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Toledo
Blade
Kasich
reveals school funding plan
expanding charter school funding
By Jim Provance
COLUMBUS
— Gov. John Kasich’s
school funding proposal rolled out today targets more aid for poorer
school
districts, expands funding for charter schools and access to vouchers
to attend
private schools, and dangles $300 million in one-time carrots before
schools to
innovatively break the public education mold.
Basic
aid to schools would increase
6 percent in the first year of the two-year budget and 3.2 percent in
the
second, but the Kasich administration warned that guaranteeing that
none of
Ohio’s 613 school districts will get less money from one year to the
next in
the long term is unsustainable.
“We
chose to keep the guarantee in,
because we know we’re really challenging districts for improvement…”
said
Barbara Matteri-Smith, assistant policy director for education. “To
work with
all the challenges we have, fiscal flexibility was also necessary.”
But
while the plan does not cut
basic subsidies to schools, neither does it provide the restorative
funding
sought by Democrats to undo the severe cuts schools suffered in the
current
two-year budget. Mr. Kasich has technically boasted that his
administration
increased state basic aid in 2012 and 2013, but schools still suffered
major
pain from the simultaneous loss of one-time federal stimulus dollars
during the
recession and by the state’s continued weaning of schools off revenue
from a
pair of now defunct taxes.
In
his second budget proposal, Mr.
Kasich offers additional funding for schools to help implement a new
law
prohibiting the promotion of a third-grader who still hasn’t mastered
reading
and targets additional aid to districts with large numbers of special
needs and
disabled students and those learning English as a second language.
It
also targets support toward
programs for gifted students and for students taking college-level
courses
while still in high school.
In
all, the amount of state funds funneled
through the new basic aid for schools would be $6.2 billion in fiscal
year 2014
beginning July 1 and $6.4 billion the following year. Total general
revenue
spending after factoring in extras like the $300 million Straight A
fund would
$7.4 billion and $7.7 billion, respectively.
Befitting
a plan rolled out during
National School Choice Week, Mr. Kasich’s proposal would expand the
number of
students who could apply for state-funded scholarships, or vouchers, to
attend
the public, private, or religious schools of their parents’ choice…
Read
the rest of the article at The Toledo
Blade
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