes can have a wide ranging impact. There’s sure to be different priorities with Democrats leading the process rather than Republicans.
Ohio’s education priorities
For at least a decade, Ohio has been focused around standards and choice on the education front. The state has created one of the nation’s model testing programs, however it is controversial.
Ted Strickland mentioned education in his victory speech Tuesday, saying he wanted to do more to make early childhood education and college affordable. He is on record calling charter schools in Ohio a “rip off.”
So it would seem here that priorities will be different. As on the federal level, a big question in general is how the two parties work together. The need to do so is a big change, especially in Ohio where Republicans have pushed an education agenda all but independent of input from the other side. Strickland promised Tuesday to work cooperatively and House Speaker Jon Husted echoed that sentiment. That will be an interesting relationship to watch.
The state board of education
The state board in some ways is a smaller player than you’d expect when it comes to setting Ohio’s education priorities. But the board has tremendous impact on the details.
Susan Haverkos’ surprise win in the Dayton area’s third district replaces a politically-connected Bob Taft appointee —Tom Gunlock — with someone from outside politics. In an interview late Tuesday Haverkos described her goal of promoting more parent involvement and expressed some concern about the state’s approach to standards and testing.
Haverkos, who described herself as a conservative who is open-minded about teaching intelligent design, could also be pulled into that hot debate. On the same day she was elected, the chief intelligent design proponent on the board, Deborah Owens Fink, was soundly defeated after a nasty campaign.
Dayton will get a new school board member
Clayton Luckie was elected to the Ohio House in Dixie Allen’s old seat as expected. Look for him to resign quickly from the Dayton school board. The board, then, will be looking to replace the three-term board member in the next 30 days.
And you won’t see Luckie chumming around with Husted as Allen did. While Allen, who has now switched parties and was easily beaten by Judy Dodge for county commission, was a supporter of charter schools and one of the major proponents of vouchers, Luckie is stridently opposed to those initiatives. Instead, he’ll bring a new, informed voice in support of the issues of urban school districts.
While Allen and Husted shared similar views on many issues, Luckie and Husted are polar opposites on most of those issues.
(Image credit: AP)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Schools and Politics
Comments
By dayton teacher
November 8, 2006 2:24 PM | Link to this
Although I consider myself a moderate with conservative leanings, I did vote for Strickland but I wonder if he will be able to accomplish anything within the Statehouse, considering the Republicans are pretty well entrenched. I see the likely scenario of Strickland as a lame duck from the start. Old Prof was right (I can’t believe I just said that) when he said that term limits are a huge failure, especially in the legislature. In order to be an effective lawmaker, one must have experience and contacts, every few years there is a new crop of legislators feeling their way around without much guidance from their more senior legislators, because the more senior legislators aren’t all that senior and more experienced. Leadership is weak within the legislature, which is pretty obvious when you have the likes of John Husted in a leadership position. The experiment of term limits has failed, especially in the legislature; we need to find a better alternative. I hope that Strickland is able to get the school funding settled, again not much hope in this cynical heart for that to happen. Strickland’s best hope is that the Democrats can continue their winning ways into 2008 and get his party into the legislature. I am not sure the Republicans in the State House will be willing to work with him and that’s too bad. The school funding issue needs to be settled as soon as possible.