Cleveland Plain Dealer...
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s schools bill a worry for Gov. John Kasich
By Karen Farkas
Friday, March 16, 2012 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Gov. John Kasich says Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson seems to be having trouble finding a legislator from the Cleveland area to step up and sponsor his schools plan in Columbus. 

But Jackson said he deliberately has not asked anyone to sponsor the plan yet because he wants legislators to be comfortable with what he is proposing. 

“That’s not what they tell us,” Kasich said Thursday after a luncheon speech in Cleveland. “I’ve been told for five weeks we are going to have co-sponsors. We have to get them soon.” 

Drafts of the proposed legislation cover sharing taxes with charter schools, the sale of old school buildings, teacher pay, contracts and seniority, which would no longer be the deciding factor in layoffs, callbacks and assignment of teachers to a particular school. The legislation would apply only to Cleveland, as the state’s sole school district under mayoral control. 

“I fully understand what the governor has said,” Jackson said Thursday in response to Kasich’s comments about sponsors. “He is in Columbus and he is out there in support of this plan. He has people in his party and not in his party who are questioning why he is supporting this plan. I can fully understand why he is saying, ‘Hey, look, we got to get this moving, and I need sponsors to do my part.’ “ 

The mayor said he has met with local legislators and will go to Columbus on Wednesday to meet with legislative leaders. 

“We’re getting it to a point where someone will do what is necessary to move this forward,” Jackson said. 

Both the legislation and a tax increase, he has said, are needed to stave off possible state receivership and academic emergency by next year. 

Kasich said that Jackson deserves a lot of credit for the plan and needs help but that he doesn’t think there is a “total sense of urgency and emergency” in the community. 

“I don’t think it’s there yet,” the governor said. “I’m convinced they are not desperate enough to get it done.” 

Jackson disagreed. 

“Have you not seen a time when the business community, the philanthropic community and the political community are all on the same page and working in concert together?” he asked. “There has not been one person who has said this is not needed. There is no one -- Democrat, Republican, union, charter, public school -- who has said there is not a need of urgency.” 

The Republican governor said he believes he could summon enough support from Republican legislators for the plan. 

“But I cannot get there without the Democrats,” he said. 

He said the Democratic legislators are hesitant because of politics -- believing their base of support will not back it. He was referring to union members. 

Some lawmakers have said they consider several of Jackson’s proposals about teacher pay and contracts to be too similar to the controversial Senate Bill 5 that passed last spring but was overturned by unions and voters in November. 

Jackson and Cleveland schools chief Eric Gordon have said many Democratic legislators are uncomfortable backing a plan that the Cleveland Teachers Union considers an attack on teachers and that the union has repeatedly complained was created without its input. 

“This is about kids,” Kasich said. “We cannot blow this opportunity.” 

He said he recently asked the congregation in his church to pray for co-sponsors. 

“I said, ‘There are 50 things I could ask you to pray for, but I ask you to pray for the Cleveland plan,’ “ he said. 

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