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State Representative Jim Buchy
State Leaders
Working to Ensure Local Control for our Schools
Recently I joined families in west central Ohio to participate in “We
Will Not Conform,” hosted by Glenn Beck. This program was hosted
at movie theatres across the country where viewers served as audience
participants in the program that focused on the pitfalls of Common
Core. This experience opened my eyes even more to the risks associated
with the Common Core and further solidified the need to stop the
implementation of it in Ohio.
The goal of Common Core came with good intentions. Providing a set of
standards that would result in all students covering classroom material
in a similar order helps transient students remain on the same
educational path as their peers. President Obama hi-jacked this program
and tied it to federal dollars through Race to the Top, thus abandoning
local control that is a staple of education in Ohio. The ultimate
goal of the Obama administration is to nationalize education.
Stopping the Common Core in Ohio starts at the local level where the
grassroots need to work together to draw the support of their elected
school board officials. In west central Ohio the grassroots have
been respectful in their goal and have garnered attention of the local
school boards—but work must continue to protect local children from
nationalized education.
The work of the grassroots groups not only garnered local attention,
statewide officials have made a note of this issue and they have
expressed interest in learning more and keeping high quality education
in Ohio’s schools. The work of the local grassroots people has
elevated this issue to a state level discussion.
The Governor, Speaker of the House William Batchelder and our Senate
President Keith Faber are engaged in the discussion and they are
interested in protecting Ohio’s school children. As a sign of
that commitment these three leaders collaborated with experts in
education to pass new laws effective next school year that will ensure
local people are running Ohio’s school systems.
House Bill 487, the education reform bill that was part of the
Mid-Biennium Review included provisions that help to protect Ohio’s
children from the nationalization of public education. It requires
education standards to be more specific and clearly written so there is
no confusion in what we teach our children. It also makes sure that
students’ personally identifiable information is protected, so that it
will not be used to distinguish or trace the student’s identity.
Western Ohio is a great region with the best teachers, administrators,
and most involved parents you can find. We shouldn’t have to conform to
an education system like Common Core because our school systems are
more effective and efficient than Common Core.
Ohio students deserve the best. That is why a provision was built into
House Bill 487 that reaffirms Ohio’s power in creating its own
curriculum, independent of any other state. Local school boards,
teachers, administrators, and parents know best when it comes to
selecting textbooks and establishing curriculum for their students.
Allowing parents a more active role in these decisions is a
responsibility that our schools should be taking seriously.
School districts in western Ohio are the perfect example of how the
involvement of local administrators, teachers, and parents produce the
best possible education system for a child to learn from. In Ohio
we are committed to stopping the federal government’s takeover of
education. We remain committed to local control in Ohio’s
schools. This is a step in the right direction. There is more to
be done but Ohio’s schools will be under local control in the 2014-2015
school year.
Please give me your opinion on this topic and others in the news this
month by completing an online survey at tinyurl.com/buchyjuly2014
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